feliz dia de los muertos!

Hope y'all had a fabulous Halloween! I took a couples hours off from freelance to paint a happy skull. This is my latest encaustic painting, an experiment with accretion: basically lots of layers of drybrushing.

I've been taking an online encaustic course from the lovely and talented Judy Wise, which has been fabulous. We're in the middle of four weeks of daily lessons, which makes me super excited to go home from work and paint every night. Unfortunately the freelance has to come first, so haven't done much for the class. Hopefully I will have some more time to paint soon.

Here's another I did last week for the class. The assignment was color mixing and carbon transfer. I only had white saral paper, which didn't show up well, so I tried a bunch of other things... blobby lines as a result, but it's fun. I quite enjoy the idea of Gary the Chicken Whisperer.

Feliz dia de los muertos and a happy november to you all!

Booster's Costume Creator

I better post this before it's actually Halloween! I did the artwork for this fun little ecard deal at Imagine Learning. Pick from two of the Imagine Learning characters, then click to change their costume and background. Then send it to a friend! Or lots of friends! Or casual acquaintances!

I always love doing these flipbook sorts of things. It's a fun challenge to get all the pieces to work together properly, plus, gotta love making costumes. We decided to make it a little "educational" - each character got three historical figure costumes plus one halloween-style costume, plus one Imagine Learning character costume. So much fun to make.

The rest of the Marketing team did a great job with the opening sequence, the site design, music, programming, writing, they are a great bunch to work with. Thanks guys!

halloween sneak peak

Six years in a row I had a super out-of-control Halloween Party. Last year I was too swamped with work and still recovering from gallbladder surgery that I decided to take a year off. This year, the schedule is still full, I recently moved and have no time to even think about excavating all the Halloween decor from the depths of unpacked boxes... so another year off. I will be in some serious Halloween withdrawal by next year. So plan for quite the extravaganza in 2012. Unless the world ends first. Then we'll all be enjoying the Zombie Apocalypse together.

But I got a pretty good Halloween fix this year. I got to work on a super fun Halloween-themed project at Imagine Learning. Here's a little sneak peek. Stay tuned, the rest should be out next week.



ps: for pics of Halloween parties past, check out The Two-Headed Goose blog.

TIKI KABOOOOM!

Tiki Kaboom! It's live! My first iPhone game is now available on iTunes. Some genius friends of mine designed and programmed this super addictive game and asked me to help them with the artwork. So I got to draw some tikis. Never a hardship.

So if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, click HERE for the free version.

Or click HERE for the full version with more levels and features.

Still not sure? Here's the Facebook page to check out.

Have fun!

summer vacation over

Hello friends out there in the internets! How have you been? I've been swell, thanks for asking.

So what have I been up to lately? Oh lots. Moved, tried to take a break from freelance while I got settled into the new place. That didn't last very long, and I am once again up to the eyeballs in work. Always a good thing, especially since now I think about things like: I need a new fence! Got to save money for a new garage door opener!

Above is an illustration I did for The Friend Magazine. Always happy when they call with an assignment. They are great to work with. Mostly what I remember about this illustration though, was hurrying to get it finished and sent off before heading out to see U2. Awesome concert!

Currently working on lots of different things, two of which are new types of projects for me. One is an interactive book for ipad, iphone, etc. I'll post a link when it is released. Another is an actual game for the iphone. Also will plug the heck out of it when it goes live.

Speaking of promoting stuff... new book to be released Sept 29:

new house!

Oh yeah, I have a blog. So I've been a little busy lately. I bought a house! My first ever house. It's fabulous. It's a simple little 1961 brick rambler, with a walk-out basement. The basement is essentially a crafty arty wonderland. I have a great office space with an adjacent patio, a workshop, and a room for encaustic painting. Oh the projects I can make! Will update as spaces become functional.

sweet pea benefit boutique

Want to amaze and impress your friends by owning an actual encaustic painting? Or how about all five Sugarplum Ballerina books when the fifth book isn't even out yet? You can do these things and more at the Sweet Pea Benefit Boutique!

The Sweet Pea Benefit Boutique is a charity auction whose funds will go to help pay for fertility treatments for a couple of folks, one being my pal Devanie. Go check out all the cool things for auction! Bid lots! Devanie needs a baby. :)

hmong rhymes for good times

Things that rhyme in Hmong:

Hawk. Net. Frog.

Fish. Car. House.

dueling banjo pigs: the exhibit

Come check out Dueling Banjo Pigs: The Exhibit. Opening reception is this Friday! Between Guy and Stacy they'll have about 40 banjo pig paintings there. I'll have 7, plus lots more from folks from all over. Hope to see you there!

Dueling Banjo Pigs: The Blog

happy st patrick's day!

hiring artists at imagine learning

Howdy out there! We are hiring for two art positions at Imagine Learning (among other things) - a full-time senior illustrator and a part-time junior illustrator. You can check out the job listings and descriptions here.

Feel free to pass the word along - thanks!

Oh, and the my little pony version of the taj mahal has nothing to do with the job hunt... just part of my latest project at Imagine Learning. :)

imagine learning office + art!

 
Ever wonder what the Imagine Learning offices look like? We moved to a new building about a year ago and it's pretty fancy. We just hung up 6 foot prints in the halls, which was interesting since the original artwork was originally done at 600x800 pixels! The picture above is of encaustic paintings of the level one characters I did for the lobby. That was fun. In the article you'll see other art done by Jim and Nate for the lobby. Nate's "bronze" booster is pretty awesome and Jim's portraits of the Level Two characters turned out great.

All this and more at the Imagine Learning Blog:

The best-decorated classrooms and a tour of Imagine Learning