Boston Terrier

Hurray for Boston Terrier! I've been refining my technique for these retro look paintings and I think I'm getting it down now. Today I tried a coat of clear matte finish which comes out much better than the gloss.

George Bush

My newest linocut: George Bush.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Illustration Friday: Feet

I am pretty on the inside.

Furry Lobster Friend

Ok crafty people, here's your chance to create your very own plush version of the new lobster species that was recently discovered. How awesome is this thing?

Skull & Top Hat

I've been painting like crazy this week. My newest piece is inspired by a tattoo design I found in a book. I've been watching Miami Ink on the Learning Channel so I think I'll be doing more tattoo inspired stuff.

Good Coffee

Another coffee painting.

Fine Wines & Liquors

A new painting based on a vintage matchbook ad.

Free coffee today at Starbucks! You can get a free tall until noon. Luckily I have two Starbucks coffee shops in the same parking lot near my house. Hurry up you have less than an hour!

My newest painting just finished today! A Manhattan.

My painting inspired by the movie Night of the Hunter.

New painting: Tony Soprano. The new season started last night, man I wish I had HBO!

Illustration Friday: Tattoo

I just watched The Night of the Hunter which inspired this piece.

RIP Zeppelin

Zeppelin was born at my Grandma's house. My mom adopted him and he lived with her for awhile. When he was about 9 or 10 years old he came to live with me. Yesterday I had to put my loyal cat friend to sleep because of renal failure, he was 16 1/2 years old. I miss him terribly.

Somtimes I just feel like painting something cute. Like this purple deer for example.

Martinis

Another new painting today! It's been gloomy outside so I decided to hang out in my studio and paint. Now I am going to watch The Oscars and eat Orange Creamsicles.

New Workbench

I've wanted a workbench that I could stand at for a while now. It was killing my back stooping over my table to work on my block prints. The problem was I couldn't afford anything, until I got the bright idea to use cinder blocks under the legs of my old table! For a mere $7.00 I finally have my workbench. Why didn't I think of this sooner?

The Hottest Spot in Town

I finally printed my latest linocut. That devil is quite scary.

Skull

I really liked the techniques I used yesterday so I did the same kind of thing today. I just love these paintings.

Coffee

I decided to paint today and created this cool coffee piece. I was going for a weathered folk art type look. I used some crackle medium and then antiqued It. I'm really happy with how it turned out!

The Hottest Spot In Town

I didn't get anything printed today, but I finished carving my newest block! I have lots of printing to catch up on tomorrow.

Lion Lino Part II

Lions! I printed a couple of blue ones yesterday and some red ones today. The red ink went down a little thick, but I'm still pretty happy with the prints. I plan on doing two more color variations tomorrow.

Lion Lino

Here's my newest linocut in progress. It's going to be a lion. I plan on printing it using different colors and some nice paper I picked up yesterday.

Beach Goodies

Since I've moved to Capitola I have a weird compulsion to gather interesting objects during my morning beach walks. Today I found a broken sand dollar, a crab shell thingy, some kind of vertebra, a neat clam shell and a group of three shells fused together. I will add them to my collection.

Meet Your Maker Part III

Meet Your Maker has been printed! My friend said it creeps him out.

Limited Editions

So just what does limited edition mean? It means when I finish creating my prints I destroy the carved block. No other prints will ever be made using that same exact design again!

Meet Your Maker Part II

I didn't finish the Meet Your Maker linocut yet. I did get more carved today, but I took a break to watch a movie and bake some chocolate chip cookies.

Illustration Friday

Illustration Friday topic: song.

Meet Your Maker

Here's my newest linocut, it's called Meet Your Maker. I should have it carved and printed by Monday. It may be hard to envision right now in the beginning stages, but it involves a naked woman's torso devouring someone!

Stop Motion Animation

I just finished watching Corpse Bride. I loved the highly stylized characters and the gothic look of the sets. I've always loved stop motion animation. The United Airlines commercial, Dragon, really inspired me. The use of cut paper figures is amazing!

Painter's Corner

Creating block prints and working with digital artwork takes a lot of precision. It can get frustrating so I decided to set up a little corner of my studio to work on some abstract paintings. There's nothing quite like flinging some paint around and letting it tell me where to put the next stroke of color. I painted this four paneled piece today.

Here's my new office and studio space! This is much better than a walk in closet. Things are still pretty chaotic and we've encountered a few problems already. The garbage disposal doesn't work and the phone jack in my office doesn't work. I need that jack for DSL! I have a really long cable running down the hall and into the kitchen right now as a work-around. Back to unpacking!

We got most of our stuff moved in on Wednesday. Zeppelin really enjoys his new view from the balcony!

The big moving day is tomorrow! Zeppelin the cat decided he had enough of all the chaos and has taken to hiding in empty cupboards.

We've been dumpster diving for packing boxes every few days. It's been kinda fun. Besides boxes I've found cookbooks, a set of encyclopedias and some nice ceramic tiles. This morning we went out to find boxes so we can start packing up the kitchen.

I packed most of my office today. Yes, my "office" is very small. That's because it's a closet. At the new place I actually get a room! I can finally set up a studio and my poor boyfriend can eat at the dining room table. Yes!

The packing is coming along, but I'm worried about my paintings. I can't find boxes big enough for them and I really don't want to put them in the back of a moving truck unprotected. Today I will start packing up my art supplies.

We had to take these two kitties to the Humane Society today so they could be adopted. We have a terrible feral cat problem at the apartment complex we're currently living at so we thought we could at least help these two little guys. We had them spayed/neutered and they received all of their shots. Since moving day is only six days away it was time for them to go find their new families. I knew we were just fostering them when we first took them in, but I'm still so sad to see them go!

This is an area called Capitola Village which has lots of restaurants, art galleries and shopping. I just love the colors of the little beach houses here.

On June 1st I'll be moving to Capitola! Here's a picture of Capitola Beach taken from the wharf. I look forward to doing some fishing here.

Illustration Friday Topic: Aquatic

Illustration Friday Topic: Daring

Illustration Friday Topic: Alone.

Photo Friday Challenge: Faces.

Illustration Friday Topic: Fragile.
It's a major award!

Illustration Friday Topic: Ancient.

Photo Friday Challenge: Obsession.

An interesting message inside the porta potty at Mavericks.

Photo Friday Challenge: Ghostly.

This is an old football arcade game.

Here's a few more shots from my beach adventure yesterday. This is the Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse which houses the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum.