I sort of got invited to a friend’s birthday party in Portland this weekend. I still don’t know if I will be going up there or not, but I wanted to have something for the birthday boy just in case. The birthday boy recently moved to Portland within the past year or two, so I came up with this drawing to celebrate that.
I’m thinking about expanding on this drawing and doing a series for different cities and states. I have this design available in my Etsy store as a print or a card.
Recently I was asked by my friend, Emily (via Robert!), to create a small artwork out of a matchbox to be auctioned off at a Matchbox Gala, benefiting Naropa Community Art Studio – International. NCAS-I is an organization created to provide art therapy to those in need, around the world. They are currently getting ready to travel to Cambodia to help survivors of sex-trafficking. This project sounded right up my alley, so I gladly agreed!
Here is my finished matchbox creation:
Oh…holy cow! I mean, it’s pretty great. It’s got a viking ship AND a Champy. I mean, come on, isn’t it the bomb?! I am very happy with the way it turned out! I am also a little frightened to mail it off to Boulder for the gala! You can find out all the steps I took to make this by reading below, complete with pictures!
I was provided a matchbox to use. It came in the mail in a cute little bag with a stamped card:
I immediately had an awesome idea! I knew right away that I wanted to make the matchbox into a viking ship, using the matches as the oars that stick out from the ship’s body through holes in its side. After a little bit of careful deconstruction, cutting, and reconstruction, I had my ship’s body and oars:
The next step was painting the ship and making the sail. But, I had to wait for the glue to dry first. The hardest part of this whole operation, was waiting for the glue to dry. I just wanted to keep going! I used my hair dryer to speed up the drying process, but it still took quite a bit of time. I painted the ship’s body dark brown, and them mixed a lighter yellow/green/brown for the oars.
You can see a sneak peek of the sail above. The sail was a fun little project. I looked through my paper stash and found a light brown, thin paper, similar to the brown paper towels you find in public bathrooms. I cut out the shape of the sail, and used a bit of watercolor to add some darker tones around the edge of the sail. Then, I covered it all in Mod Podge to make it sturdier and give it an aged finish. The sail looked good, but it looked a bit plain to me. I figured it needed a sigil (don’t we all?). I know fewer magical creatures more badass than a unicorn, so unicorn it was! I also knew I had a previous drawing of a unicorn from one of my art calendars I could use. I used Photoshop to grab the outline of the unicorn, printed it out, painted it, and used Mod Podge to add it to the sail. I am very happy with the way the sail came out:
You can see I used a few metal brads in the sail’s corners to make nice holes I could use to tie the sail onto the mast. I used some twine to tie the sail onto the mast and then reinforced it with Mod Podge. I also added some more twine to the mast joins for decoration:
The mast was made out of a kebab skewer that I found in one of our kitchen drawers. (Isn’t it the most beautiful ship you have ever seen with a kebab?)
I feel like the ship would have been a great finished project on its own, but I couldn’t stop there. Why? Because, another thing I was DEAD SET on from the beginning, is including a Champy! (If you are not familiar with Champy, please read about him here. I grew up in Champy’s hood.) In order to have a Champy in the piece, there has to be a body of water. I cut out the shape for the sea from a piece of blue vellum, and also a blue paper printed with a photographic cloud scape. I laminated it using a sheet of self-seal laminating plastic from the office store, and BAM! instant sea! You can see it nicely in the photo above.
To create Champy, I printed out two small images of my swirly drawing of Champy on art paper. The two images mirrored each other. Then, I cut both Champys out, and glued them together, so his image would be on both sides. Now it was time to put it all together:
I wanted Champy to look like he was swimming in the water. So, I used my knife and cut a slot in the sea that he could fit through. You can barely see the slit I cut in the above picture. It is in the sea right above Champy and to the left of the ship. This was a bit nerve-wracking, because it had to be kind of precise. After I cut out the slot, I pushed Champy through and glued him there. I like how his legs and tail dangle beneath the surface:
In order for Champy to dangle like that, I needed to have a base to hold this whole thing up. I didn’t know how I was going to do that, but I knew I would figure it out, so I didn’t worry about it. I wasn’t really thinking about the base when I found a jewelry box underneath my drawing desk. It must have fallen and gotten kicked down there a while ago. I picked up the box, opened it up, turned its lid upside down, turned it’s bottom upside down, put the bottom on top of the lid and I had the perfect base for my project. Totally serendipitous. I glued the base together and painted it dark blue to match the sea. I waited until the very end to glue the sea onto the base.
By now, I was kind of ready to be done with this freaking thing, but there was more I wanted to add, so I had to power on! I had a specific message in mind for this piece, so I wanted to add some words to it, so people would easily understand what I was going for. The theme of the Matchbox Gala is Small Resources = Big Possibilities, and my piece is about possibilities. I am all about wanting everyone to be open to unlimited possibilities in their lives. Anything is possible – you can do anything! The problem is that a lot of people don’t believe it. They don’t believe anything else is possible, other than their shitty situation. Well, I believe something else is possible. So, I decided to add those words to the piece:
I found a couple sheets of textured paper in my stash that matched the color theme of the ship and the sea. I added the words to the orange paper using some rub-on letters. I didn’t have all of the letters I needed of the same font, so I just mixed it up. I think it looks cool! I used some dark blue textured paper to place beneath the orange paper with the words to give it depth. Then I glued the whole thing to the sea using Mod Podge:
The Mod Podge made the orange paper a little transparent in some areas, but I think it looks good.
At this point, I really seriously wanted to be done, like really bad, but I put it all together and I just thought it didn’t look quite done yet. The sea looked too flat. So, I added a few waves to the sea using some colored vellum paper. I cut the shapes out for the waves, then carefully cut slots for them in the sea so they stuck out perpendicular like Champy.
That was it! I was done! I glued the sea to the base, and then sat back and basked in it’s glory. My three day adventure (the glue and the waiting!) constructing this piece had come to an end!
This piece will be auctioned off with about 200 other matchbox masterpieces this Friday at the 2013 Matchbox Gala in Boulder, CO. I hope it gets some bids!
Now to carefully pack it up and get it to Boulder by Friday. Yikes!
The beginning of April happened during my unanticipated trip home to upstate NY. I did this April art calendar quickly and with limited supplies:
You’ll see I just drew the lettering with some swirling ribbons coming out of the them. Then, I just watercolored in a rainbow in the swirly ribbons. After that I had a little fun and added some rainbow splatters to the page. After that dried, I just added some white squares with glue, and outlined in black around them. I have never pre-outlined my squares like this before. I like the way it looks now, but I’m wondering if I will like it as I am journaling in the squares. We’ll see!
I am definitely taking a more “free” approach to my calendar layouts this year. Since I have so much more time to focus on other art projects now, my calendars are more of an afterthought. I think of the layouts more as experimental playtime. They are more spontaneous and quick rather than planned out and executed with perfection in mind.
Here are a couple of close-up pictures:
This year, I feel like March came in like a lamb and out like a lion. This month was seriously, bananas. Here’s my art calendar all completed:
I managed to use a lot of bright colors in my squares this month, which always makes me happy when looking at them as a set. The latter half of this month was interrupted by an unanticipated trip I made back to my hometown of Plattsburgh, NY. It was for a sad reason, but I am very happy that I got to spend that time with my family. I look at the squares before that trip happened, and I see I also made a lot of progress on some of my goals, so that makes me happy too.
Here are some close ups of the squares:
After a couple days of testing and printing, I’ve got new greeting cards!
I’ve made each of my swirly drawings into a 5×7 greeting card. I got some really nice artist-grade cotton fiber card stock to print them on, and I am so pleased with the way the colors turned out. They are so bright and vivid, and the blacks of the swirly animals really pop out in contrast. These are just blank inside, so you can use them for any occasion like birthdays, thank you’s, thinking of you, etc. You could also use them as simple note cards. I also got some really nice smooth white envelopes to include with each.
I have added these all as individual items in my Etsy Shop. Next up for me is making sets of these cards, so you’ll be able to get 5 cards for the price of four. I’m thinking of doing a dinosaur set, a marine animals set, and then an open set where you can pick five cards of whatever you want!
You can see all of the cards in their own section here.
This week I have finished up a series of dinosaur illustrations. In my last post, you saw my brontosaurus drawings, and here you’ll see I’ve finished up the series with a Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, and some type of a Parasaurolophus.
Here’s Mr. Stego:
My favorite dinosaur when I was a kid was the stegosaurus. I always thought his back plates and his spiky tail were so cool. He just looks the neatest. I really like how the background on this one came out. He’s sort of a reggae stego.
What’s a dino collection without a T-Rex? Here he is, with his strong back legs, scary growl and wussy little arms. Don’t mess with him.
Last but not least, a generic parasaurolophus. Apparently there are a few different types of dinosaur species with this weird cranial crest. I added this guy in, because I always felt like he was also an iconic type of dinosaur, but no one ever seems to know what he is called. PARASAUROLOLOSAURAOLOFALOPAPHUS!
Look how cute they look all together! I have these as prints in my Etsy shop for now. If all goes well, I am planning to put a few of these dinosaurs on kids’ shirts. I can definitely see the stego looking really cute on a bright blue shirt in orange ink (or something like that).
Here are links to each of these three prints:
Next up on the project list for me are greeting cards and postcards! I’ll have all of my swirly designs available on cards pretty soon.
After a few weeks of doing a bunch of work on my computer, I was happy to sit down and get to some drawing again. After doing my Champy illustration, I wanted to do a few more types of dinosaurs. I loved dinosaurs when I was a little kid, and I still think they are fun now. One of my favorites right now is the Brontosaurus, or more properly, the Apatosaurus. I just love their long necks they use to chomp prehistoric palm frond-like leaves from the tops of high trees. I like how they hang out in ponds to soak and are gentle giants.
So, I sat down and did a couple swirly drawings.
I did the orange brontosaurus first.
At first, I wasn’t sure I liked how he was coming out. I did his head and face first. I get really nervous when I do the faces of animals, because I feel like that’s where most of their personality comes from. Once I started finishing the rest of him, though, I got to liking him and his personality. I feel like he might not be the smartest bronty on the block, but he’d be a good friend.
I wanted to try again to draw a more “cute” looking brontosaurus, and I came up with this:
I think he turned out cuter, even though he does have a little bit of a mischievous look on his face.
My dinosaur series is expanding, and I’m planning to do some more next – a stegosaurus, t-rex, and parasaurolophus (the one with the thing on it’s head).
Both of these brontosauruses (brontosaurii??) are available as prints.
Find them in my Etsy shop, or use individual links to each listing:
Thank you to everyone who participated in my ‘Just Say No’ postcard giveaway! I just dropped off all of the cards at the post office. You lucky ones should see yours soon.
Some people were asking in the comments how they could get a copy of the whole set. I am thinking about turning these into a poster or a set of note cards, which I would make available for sale at Etsy. Right now, I am leaning toward note cards (or post cards). All of the post cards, except ONE (of course) have landscape orientation, the ‘Someone Else’s Ladder’ one has portrait orientation, so I’m having a hard time thinking about how they would look in a poster if they couldn’t be in a nice even grid. I will keep you posted!
Here it is! AtomicWhale.com – the new online home for my artwork and creative projects. After I left my corporate job about 5 months ago, I have been having a great time exploring my interests. After a period of travel, relaxing, and creating a lot of art, I felt I needed something to focus on. I have always wanted to find a way to see how far I can take my artwork and creative projects, so I thought ‘well, why not try that?’ So, here we go. I have no idea what I am doing. I am just doing one thing at a time, and figuring it out along the way. It’s a great feeling! I have done several things already to get me on my way.
I made business cards.
Nothing makes you feel like a Professional quicker than your very own business card! I quickly designed these and sent them off to get printed. I didn’t think about it too much, I let the whale guide me. Now, I can drop them into fish bowls to win free lunches, tack them to random bulletin boards around town, and when someone asks “Do you have a card?” I can say “OH WHY YES. I do!” and shove it in their face.
I built this website.
Obviously! But, this was a project too. I plan to add more content as I have it. I want this site to be a place where people can learn about me, see my work, and read about my creative adventures via this blog.
I opened an Etsy store.
When I state it like that, it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but I was surprised at the number of steps it took to get this thing going. I decided to start with offering prints of some animal illustrations. After figuring out how to digitize them, get them all printed, get nice photos of each of them, list them on Etsy, figure out what I need to mail them, order shipping supplies, blah blah blah, I had everything I needed to open the shop, and a pile of prints ready to go! You can check out the shop here!
I’m going to have awesome stuff for you.
I am planning to post here very regularly. I do have some goals set on what I want to offer here on the blog:
I’m happy to have you join me, Internet. Let’s see what happens!
