I'm heading home today to get a jump on my little holiday break in Chicago, but before I go I wanted to share an illustration I did for Baltimore Magazine. It's about a real-life school for Santa Wannabes, taught by a guy who is the spitting image of Father Christmas himself!



I also wanted to say I'm feeling a little better about the whole illustration thing. Thanks for all your support with that. I just need to keep working at it and not giving up. (that's sort of the solution for everything, I think...)
Also, for any of you derby fans, right now I'm in a Rollergirl-themed gallery show at the Rogue Buddha Gallery in Minneapolis, MN! (Running until December 30th, in case any of you want to swing by! If you're out there, maybe pick me up some Lutefisk too) :) The Northstar Rollergirls of Minnesota also asked me to do their May Championship bout poster, so that should be pretty sweet! I wasn't able to attend the opening, but here's one of the photos from it with a smiling dude and one of my pieces:



Anyway, I hope you all have an excellent and delicious time with your own family and friends! I know mine will be filled with my family and their great food and and heated political/religious exchanges. :) It's what the holidays are all about.

That Time of the Year

Hello again friends,
First, some news. The Bad:

My file that I was working on for the Popgun Comic Anthology 3 totally crashed and burned. I have nothing to show for the 3 weeks I've been working on it. I was even making a bit of a breakthrough in my own work and style, but there is nothing now. Believe me, I'm angry at myself for not making a backup copy.

Consequently, I won't be able to make it into the publication alongside my awesome friends and many other great artists. The first Popgun won a Harvey this year, and I have no doubts the 3rd will do even better.

I've pretty much lost the desire to draw. I had lost it when I came back from England, feeling like my work had gotten stale and bad in comparison to so many other people, and then used Popgun as an excuse to try and force myself to make something interesting and fun for myself again. Now that it's all been erased, I'm back where I started, feeling like I've wasted so much and not really knowing what to do next.


On a better note:

The wonderfully huggable (and, of course, supremely artistically talented) Nancy Muller was just on Drawn!, see here. Finally. :)
A little while back, my ever-amazing boyfriend Sam Bosma was also on Drawn! here. They spelled his name a little wrong, but they sure can recognize great artists.

Also, since it's been a while, here's another full page and spot in the December issue of AirTran's inflight magazine, GO!:





It's for an article on business philanthropy called "To Give is To Receive". To see what the layout looks like in the magazine, go here and type in "88" or "89" for the "Go to" page number.

Finally, I'd like to say thank you to those of you who post and tell me you like my work. Thank you. It's definitely an encouragement.

IS YOUR SISTERHOOD STRAIGHT-UP?

That is the question asked by a quiz page in the Oct/Nov issue of Girls Life Magazine. Consider wisely.
Are you:
A. REAL & RIGHTEOUS
B. EASIN' ON THE HONESTY
or
C. TUNIN' OUT THE TRUTH??

For a visual accompaniment to these varying degrees of honesty, consider the following:



My illustration! In stores now. :)

Two more notes:

1. Tonight is the final Baltimonster closing party! 9 pm tonight! Free admission! A bunch of bands! Costume party! Cool art! Next door to Windup Space, 14 North Ave., Baltimore, MD 21201! Be there!

2. I will be gone for 2 weeks, starting this saturday! I'm going home for a few days, and then skipping off to london next Wednesday for a vacation with my aunt, uncle, and cousins! My first time out of the country. :) (except Canada, which doesn't really count...) Jolly good!

Have a great weekend, everybody!

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's...

...my illustrations! In a magazine! In AirTran planes! A couple of my illustrations were in the September issue of Air Tran GO! magazine. They were for an article on the changing trends towards more casual clothes in business dress. (Appropriately titled "Changing of the Garb")

My art director Shane Lutjens designed the layout really nicely, and I was fortunate enough to get a copy of the pdf from him. I'll also have another illustration and spot in the December issue. Woo!

Here's the opening layout:



And here's the individual illustration and spot:






A final note:
I've noticed that ALL the illustrations I've posted up on my blog recently use at least one (usually more) of the colors of my blog. I guess I just see the world in shades of blue-green and orange-red. :)

Baltimonster invasion!

So today was the opening of "Pain of Being Dead 2: Baltimonster!" gallery show at the Echo, right next to The Windup at 14 North Ave., Baltimore. I'm in the show, as well as a ton of other people (including a host of talented locals from my link sidebar like Sam Bosma, Andrea Kalfas, Jimmy Giegerich, Daniel Krall, and Brian Ralph) and there's about 150 pieces total! Monstrous!

Unfortunately I wasn't able to make it to the opening today, but the show goes on until the big closing costume party on October 24th which I am planning on attending. To see more about it, visit the Baltimonster myspace and come check it out sometime! What's not to love about Baltimore and monsters?

Sam and I were originally going to make a diptych together called "Lumberjack and Lumberjane in the Forest of 1000 Monsters" (an idea which I still think will be awesome...) but we had to save that for another day when we have more time to work with. Instead, I had to think of something else. Monsters have never been my particular specialty, but boy can I bust out ladies! Voila!



It's called "Catch of the Day" and I'm selling 50 high quality archival prints of it for $40 each. If anyone is interested, shoot me an email!

I've also been working on some magazine stuff, which I'll be posting next, and I'm in the process of figuring out my comic for the upcoming Popgun anthology. I'm thinking it might be a background story for the Gardener from my Millionaire series. We'll see!

Back again!

Okay, okay, I lost track of things again...but look! Here's a little doodle I made especially for you, blog-land!
I've been in the travel state of mind lately after buying plane tickets home for thanksgiving and thinking about my trip to London with my aunt, uncle, and cousins in late October. Outside the US, I've only been to Canada, so this is a big deal for me! Hooray!

Anyway, here's a lil' something:



More very soon, I promise!

Hey wait, remember me?

So, I've certainly been gone a long time, eh? There's really no excuse, but nevertheless I'll explain that I've been graduating/moving to a new apartment/starting a time-consuming concept art internship at Big Huge Games. In any case, I'm trying to get back on track with my true love: Illustration!

So, here's a long overdue photo:
My senior thesis show! Look, there's me, and there's a selection of my work!



Also, I recently completed a full page illustration for Spider Magazine, about a magic trick. (the page is titled "Abracadabra!") Whee!



Also, this past week/weekend I was volunteering at ICON5 in NY with an assortment of other Mica alumni/undergrads that Whitney Sherman (the chair of our department, AND the president of ICON5) recruited, and some lovely people from other art schools.
Some of the work we had to do was less than enjoyable, and we had to stay in coffin-sized YMCA rooms for 2 nights before moving to the hotel, but there were several open-bar events when I had a lot of fun chatting with the talented and excellent illustrators Sam Weber, Jillian Tamaki, and Frank Stockton.
I also bought a great $10 signed Process Recess print (radical!), and received a free American Illustration book (jawesome!). All in all, a good experience. Here's a couple of thumbprint doodles I did in the "Wreck This Journal" book I bought while I was there:



ALSO, I was featured on Lost at E Minor! Sweet! A big Thank You To Ilana!

I'm working on some new stuff, so updates soon!
'Till then! (I'm getting back on track, I swear!)

Walk it out

Last piece for my "fashion" class! This was the last assignment Frank Stockton gave us-- we each got a fortune cookie, and we had to illustrate our fortune.
Can you guess what mine was?

If you guessed, "Spring is here! 2-headed men are out for strolls." you'd be wrong.
My actual fortune was "Smile to others, honesty and friendship bring you fortune."

Get it? The girl's smiling at the man? The man has two heads, named Honesty and Friendship? He's bringing her a flower? Which is like a fortune? eh? eh?

Okay, I know it's kind of a stretch, but if you can give me a more interesting idea, I'm all ears. I just wanted to have fun with my last bit of work for the class (although I'm thinking I should have added some subtle patterning into the suit and dress). Frank was a really good critiquer and it was great to have him there. Thanks Frank! Good advice all around. I'm also very pleased in general with all of my work that has come out of the class as a whole.

Just one more class now-- Thesis. Still so much work to do for it! I always seem to get into these crunch periods. There should be an update early next week, if not before. Tally-ho!

Holy Graft Zeppelin, Batman!

Wow, I got linked by 2 blogs today!

The lovely ladies over at 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast asked if they could feature me in their monthly "Up-and-Coming Illustrator" section, and I was only too happy to agree. Here's the link to my bit! Whee! A BIG thanks to Jules & Eisha! You're the best, ladies. (Jules, you are too kind. I'm saving a creepy topiary face in the future for you.) And thank you to anyone visiting from their blog!

ALSO, another tip of the hat to Elizabeth from Urban Palimpsest, who featured my rollergirl illustrations (and some others!) on her blog today! Awesome. Thank you so much!

I've got a lot of work to do today and I should have a new piece by this evening, but I thought I'd at least post a coupla photos from the Society of Illustrators Reception.
The drive there and back was really draining, so we look really weird and frazzled in most of the photos, but here's one anyway of me & Sam, with my piece popping out around my head:



And here's a photo of all of us MICAns that attended, whether they were in the show, or SHOULD have been in the show, but were dragged there by their significant others (Thanks for putting up with everything, Megan & Sam...) From left to right: Eamonn Donnelly, Megan Russell, Jason Hoffman, Whitney Sherman, Jeremy Enecio, Me, and Sam Bosma.


Interesting note: We ALL wore clothes that had white and blue stripes (except Megan, who had polka dots, but close enough), but none of us planned it. We made the coolest art-gang.

Back to work!

Jukebox Hero

New piece this week! But first, a small pat-on-the-back for myself-- I got into CMYK magazine!
The piece that got in is this one, which also got into the Society of Illustrators student contest this year:


Andrea Kalfas also made it into CMYK! Hooray!
Also, I'll be going to the Society of Illustrators awards ceremony this friday with fellow MICA Society of Illustrators winners Jeremy Enecio (the grand prize winner!) and Eamonn Donnelly (a $1000 winner!). Unfortunately the other MICA SoA winner, Jimmy Giegerich, isn't able to attend, due to a rockin' band performance he's putting on the same evening.

[ALSO in awards/winning news, Sam Bosma got second place in the Project Rooftop Iron Man redesign competition! Second only to the formidable Daniel Krall! Congratulations all around, men.]

Aaanyway, self-congratulations aside, turns out I decided not to do living with bears or $1 buffets for Frank Stockton's assignment, "Something worth shortening your life for", which was actually an article he had done illustrations for in Esquire, which you can see here. I ended up thinking "Rocking too hard for The Man to handle" would be something worth shortening your life for. Hence my Office Rockstar, annoying his pencil-pushing coworkers while catching some sweet air with obligatory double-necked guitar!


It's not really an activity that is immediately life-shortening, but getting fired from your job and put out on the streets could take some years off your life.

Also, a big thanks to everyone who has commented on my blog already, or just stopped by to take a look. Thank you for being interested. It keeps me happy inside!

Next up: the ever-elusive Thesis work (possibly?!), and my interpretation of a fortune-cookie fortune! Team break!

Grab-bag

     First of all, thanks to all of you who took the time to visit my little blog kick-off! It was nice hearing from everyone who commented on my first post, and hopefully I can make some more posts to hold your interest.
     I know I said I was going to put up thesis stuff--but I lied......I'm sorry! I'm actually feeling pretty uninspired with it right now, but I'm working on getting back on track. In the meantime, I have some sketches for your perusal!

     In our senior thesis classes, we each started off with a moleskin sketchbook, which we had to give a one word theme (like, "discovery" or "flower" or "skullcrushing" or anything else we could come up with). Then, every week you had to grab a new sketchbook and put something in it relating to the theme. Here's some examples of themes I drew for (sometimes I added photoshop coloring, just for fun):

"Wings"

(however, according to zeitgeist expert Jeremy Enecio, drawing people with antlers just went out of style, so I'm ashamed to say that I'm terribly unfashionable)

"Anxiety"


"Birds"


"Snack"

Silly. That picture is actually from a fashion show I was in last year--the designer made a bunch of postcards with me on them (eee...), and I figured I might as well put them to use. Plus, I love sweets!

Hey, remember those sexy Hindenburg people? I had always meant to do one more, and this was actually my favorite one, but I never got the time to do it.....maybe this summer. Here's the lineart and my rough color sketch:



Finally, just a random sketch from my sketchbook I decided to color real quick:

Jeremy also tells me that owls are also out of fashion, but I liked owls before they were in fashion. So there!

More updates later. This was our first week with Frank Stockton in my fashion class! Our first assignment is to make an illustration for "something you wouldn't mind shortening your life for" (Doesn't "being an illustrator" fit into that category...?)
It's a toughie, but I'll have some sketches for next week.
Maybe they'll include buffets! Or bears!

One is the Loneliest Number.

     So, this is the first post in this new blog, and it's a little intimidating.
There's probably not even anyone actually looking at this yet, but I'd still like to show you, imaginary audience, some nice things.

     The launch of this blog corresponds with the update of Ciesemier.com to v2.1, so I'll take a moment to point out some new pieces and explain a bit about them:

     Most of my new stuff is from a class I've been taking this semester which covers fashion and lifestyle illustration, taught in thirds by different teachers. The first and only actual MICA teacher is the always enlightening Daniel Krall, who assigned the class to pick a specific time and place, and then do 3 illustrations incorporating modern-day clothes from designers. Literally, my first thought was "the Hindenburg disaster!" so naturally I have a series of very sultry people lounging around with cigarettes while the Hindenburg goes up in flames, one of which is shown below.


     The series isn't strictly accurate, as there weren't actually any ladies (in Alexander McQueen couture, no less!) shimmying down ropes, with nonchalant men smoking and falling in the background. I tried a little different technique than my usual pen-and-photoshop-flat-color, and used pencil lines and more shading. It was a nice departure, but I think I could push it a lot more should I ever try it again in the future. More texture!

     The second guest teacher who I've had the pleasure to be taught by is illustration-god Sam Weber. It was really awesome to be able to see all his original work, because it's just sooo....perfect. I'll never be able to use the same style he uses, but his talent just makes me cry silent tears.
     Sam really dislikes pencil lines used in conjunction with photoshop coloring. He really, really dislikes them. Accordingly, I switched back to good old pen 'n photoshop for an assignment based on the hierarchies of playing cards. The piece shown here is the Queen. If you check out my website, King has a collection of animal heads, and Jack has a shady wine cellar.


     The theme I was going for was "Eccentric, slightly dangerous millionaires with collections". This one was real tough to think of the concepts for, but I'm happy with how things turned out in the end. I feel like there is still a little something to be desired in the Jack, though.
     The other assignment Sam had us do was a theater poster for any Shakespeare play. After initially taking a liking to the imagery in the Tempest, I ended up doing a piece for Macbeth. I've never read the play, but I liked the idea of contrasting the three fates (as lovely ladies) with a bloodthirsty and grizzled Macbeth.


     I'm pretty happy with how the composition and colors work in the poster, and the way Macbeth's face and hand look, but Sam Weber harped on me for the use of pencil lines everywhere else. I think I agree with him, using pen lines for the hair and cloak would probably give a cleaner look. Perhaps if I have time this summer I can re-ink things. For another approach to the poster by a talented person much more knowledgeable of the actual play, check out the acrylic stylings of Sam Bosma. Ana Benaroya's Blog also shows her solutions for a King Lear poster. There was a lot of great work that went up!

     This week was Sam Weber's last week, and it was great having him around, hearing his opinions, and seeing his heartbreakingly-good artwork. Plus, both my lady and gentlemen friends in the class agree that he has the most perfect hair curls of anyone we've ever seen. Sam left us with some advice he gleaned from a video of Todd McFarlane drawing and giving advice: "When in doubt, block it out." (preferably with a log.)
     Next week our guest teacher is the extremely talented Frank Stockton, who I am looking forward to having in class! We don't know what our new assignment is going to be yet, so things should be interesting.

     So, I guess this post ended up being much longer than I expected, and if you stuck with it and read it all, THANK YOU! I owe you a nice crisp high-five! Also, if you have a link to me and I missed putting you on my links list, or if you'd just like to BE on my links list, let me know! I'd be happy to put you up. I haven't had a links list for a looong time, and it's time for me to pay up! There are so many illustrators and students that do great work, it makes me proud to be one too.

     That's all for now, but my next post should have some sneak peeks of my Senior Thesis project! (Mysterious portraits! Done in acrylic??!) Any comments or critiques are greatly appreciated, or thoughts about Ciesemier.com! Is it easy to view? Easy to get around? Does it look fat in those colors? I hope y'all have a lovely evening--I bought some York peppermint patties, so mine is sure to be delicious.