Christmas Card

It has been a busy fall this year. Besides the normal holiday stuff, I have been busy working on illustrations for a book with EECI. I don't think I can put those illustrations up online yet, but I hope to in the coming months. In the meantime, I put together this year's Christmas card which will also double as a seasonal promotional mailer. The illustration is inspired by our annual tradition of spending Christmas Eve with my Japanese side of the family. It just isn't Christmas until I am eating inari sushi, some Christmas ham, and taking pictures with Japanese Santa Claus. (He looks suspiciously like an uncle of mine.) The back of the card says, "May the Holidays exceed your wildest expectations!" Hope you all have a wonderful Holiday Season and a Happy New Year!

IF- Lost

All Together Now

I have spent the last couple of weeks putting together a piece for the "All Together Now" Beatles tribute show being held at Gallery Nucleus on Saturday July 7th. Part of the proceeds will be benefiting Doctors Without Borders. It was an interesting challenge for me since I paint almost exclusively in Photoshop these days. I knew that I was going to have to dust off the old art supply bin for this one. I started by creating the concept digitally.

 I thought I would feature all of the animals from Beatles songs. I added in a few other references too.

I decided to use acrylics on board. I wanted to make the image dimensional so I painted each character and cut them out.

All that was left, was putting it all together.

Here are a couple more details:

So, there it is. It was hard to get back into the rhythm of traditional media, but it was a lot of fun. It makes me want to do it more. I can't wait for the show. It is going to feature some amazing artists (including my talented husband, David Au). You can check out his progress here. Hope you all can make it to the show!

llustration Friday- Jump

Didn't have a lot of time this week but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to paint an old favorite for this week's Illustration Friday.

Blown Covers- The Rich and the Poor

Here is an entry that I submitted to the Blown Covers blog last week. Blown Covers is curated by Francoise Mouly, the Art Editor for The New Yorker. The blog features a weekly themed cover contest. Last week was my first time submission on the theme of the gap between the rich and the poor. The image is more of a concept then a finished piece.

Rooftop Concert

I did this piece a while back as a present for my dad. He is the person responsible for setting me on the path to Beatlemania many years ago. I always imagined them playing "Don't Let Me Down" in this image.

Illustration Friday- Capable

My favorite capable character!

Master Copy- Scott Wills

As an exercise, I set out to digitally re-create a Scott Wills background painting. The original piece was traditionally painted by Scott for the Samurai Jack animated series. An awesome stash of Scott Wills' drool-worthy paintings can be found over at CandyCaneLane.

Here is Scott's original painting...

Here is my copy...

It was a really fun challenge. It was a good lesson in balancing texture and quiet spots. Scott is a master of keeping that balance. He shows the perfect amount of restraint that keeps his pieces visually interesting without being distracting or overworked. He uses the busier parts of the composition to lead your eye to the quietest part, the lake. For me, the most difficult part of this challenge was to keep it from looking digital. I struggle with that in my work, so this was really good practice for me.     

New Promo Material

I have been working on a new batch of promotional materials to send out to various children's book publishers. Here is what I ended up with. There will be about 60 packages when I am done.

This one is a 4x6 inch single-sided postcard.

This is a 5x7 inch double-sided postcard...

...and my business card.