Collaboration with Steve in Aya's book

I am in Syracuse, New York, on the road for holiday gatherings with family and friends. This morning I sat at the diningroom table of the motel and did this collaboration with Steve in Aya's book.

We don't have much spare time, so if there is commenting to be done, I may not do it until we get home.

I tried to alter Steve's work as little as possible while creating this collaboration.

I don't have my scanner with my so I took this with a little point'n shoot--it's really darker than this.

You can click on it to see it larger.

We recently read Moby Dick and A Logbook for Grace (Plus all (most of) the Arthur Ransome books).

If you look back at Steve's work, you'll see that I altered very little. I added two small boats and defined the whale a little--if you look at his you will see the whale was already there. I just clarified it a little.

Collaborative pieces in Heidi's book.

This is the collaboration with Aya. I'm afraid I can't hold a candle to Aya's level of talent...but, I had fun trying out a new style!

This is the collaborative piece for Steve. Have fun Steve! Feel free to change any of it! I can't wait to see what you do with it!!

When Love Gives You Turnips

Don't ask me what this art means... I don't rightly know. Other than I hope a really big, perfect turnip can hold the place of some mighty powerful love?

Heidi's Book....finally off to Steve!

Burping Bullfrog Pocket for Andrea

OK, Andrea, I decorated your pocket. I hope others will feed your bullfrog well, as he moves along from artist to artist. I fed him a Christmas card for December. Happy New Year! Burp.
(Note: His eye is a clear plastic stick-on "bubble" eye. It doesn't reproduce in this photo, but it's a cool 3-D feature, courtesy of my Mom. My Mom's got all kinds of nifty doodads in her studio.)

Collab with Ash

Well, I tried to stay in black & white to match Ash's Frankenprom couple... but I just couldn't do it. What can I say, I'm a colorful girl. The Venus fly trap wrist corsage with poison ivy & thorns is all me. Though you can't see it here, I glossed her poison ivy leaves & fingernails with a super shiny varnish :-)

for Aya's pocket

Quick marker sketch with markers gift. I sort of copied the picture on cover of the markers; it was my first drawing with the new markers Christmas morning.

I need to learn to use markers better. They are not a media I am familiar with.

Breakfast Drawings

So, this is one of the other things I do to keep my drawing hand in good shape while i'm not working on someone's moleskine...

Whenever me and Ned are out for breakfast \ lunch (which happened almost every day) I draw. One of the places we go to is especially accommodating and have a big paper mat on the tables and a box filled with crayons for people to draw with. But if we go somewhere else, I always have pen, paper and some paints in my backpack.

All those were made during breakfasts out, in cafes and restaurants while waiting for food, for coffee, for a check and talking to Ned.

Not to beat a dead horse

OMG!!!!

I just got Aya's book from Steve and was just BLOWN AWAY by the incredible quality of everyone's work--I'm afraid to put pen or brush to paper! I know this has been said before, but you all do such AMAZING work! WOW!

PS enjoy your holidays!

Surfing Santa Collaboration (Part I)

2009 Surfing Santa: Merry Christmas One and All... I can't wait to see what Ballookey does with this one.

Steve's pages in Aya's Moleskine

Finally, I finished working in Aya's Moleskine! Getting the colors and layers of paint down on the pages was the easy part. The not-so-easy part was deciding what to do with them next - what to draw? As some of you might know, I'm a big fan of animals, so I went with that - mammals in this case. I wasn't sure if I should have incorporated words - quotes or song lyrics, so I ended up keeping the drawings as they are, maybe so as not to distract too much from the main subject on each page. Ironically, my favorite page ended up being the last one I did, which has no drawing whatsoever and was made for Mary to work on. I guess I consider that one just as complete as any of the pages. Ok then, it's off to dig my butt from out of the massive blanket of snow that has hit us over the weekend and drop this baby off at the post office. The great thing is, we have a snow day today and tomorrow, so my winter break from teaching has started early - woohoo! Anyhow, here's a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you! See ya in 2010!

Steve's Book

I hope I finish this post before my Internet connection craps out! We haven't had Internet for a few days now, but it seems to be up at the moment (thank you, local cable company monopoly!) so hopefully I can post my photos.

I took a couple extra days on this, but I e-mailed Milo and she assured me she wouldn't get to the book right away anyway, so I hope we're good.



Luckily I saved Mike's collaboration page for last. He was nice enough to include leftover scraps of paper that he used on his skeletons and I was trying to think how I might use them. But, Thursday night as I was finishing up the other pieces in the book, I was watching CSI and the Johnny Cash song, 'When the Man Comes Around' was used in the episode. When I heard the line "Some are born and some are dying / It's Alpha and Omega's kingdom come", I knew I had to use the song as inspiration to finish the piece. I'm leaving the paper scraps in the book in case someone else comes up with a way to use them - I think it'd be really cool, I just had to go with The Man in Black when he called. ;)



The Driving Ace of Spades - a hybrid playing card inspired by my favorite card game, Mille Bornes.



Jack the Ripper of Diamonds. I went back and forth considering giving my playing cards the faces of famous people, but I gave up on the idea because I lost confidence in my ability to do a likeness on command. I don't know why I chickened out on it, because I can do it when I want to, but when it's someone else's book and the pressure's on, I shy away. Anyway, even though I didn't intend it, each of the cards ended up reminding me of someone - though not necessarily anyone I would have chosen to use. So it's entirely coincidental that Jack the Ripper here reminds me of Jack White.



The Red Queen of Clubs (reminds me of Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie)



Suicide King of Hearts (did remind me of Dave Navarro, though not so much now)



This is the first half of the collaboration I'm leaving for Milo. I like the colors, though the texture is still pretty shaky. I'm getting better at controlling my washes, but DARN I'm rusty.



I realized I hadn't mentioned anything about the bonus stuff I'm putting in people's pockets. I have lots of printed material around, so by default I'm including an envelope with some of my trading cards and stickers. In addition, as the inspiration takes me, I toss a postcard or other print in the pocket. In Steve's case, I really love his splotch monsters, and I thought robots go with monsters pretty well, so I tossed in a couple of my robots. (not pictured)

MAN, I really do ramble a lot. I tried to keep this post brief and look at me rambling on. TL;DR! ;) Have a Merry Christmas and whatnot everyone!

Death Grip: Planet Earth

I am almost done with Ellen's Moleskine. Only the collaboration piece to complete. I will mail this out to Ballookey on Monday! I received Ander's Moleskine and I must say "awesome work everyone!" WOW! I will work backwards to fill in blank pages. This should assist in giving others enough paper to complete.

Merry Christmas one and all.

personal work

So, I didn't get the book that was supposed to be send out a couple of days ago yet. I guess it'll get here when it gets here.

However, it did leave me more time to work on my own book which is pretty cool.

Those 2 paintings are very inspiered by what I've been working on for "moleskine exchange"
I feel like the need to work on both side of the page and in double spreads rather then single page, made me relate to the whole page in a different way and also, to the whole book in a different way then I did before.

It's really nice to discover new stuff about art, after doing it for so long.

Those looks so much better larger then small - and you can see them at full size, or just about, here and here.

AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

SOOOOO sorry to be sooo late!
My mother-in-law has cancer and is NOT doing well...my dog had surgery and has his good days and his bad days as well...and Christmas has "snuck up" behind me and tapped me on the shoulder. Needless to say I jumped a mile!
I need more time also. Will mail out Moley on Monday if that is o.k.!

Merry Ho-Ho to all of you! May you be blessed with good fortune in the year ahead!

723,724

Watercolor, ballpoint pen, and some white colored pencil for highlights.



Watercolor half-page for Ellen.

And off to the mailbox she goes...

Last One in Ander's Mole: The Handiest Model

On the left is a value study of my husband's face at dinner, done in markers.

On the right is what will probably become our Christmas card this year. Pen, marker and watercolors.

I sketched two pictures lightly in pencil facing each other as close to each other (similar to each other, the "same") as I could, then worked from there on each side.

Click image to view larger.

Collaboration in Ellen's Moleskine

Mary Taitt & Mike Kline Collaboration Piece:

"Bloody Bagus" Uluwatu, Bali

In Ander's Mole: Pipe Dreams (Half a Collaboration)

For Mike to finish!

Drawn from a photo I took at The Renaissance Festival. (Click to enbiggen).

In Flander's Fields, for Ander's Mole

Watercolor, wet into wet. On watercolor paper and pasted in.

Click to enbiggen.

Suicide King for Steve's Book

Just a quick cell phone pic. I was so excited by everyone else's work, I had to share a peep at what I'm doing.

And I'm very very sorry. About that crown. Yeah, not so shiny and metallic looking as I hoped. I kept realizing my mistakes after I made them. I've painted a fair bit with watercolors, but I think this might well be my first one in over 20 years. Well, something had to be first, though why I picked what was supposed to be the BEST piece in the series to get the rust out, I'll never know.

help, nerves!

Hi everyone! Happy holidays! I'm going a bit crazy this month!!!! Can I have a bit more time with Mary's molie? I haven't even been able to crack it yet! dabnabit... anyone else in a jam?

If not.. I'll hussle and hit our deadline... let me know if as a group maybe we all want a bit extra time this month??? ok... thanks for listening. xoxo, Milo

In Ander's Mole: Distance

This is the third of these I've made, each one with a different technique. I don't like that yellow water-resistant paper for watercolors, so I used real watercolor paper for this one and made the "pixel" size smaller. This is not my normal style and I don't know if I'll do any more of these, but I was fascinated with it, once I started, and wanted to experiment. Click image to view larger. See two earlier stages here.

In Ander's Pocket: "Benthic" W and P

I painted "Benthic" first in Watercolors and then scanned and added a gradient. I did nothing else to it. Included in the pocket: the original watercolor on ordinary white paper 8.5 x 11 and a 4 x 6 print of the digital version. (Please handle these with care when inspecting pocket--thanks!) Click to view larger.

2 in Ellen's Moleskine

715

Collaboration with Aya.




Ballpoint pen and watercolor madness.



Trying out colored pencil on the watercolor notebook paper. Don't like how it feels.