Molly's book

Sorry for the tardiness of my post. I was delayed by a couple of days due to work, and as I was about to assemble this post on Friday my poor sweet laptop crapped out on me. So I had to wait until I got to work this morning to scan these in.

I wasn't 100% sure if Claudia intended the following page to be a collaboration, but typical for me, I collaborated on it anyway. (You guys, if you don't want me to draw on something, an electrical fence is not a bad idea. Or post a guard dog.) She mounted four rough cardboard frames on the page and inserted the photo in the bottom right of the feet. Her caption says "Something that has no meaning". I added my own photos to the rest of the frames and captioned them. Then I couldn't leave those frames alone so I let my inner 80's punk/new wave teen out for some air.

This is the collaboration I started for Andrea. I wanted to try something with inked lines that she might work in, but I didn't know when to call it quits so I brought forward a little bit from the other collab so they bookend my pages in the book. And now that I've found this packet of tiny envelopes I've been hoarding for like, a decade, I plan on using more of them in the next book... :)

PS, the good news is I think my laptop will be OK. Bless the Internet, I learned that it's probably a known issue and Apple is repairing them for free even if it's beyond warrantee and Apple Care. hope!

I'm back in Stephanie's book!

First up, yes, the books are a little out of order as of me. I'll sum up a bit at the end.

Page 1 & 2 in Stephanie's: I really wanted to play with hand-lettering more in this round of the Exchange because I used to really like doodling with letters, words, and phrases, but I never thought about making it the central piece of art until recently. So this is very experimental on my part. Is page two a religious flyer delivered to my door one Saturday morning? Yes. I was raised in that cult, so I took a little therapy out on that flyer and thought it went with the first quote I lettered, "You have all the weapons you need, now fight" (from Sucker Punch). I doodled a bunny because there's a cool mecha bunny in that movie, so it sort of linked the two together.

"Sometimes I believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast" from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland.

Don't even get me started on "Keep your head" (on the bunny's ear). Ugh. I know full well that the line from the Jefferson Airplane song is "Feed your head", but I was reading the full lyrics to see if there was more material I wanted to work with. I decided to stick with "Feed your head", which I originally planned, but the lyrics I was reading printed it incorrectly and I transcribed it without thinking. In the end, keeping one's head is good advice too.

Closeups. Originally I did four pieces that were all lines from movies, but I swapped two of them out because I thought it was nice to have some relief from all the lettering.

Completed collaboration with Molly. I didn't see that she posted a photo anywhere else and I forgot to photograph it before filling it in. She started the piece with the red shape descending from the top and the green shape reaching up to receive it from the bottom. I liked the shapes and just filled in with more, which reminded me of a dream I had once of drifting between planets, so there's a little of that too.

I included a little watercolor test sketch in Stephanie's pocket. No photo, but it was a test for the phoenix birds I did in the last book.

Lastly, the books are out of order a bit at this point. I haven't received Aya's or Molly's from Claudia. Molly sent me Ellen's and Stephanie's directly. Since I wanted to send a book on to Andrea as soon as possible, I used the material I had prepared for Molly's book in Stephanie's. Ellen's should have been next (sorry!) but in looking through the two books, the dark pieces with bold colors suited Stephanie's more, so I took the liberty of putting that one ahead. I'll try to keep making pieces however I can and when I get Molly's and Aya's, I'll make those the top priority.

Aya's book headed to Claudia

The remaining full pages in Aya's book. A pencil drawing of Ginger (Aya's pup), some silly blobby doodle creatures in ink and watercolor, and some more folded-up naked ladies (this time it's Aya, from her 365-photo project). I swear, I won't fill anyone else's mole up with nakedness (unless you want!); I just know Aya is ok with it, and figure I should sneak some in now!

Also: hereby promising to ship on time from now on.

awkward self in Aya's book

I swear I will get this in the mail on Tuesday, Claudia! I apologize that it's a week late!

Collab w/ Aya in Aya's book

I don't know if I'll add more to the white space or not... I think I like it as is. Aya's drawing was so lovely, I hated adding anything at all!