A Kenosha native was just crowned Miss America 2012!         

 

       Congrats to Laura Kaeppler!

Watercolor Portrait: Caroline

Just found this among my older paintings; it's watercolor on board.
I can't remember what her name is (I took the liberty to rename her) but I really liked the ship tattoo.

Favorite Job of 2011

This was my hands-down favorite freelance job of the year.

Task:  10-15 sketches of various types of people fighting with crutches.

They were used in a storyboard for a commercial and, yes, I took the opportunity to put a cartoon version of myself in a crutch-battle with a man in a tank top. I also cartoonified Anita, a girl I tutor; she's fighting a pirate.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Christmas Work

A caricature of Snap-On CEO Nick Pinchuk, and a 40's style illustration for a family Christmas card...

A sketch of me by Joey Rose, the person who inspired me to start drawing, on what would have been his 29th birthday.

Miss you tons.

If you know who this is a cartoon of, you are probably unemployed.

 

Televised murder trials and nice weather make unemployment very tolerable. 

Bye Bye Oprah

Pumpkin-Carving!

(I'm going to pretend I haven't slacked on this blog for the last 6 months and rewind us back to last fall so I can show you some pictures.)

Happy October 2010! Can you believe it's October already? Can you believe the stores are already playing Christmas music?! (Etcetra, etcetra.)

Ok, now that that's established... here's my first attempt at pumpkin carving:

My subject, Snap-On Inc. CEO Nicholas Pinchuk, is shown here holding my carving (his head) on a platter.

How To Fix A Broken Dell Laptop Screen

Haven't updated this thing in a while. I didn't die but the backlight on my 2005 Inspiron did.

One terrible, horrible day the screen went completely black. The guy at Computer Adventure said it wasn't worth the money to fix it. I told him I don't have money to fix it anyway so HAAA.

$25 later, my laptop is now a working desktop.

Does your laptop have a giant heated coaster that keeps your coffee warm? I don't thiiiink sooooo...

Song of the Day

If there's ever a song stuck in my head, I like to force other people to have it stuck in their heads too. Usually it's a terrible song (i.e. "Baby" by Justin Bieber) but today it's actually a good one...

"Later Alligator" by Audrey Ryan.

This would make a great break-up song. Anyway, if you aren't singing this chorus ALL day then you're a robot.

{search terms: see you later alligator song, love games, oxygen, song, audrey ryan, episode 5}

NEW! The Coffee Series

Last month, I started a new series of paintings that successfully mixes two of my loves... (no, not sailors and mashed potatoes)...

Portrait-painting and coffee.

Painting with coffee is excellent because :

1) when dry, the canvas smells delicious

2) Folgers is MUCH cheaper than oil paint

I brought my first three portraits (including 'Nesbit', right) to the MESH Haiti benefit and enjoyed letting everyone smell them.

ExposeKenosha's Lester Pitz reviewed them in his column 'Lester Says'!

Check it out here.

My Sister on America's Next Top Model Tonight!

My little sister Liz is an excellent photographer who recently moved back to Wisconsin from New York. While she was living there, she was lucky enough to work on the set of an America's Next Top Model photoshoot.

The episode is airing on the CW Network tonight, 3/31 -- it has a vampire theme.

Watch for a little redhead running around in a trashbag! That's my sister! Woo!

This Weekend: Haiti Benefit and Dorian Grey

Busy weekend coming up! I'll have a bunch of new paintings for sale at two shows-- come out if you can:

MESH Kenosha Haiti Benefit
Saturday, March 6, 2010 -- 6-11pm
Rhode Center For The Arts
Live music, art, raffles
More info: www.myspace.com/MESHkenosha
**Proceeds benefit the victims of the earthquake in Haiti

and

Dorian Grey Art Show
Sunday, March 7, 2010 -- Noon-4 (?)
Rhode Center For The Arts

Time Lapse Mural

Here's a little video from 2006, showing me and one of my old roommates painting a mural of one of my favorite pin-up paintings by Enoch Bolles.

And the cat isn't bleeding-- she just tried eating some of the red paint:

Gift Commissions

Lots of gift commissions this winter! Keep them coming : )

Here are the two most recent ones:
- Family Portrait (in Prismacolor pencil)
- Caricature (for corporate going-away party)

Creepy Family Photo!

Very busy with art lately (I keep meaning to upload it) but I felt an urgent need to share this: Found this tonight in a box of family photos and immediately scanned and submitted it to one of my favorite sites: AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com. (1/23/10 UPDATE! AFP picked it for their Saturday Night Special! Success!)

As I'm told, my mom met this family while camping in Naples back in the early 80s. Take a close look at the camper in the yellow shirt... or, more specifically, green shorts.

I would make a joke about pitching tents but I'm too worried about the little girl in the hat (who is probably 35 now and still emotionally scarred.)

Anyway, that's all. You're welcome.

Merry Christmas Y'all

Haven't touched a paintbrush in months, so it all came out on xmas sugar cookie decorating night.
<----



Frosted 3 cookies in all... see if you can guess which ones are mine. Hehe.


It's too late to say merry christmas, so happy 2010!

Lady Gaga

Could NOT get 'Poker Face' out of my head yesterday so I broke out the Prismacolors and drew this at work.

It was my only defense against blurting out "muh-muh-muh maaa" on the air.


BY the way, this weekend:
10/31 - 'Monster' show reception @ ArtWorks
11/1 - '2009 Winter Juried' opening @ Anderson Arts Center

Mother Goosed

Southport Press is publishing a book of artist interpretations of Mother Goose rhymes. It comes out in mid-November and only 1,000 copies will be printed. AND... Florence Parry-Heide is writing the forward.

So, Mr. Chet Griffith of Artworks and black moustache fame asked me to paint a little sumpin' sumpin' so I picked a rhyme and did a quick oil illustration.

It goes like this:

GIRL WITH A CURL
There was a little girl who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead;
When she was good, she was very, very good,
And when she was bad she was horrid.

Mother Goose didn't know any girls who had knots from not brushing, so this was the rhyme that most fit me.

Bloody Butcher and Boobie Tassels

These things are apparently what come out of me after I paint an adorable children's book cover and an adorable baby portrait right in a row. It's kinda like needing to listen to one or two Notorious B.I.G. songs after a marathon of Jack Johnson.

ANYWAY,"Slaughterman" and "The Bird" were both finished in a frenzy last week... they're now for sale at Artworks for the "Monster" show (Sept. 27- Oct. 31) but you can see them here .

Florence Parry Heide Day

Florence Parry Heide is a Kenosha author who has written about 97 million children's books.

On Sept. 26th, the mayor declared it 'Florence Parry Heide Day' -- and a week prior, a bunch of local artists painted her book covers on the windows at Heim's Toy Store.

I painted her newest one, Princess Hyacinth: The Surprising Tale of A Girl Who Floated with illustration by Lane Smith.

And...this picture didn't make it into the newspaper, but Sean Krajacic took this badass picture of my hand ---->

"Paxten"

Just finished this oil portrait commission.

This little guy's name is Paxten and his aunt is giving him this painting for his 1st birthday.

(We added his favorite stuffed monkey and matched the background to his nursery.)

Happy 1st Paxten! Better keep this hanging in your room until you're 45!

Mad Men, Oprah... Holy Crap

I don't know how this happened but I'm going to the Oprah show on Thursday.

And the Mad Men cast will be there.

AND, on TOP of that-- the show has a '60s theme and the entire audience has to dress for the era, meaning I get to dress up in one of my vintage dresses.

Needless to say, this is the best thing ever and I am one lucky bastard.

Couldn't contain my excitement this week, so I painted up a picture of my Mad Men dreamboat, Donald Draper.
<---------

**Update!** The episode will air Monday, Sept. 21. I'm the super excited girl in 2nd row/center.

Caricatures: 50th Wedding Anniversary

This week I got a last-minute caricature job: a 50th wedding anniversary gift.

Because I live in Wisconsin, it's probably my fourth Packers-themed caricature this year. Who knows how many Packer caricatures I've done in my lifetime... maybe 2.8 billion-ish. I lost count.

Anyway, I still know nothing about football but I can whip out a cartoon Lambeau Field like nobody's business.


Happy Anniversary Pat and Jan!

Hate Mail

I don't know if this happens to all news reporters.

Every once in a while I get a condescending listener email; some are downright angry.

These emails ALWAYS come from men and they ALL try to correct my grammar.

Here's one I got this week:

Isn't that nice?

I actually don't mind these emails. I like to think that the aggression these douchebag guys take out on me via email is energy that isn't being used to beat their wives. That makes me feel good.

I also love writing polite replies that point out their grammatical errors, because their emails are always full of them.

Here's my reply:

Hehe.

First Portrait Commission...and Mad Men!

I've been working on my first portrait commission of a little boy. The painting is gift so I won't load any pictures of it until his birthday has passed. Although I doubt any toddlers look at my blog, considering they can't read or comprehend much. He might be one of those genius babies who can read those flash cards that they sell on that infomercial though, so I'll play it safe.

ALSO: Season 3 of Mad Men starts Sunday! I don't watch much TV but I'm a nerd for this show. To illustrate how nerdy, I Mad-Men'd myself at MadMenYourself.com. That's me in the purple. It's the closest I'll ever get to my man Donald Draper*.

* I spoke too soon...check this out.

BEST NEWS DAY EVER!

Thank you Jesus!!!

Just got to read this headline on the 'K-Town Report' aka the AM1050 WLIP evening news:

"A Racine home suffered serious structural damage this morning after it was hit by an Oscar Mayer Wienermobile"


And it happened right in RACINE!

PLEEEASE GOD, LET THIS REACH JOHN STEWART.

I just hope the house is okay; it's just lucky it didn't crash into the back door. If ya know what I mean.

Life: The Movie

I forgot to mention this in yesterday's post.

It's almost stupidly ironic, BUT, on the train ride home from trying to get ON a reality show I managed to finish a fantastic book called "Life: The Movie - How Entertainment Conquered Reality" by Neal Gabler.

If Neal Gabler knew his book was read IN line at a reality show audition, he'd be right to slap me. And I'd deserve it. Andy Warhol would think it was genius though.

ANYWAY, got it for one penny on Amazon.com.

Here's an excerpt:

"...All one has to do is watch people filing silently out of a movie theater, their eyes vacant, their faces slack, to see how one must reemerge after being submerged in a film.

Art was said to provide ekstasis, which in Greek means 'letting us stand outside ourselves,' presumably to lend us perspective. But everyone knows from personal experience that entertainment usually provides just the opposite: inter tenere (Latin for "entertainment"), pulling us into ourselves to deny us perspective."

Suck It, Sarica Jessica Parker

Today I went to a casting call for Sarah Jessica Parker's new BRAVO reality show.

It's called "American Artist" and it's a competition for struggling artists; grand prize is $100,000. Today they were casting in Chicago.

SO, today I...

- woke up at the buttcrack of dawn
- spent 3 hours on trains to/from Chicago
- spent $14 on train tickets
- filled out a 23-page questionaire
- waited for 4 hours in a line that stretched 3 city blocks
- missed my train back to Kenosha
- had to call into work



...BUT...

It was all worth it because some lady took 4.5 seconds to flip through my portfolio (a.k.a one decade of my life's work), looked at me like she wanted to punch me in the face, and said 'Mmmkay thaaaanks.'

Scott's Band On Kramp & Adler

Listen to 'Kramp & Adler' on 102.1FM tomorrow around 9am; Scott's band Daydreams will be in the studio.

They also play Summerfest this Saturday (July 4) -- Briggs & Stratton stage at 2pm.

Plug plug! Ding ding!