UPDATE: Rosas in Vector

A long time ago (2006?) I made a LOT of desktop wallpapers themed after the characters of the anime Maria Sama ga Miteru. Many of those wallpapers are probably floating around the internet somewhere - I know most of them survive in my Photobucket. At the beginning of my Marimite art career, I was doing most of my work in Photoshop. One trio of wallpapers I created always stuck in my mind as something I should update by re-creating them in Illustrator. The idea for them was simple and elegant and it was a shame I'd only done them in 3:4 aspect ratio for small screens.

So at one point this summer I had some free time on my hands and so for fun I re-built those wallpapers! Here they are, in one size only (1920 x 1200) done in Adobe Illustrator, September 15, 2012:

Painting Haiku

Here's my 11-hour (into 2 minutes!) time lapse video of me painting "Haiku".



The song is "Solipsist" by Kaki King off her album Legs to Make Us Longer. Check out her music - she's fantastic.

(Disclaimer: song used without any kind of permission. I made absolutely no profit from this video, nor from the painting since it was a gift.)

Haiku

"Haiku" • oil on illustration board
15"x11" • approx. 11 hours

I'm always keeping my eyes open for striking photographs taken by friends and family that could be a great basis for a painting. Years ago my friend Rachel took this awesome photo of her cat, Haiku (a very awesome and charismatic cat), and I knew when I saw it that I just had to paint it. But I wanted to do it in secret for an occasion, like her birthday or Christmas.

I finally had the time and energy to do the Haiku painting this year. Unfortunately, Haiku passed away about a week before Christmas. That kind of lended extra sentimentality to creating the painting and giving it to my friend.

Below are the progress photos (click to see them larger) - they're more yellow than they should be, ah well. I also took a time-lapse video of myself painting it using Gawker that I will upload soon.

Painter's Thinner acquired!

I was honored this week to have my painting, "Painter's Thinner", chosen for purchase by the Palmer Museum of History and Art at their annual art acquisition! I am such a shy hermit I have no idea how others see my art. I paint what I do because *I* like it, and because it represents the place where I live and the memories of my colorful childhood. So the fact that a panel of fellow Valley people picked my painting means a great deal. Thank you! :)

Laser cutter

At work I have access to a 12"x24" laser cutter. I have been tasked with coming up with new business cards for the company that could possibly utilize the laser - which means I finally get to learn to use the darn thing. :) It will plot out of Adobe Illustrator, if only the ancient PC that runs the thing (parallel or SCSI only, grr) doesn't have Illustrator. Which means I have to carefully organize my art in Illustrator for exporting to AutoCAD, which I have absolutely no training in.

Anyway, on my last go-round with the cards I tossed in one of my vector illustrations (as seen here) to get an idea of what I might be able to do with my own art:



I still have a lot to learn. On this sample the outline was etched out but the shapes weren't etched out on the first pass for some reason. Then when I ran it again with the shapes to be etched out, everything was misaligned. *shrugs* You'll have that.