Wow! what a week!
Talk about having a billion things going at once. It's times like these where I really need to set up a calender/scheduler thingy.... it's pretty sad i don't even remember what they're called. You know, those things where you write down what you have to do.... oh a PLANNER! ahahahaha! Yes, Yes! I need one of those!
(that whole paragraph is proof I do not premeditate my blog posts... maybe I should start)
Anyway, yes last week was crazy with a capitol C! It was filled with tech rehearsals for Grease (just in case you didn't know, I'm cast as Patty Simcox :) with our local community theater), I was trying to get all my costuming accesories together for opening performances all weekend, I had a job interview on thursday that I GOT!, I then had to get a ton of paperwork together for the hire packets, I had a freelance job for 300 tickets plus flyers and posters that I designed and had to get printed - which I did myself as well as cut, perforate, and bundle everything, I went into the theater to help paint for a bit... the list just went on and on!
But I can say that everything was done on time and the week flew by! With it came two huge accomplishments as far as my little business goes.
1. I rocked the heck out of those tickets and flyers for a new client that will hopefully be repeat business. *fingers crossed*
2. I landed a job that involves me teaching ART! I will still have time to do my freelance on the side and I'll be getting paid to develop the arts (music, drawing, and maybe drama) in elementary schools.
Another cool thing about this position is that, from what I understand, the Art section they've been doing the last 2 years is relatively new. The program for many many years has been a lot of music and drama. I'm the only "artist" of the group. I'm excited to be able to help/work with the other staff and figure out new ways of teaching the basic concepts.
This week has been pretty busy too, but not nearly as hectic as last. I'm hoping to have a couple things up to show you guys soon. The last couple projects haven't really been things that I can put on here because of personal/contact info and to blur it out would be the entire thing.
So hang in there with me :) I promise to have some stuff soon!
Hope you all have a fabulous week!
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Illustration update
Hello to all this fine hot July day!
Phew! this year seems like it's going by like lightening! I can't believe it's already at the halfway point. It's sad really that there hasn't been that many things this year that have made me stop and appreciate it. I'm sorta just going a light speed and paying it no mind.
Anyway, I wanted to give you guys a little heads up on some projects I'm working on. I've been given the opportunity to pick up a couple freelance projects this last week that are exciting and I have an interview for the Arts Technician job within the school district this Thursday! Wish me luck! :) It would give me a great opportunity to make a bit more $ hourly than my last job and still give me more day time to do freelance. Now that I have my website up and running, I need to focus on getting content up every chance I get.
That's it for now :) I'm off to do a bit of designing.
Hope everyone in the US had a fabulous 4th of July holiday!
Tooodles!
Phew! this year seems like it's going by like lightening! I can't believe it's already at the halfway point. It's sad really that there hasn't been that many things this year that have made me stop and appreciate it. I'm sorta just going a light speed and paying it no mind.
Anyway, I wanted to give you guys a little heads up on some projects I'm working on. I've been given the opportunity to pick up a couple freelance projects this last week that are exciting and I have an interview for the Arts Technician job within the school district this Thursday! Wish me luck! :) It would give me a great opportunity to make a bit more $ hourly than my last job and still give me more day time to do freelance. Now that I have my website up and running, I need to focus on getting content up every chance I get.
That's it for now :) I'm off to do a bit of designing.
Hope everyone in the US had a fabulous 4th of July holiday!
Tooodles!
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Disneyland's Soundsational Parade!
Another Disney post?!
Yes! For those of you who don't like Disney (to each his own) I promise that this has a tie-in to Illustration! :)
The newest parade at Disneyland Park was designed by the Illustrator team of Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily. Both have an extensive amount of previous work that has been available at the park. Besides the parade they've had a lot of acknowledgment for their sculptures of past Disneyland merchandise and attractions. The parade floats you'll see in the pictures below were designed first as paper sculptures! That's right... no clay, no plaster... only paper! Then obviously they were built to full size after "fine tuning" (haha!) everything.
The whole of the parade is based off of percussion instruments mostly. It kicks off with a drumline doing all kinds of tricks and beats as they walk down the route. Most of the performers in this part were actually in the film "Drumline" that came out a bit ago. You can also see in the picture below that Mickey has a set of drums too! Disney hired professional musicians for a lot of this parade.
Aladdin comes up next, which is pretty much the typical float and belly dancers, I didn't get a very good shot of it. But the best part is the little monkey Abu who follows behind. He clashes his symbols in time to the music. I don't think Abu has been a part of any Aladdin attractions before.
Then Ariel appears behind her floating sea creature dancers! Her float is so pretty with all the bright colors. She actually spins around 360 degrees so everyone on each side can see her and what under the sea float would be without bubbles! The octopus has all sorts of movement up there on the top.
This little guy was cracking me up! He was so random and was just chilling towards the back of the float haha I don't know if he has a counterpart on the other side or if there is a similar awkward type character but I had to show you guys.
Next up was a tribute to The Three Caballeros! They haven't been a part of a Disney attraction in a really long time. I love their costumes and little bubble butts with tail feathers! (is that weird? ... probably...)
Then came the token Princess float. The only real difference I saw in the float design was the addition of Rupunzel's tower. But really, how many princess floats can one design before they all start to flow together? (I was always secretly glad Ariel gets her own float ;P)
Simba followed suit with his entourage of African dancers, Turk, and King Louie. It was fairly simple in this section, but cool to see a throwback to the Lion King parade. Simba's drum float is similar to the one you'll see Tinkerbell has in a bit.
Tiana and her showboat came right behind. This one was pretty cool! The boat is modeled after the Mark Twain and included musical instruments in the architecture. The "water" reflected on the underside of the boat too.
Next up was Tinkerbell and some generic fairies. Peter Pan, Captain Hook, Smee, and some pirates also danced around her float. Tinkerbell, I'm pretty sure was a drummer too. She had some bongo type looking mushrooms at the top of her drum.
Last, but not least, comes my favorite float of them all! Which probably is exactly why its the big finale section. Mary Poppins comes through with her gang of Chimney Sweeps and the most magnificently designed float I've ever seen. It's so intricate and amazing.
The Chimney sweeps come through with their dance number and then Mary and Bert ride around on their carousel horses!
Ok, now remember how at the beginning I told you guys that this was all originally designed with PAPER?
Here's the rest of Mary Poppins's float .....
It was so good! Some parades are hit and miss (the ones you run to the attractions during) but this one definitely works for me. I wouldn't mind standing and watching it more than once.
Now after all this, it makes me laugh about how many times uninformed people automatically think "books" when the word Illustrator comes up in conversation. Now you can add "parade float design" to the list of examples to give them ;)
If you would like to see more pictures i took of the parade, here's a public link to the album on my facebook:
Soundsational Parade
Yes! For those of you who don't like Disney (to each his own) I promise that this has a tie-in to Illustration! :)
The newest parade at Disneyland Park was designed by the Illustrator team of Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily. Both have an extensive amount of previous work that has been available at the park. Besides the parade they've had a lot of acknowledgment for their sculptures of past Disneyland merchandise and attractions. The parade floats you'll see in the pictures below were designed first as paper sculptures! That's right... no clay, no plaster... only paper! Then obviously they were built to full size after "fine tuning" (haha!) everything.
The whole of the parade is based off of percussion instruments mostly. It kicks off with a drumline doing all kinds of tricks and beats as they walk down the route. Most of the performers in this part were actually in the film "Drumline" that came out a bit ago. You can also see in the picture below that Mickey has a set of drums too! Disney hired professional musicians for a lot of this parade.
 |
| drumline, Mickey & Minnie |
Aladdin comes up next, which is pretty much the typical float and belly dancers, I didn't get a very good shot of it. But the best part is the little monkey Abu who follows behind. He clashes his symbols in time to the music. I don't think Abu has been a part of any Aladdin attractions before.
 |
| Abu |
 |
| Ariel and Friends |
Next up was a tribute to The Three Caballeros! They haven't been a part of a Disney attraction in a really long time. I love their costumes and little bubble butts with tail feathers! (is that weird? ... probably...)
Then came the token Princess float. The only real difference I saw in the float design was the addition of Rupunzel's tower. But really, how many princess floats can one design before they all start to flow together? (I was always secretly glad Ariel gets her own float ;P)
Simba followed suit with his entourage of African dancers, Turk, and King Louie. It was fairly simple in this section, but cool to see a throwback to the Lion King parade. Simba's drum float is similar to the one you'll see Tinkerbell has in a bit.
Tiana and her showboat came right behind. This one was pretty cool! The boat is modeled after the Mark Twain and included musical instruments in the architecture. The "water" reflected on the underside of the boat too.
Next up was Tinkerbell and some generic fairies. Peter Pan, Captain Hook, Smee, and some pirates also danced around her float. Tinkerbell, I'm pretty sure was a drummer too. She had some bongo type looking mushrooms at the top of her drum.
Last, but not least, comes my favorite float of them all! Which probably is exactly why its the big finale section. Mary Poppins comes through with her gang of Chimney Sweeps and the most magnificently designed float I've ever seen. It's so intricate and amazing.
The Chimney sweeps come through with their dance number and then Mary and Bert ride around on their carousel horses!
 |
| it's a BIKE! |
Here's the rest of Mary Poppins's float .....
It was so good! Some parades are hit and miss (the ones you run to the attractions during) but this one definitely works for me. I wouldn't mind standing and watching it more than once.
Now after all this, it makes me laugh about how many times uninformed people automatically think "books" when the word Illustrator comes up in conversation. Now you can add "parade float design" to the list of examples to give them ;)
If you would like to see more pictures i took of the parade, here's a public link to the album on my facebook:
Soundsational Parade
Monday, June 13, 2011
I did it!!
I finally got my website up!!
Granted, I had to sway a bit from the original plan, but it's up and it's doing it's job! :)
I still have plan A, which is doing it through wordpress and headway, but I was stuck going around in circles to get it up. I needed to work on more content, but I needed to learn how to import and set up all the pages, but I didn't have things to import, and I needed to get my business cards printed, but I needed my website up, but i had to learn how to import before I advertised... blah blah blah... (head bash against the wall)
SO! for now, I've signed up with Weebly.com and set up a simple website with my own domain. It looks awesome and I can direct people to a professional looking site off my business cards. It feels so good to have at least something up! Now I can focus on getting more work posted and marketing myself.
Granted, I had to sway a bit from the original plan, but it's up and it's doing it's job! :)
I still have plan A, which is doing it through wordpress and headway, but I was stuck going around in circles to get it up. I needed to work on more content, but I needed to learn how to import and set up all the pages, but I didn't have things to import, and I needed to get my business cards printed, but I needed my website up, but i had to learn how to import before I advertised... blah blah blah... (head bash against the wall)
SO! for now, I've signed up with Weebly.com and set up a simple website with my own domain. It looks awesome and I can direct people to a professional looking site off my business cards. It feels so good to have at least something up! Now I can focus on getting more work posted and marketing myself.
And Now... (drum roll please!) .... I present to you all, for the first time on the internet...
my WEBSITE!
If you have any critiques or suggestions or anything, please leave a comment :)
Saturday, June 11, 2011
lil' update
Hey guys!
So sorry for the lack of posts around here. Eeek! it's been too long!
I've made some serious headway on my website and all I need to do now is import and arrange the illustrations how I want. It's super exciting to finally have a site up with my own domain and be able to print out the business cards I have designed! so many things finally coming together :)
I was on a little vacation but I plan to put up a post on some really cool illustration related stuff I saw along the way. (Yes, it involves Disney... but it's awesome and also involves illustration, I promise!)
Till then, here's a photo of a super excited me on monday at Disneyland, in line for The Little Mermaid attraction! guys, it's an artist's heaven. It's like a color pallette threw up all over the inside of the building. I almost cried it was so much gorgeous eye candy.
So sorry for the lack of posts around here. Eeek! it's been too long!
I've made some serious headway on my website and all I need to do now is import and arrange the illustrations how I want. It's super exciting to finally have a site up with my own domain and be able to print out the business cards I have designed! so many things finally coming together :)
I was on a little vacation but I plan to put up a post on some really cool illustration related stuff I saw along the way. (Yes, it involves Disney... but it's awesome and also involves illustration, I promise!)
Till then, here's a photo of a super excited me on monday at Disneyland, in line for The Little Mermaid attraction! guys, it's an artist's heaven. It's like a color pallette threw up all over the inside of the building. I almost cried it was so much gorgeous eye candy.
 |
| mom, my sister, and me |
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Would Superman and Spongebob be friends?
Why WOULDN'T Superman and Spongebob be friends??
I've been told that my thought processes are extremely random. haha For example: I can finish a conversation up about what we ate for dinner last night and with the next breath ask if anyone knows where I can find Rainbow Bright socks. It leads to many spoken questions and sentences where I only get confused looks and stares back as an answer. ....Actually, this happens quite often....
Yesterday, I was laying on my bed trying to take a short nap and of course, like always, my brain didn't want to settle down to let me sleep. After a gazillion thought processes running through my head I all of a sudden realized that I was trying to think of (and PLAN) a situation where I could compare Diane Keaton to Lady Gaga. Oh! if only I could insert that into a conversation!!
Why on earth would I waste my time thinking about that? LOL
So I started thinking again... (mayday! mayday!)... is thinking randomly like this is a reason why I love storytelling and illustration? Getting involved in such dramatic and off the wall situations and topics? It's so much more entertaining than having conversations of the weather. How much better people would we be if we didn't take ourselves so seriously and let in some imagination to our lives. Who says you can't have a bacon cupcake? or carve a wooden box that looks like a sandwich? (Jennie made one!)
So, I guess my answer would be that, while I don't know if it makes a GOOD story or illustration if it's more random, but it definitely keeps you on your toes and interested!
I'm silly, I'm RANDOM, I'm interesting, I'm different, I'm Me :)
Friday, May 20, 2011
a taste of having a "big girl job"
This is a bit different than my other posts, but just as fun :)
All my life, especially the last 4 or 5 years, I've never really felt my "age". When you're younger it's looked upon as being immature and probably somewhat irritating to some, but as your years start to add up it can actually be a blessing in disguise. I would bet that a lot of you who don't know already, based purely on a random picture of myself, would not be able to guess my correct age. My poor sister, who's almost 4 years younger, gets asked frequently if she's the older one haha (I'm thinkin' it's because of the wedding ring, sis ;p ) And no, I'm not telling you how old I am! LOL
Anyway, I still feel like a kid a lot of the time and "Grown up" jobs are somewhat intimidating. I bet a lot of the reason I love drawing and storytelling is a part of that.
Yesterday, I went with a friend (a grown up! haha) to a school she teaches an Arts program with. It's pretty cool actually, they have different quarters in the school year and teach art, music, and drama to each class for 45 mins at a time. Well, the director of the program let me tag along with a teacher to see what the job was like and if I would want to submit my resume' for a position in the fall. I was a little bit nervous at the beginning of the day, I'm not gonna lie. See, I don't have issues really with talking in front of kids or hanging out with them and I have plenty of experience in all of those subjects, but I've never had to be the disciplinary. There's definitely a distinction between being the "fun helper" and the "Teacher".
She picked me up in the morning and we set off talking about what the day was going to be like. Turns out, my friend has no clue about teaching beginning drawing, the subject of the rest of the school year. Soooo very cleverly (I was swindled! LOL) the tables turn and I'M teaching the classes!!
In all my work experience, and maybe it's just my luck, the first day of a new job has never had the regular training for rookies. Somehow, the person who's supposed to train me never shows up, or quits, or they can't find anyone... blah blah blah. I always end up getting thrown into it and flying by the seat of my pants. So, for this situation, it was old hat :) She gave me the worksheets, went over a bit with the order of them and said "Do what you do!" And let me tell you.... I did what I did!!
It was so much fun! First, I had a mini discussion on what an illustrator was and did. I showed them examples of illustrations they see every day and wouldn't think about, for example: classroom posters, the t-shirts they had on, sandwich baggies, pencil designs, their binders etc. I also had brought my portfolio along to show them what I did and explained my process what the exact same way I was going to teach them that day. Then we got down and dirty with learning how to look for simple shapes to help yourself draw (lots of rectangles and triangles!) and then how to make them look 3 dimensional.
All the kids had fun and didn't really have any that acted out or misbehaved (those that had some issues, were dealt with by my friend haha). But it was a very interesting experience on teaching and keeping the kids engaged with what you're doing. It was surprising to me how many kids are soo hard on themselves :( if they cant do something right away, they give up. Maybe its the generation, maybe its the parents, i dunno... but it was sad.
All in all, it was a good time :) I learned a lot just by observing and who knows... maybe I'll be doing it for reals in the fall!
All my life, especially the last 4 or 5 years, I've never really felt my "age". When you're younger it's looked upon as being immature and probably somewhat irritating to some, but as your years start to add up it can actually be a blessing in disguise. I would bet that a lot of you who don't know already, based purely on a random picture of myself, would not be able to guess my correct age. My poor sister, who's almost 4 years younger, gets asked frequently if she's the older one haha (I'm thinkin' it's because of the wedding ring, sis ;p ) And no, I'm not telling you how old I am! LOL
Anyway, I still feel like a kid a lot of the time and "Grown up" jobs are somewhat intimidating. I bet a lot of the reason I love drawing and storytelling is a part of that.
Yesterday, I went with a friend (a grown up! haha) to a school she teaches an Arts program with. It's pretty cool actually, they have different quarters in the school year and teach art, music, and drama to each class for 45 mins at a time. Well, the director of the program let me tag along with a teacher to see what the job was like and if I would want to submit my resume' for a position in the fall. I was a little bit nervous at the beginning of the day, I'm not gonna lie. See, I don't have issues really with talking in front of kids or hanging out with them and I have plenty of experience in all of those subjects, but I've never had to be the disciplinary. There's definitely a distinction between being the "fun helper" and the "Teacher".
She picked me up in the morning and we set off talking about what the day was going to be like. Turns out, my friend has no clue about teaching beginning drawing, the subject of the rest of the school year. Soooo very cleverly (I was swindled! LOL) the tables turn and I'M teaching the classes!!
In all my work experience, and maybe it's just my luck, the first day of a new job has never had the regular training for rookies. Somehow, the person who's supposed to train me never shows up, or quits, or they can't find anyone... blah blah blah. I always end up getting thrown into it and flying by the seat of my pants. So, for this situation, it was old hat :) She gave me the worksheets, went over a bit with the order of them and said "Do what you do!" And let me tell you.... I did what I did!!
It was so much fun! First, I had a mini discussion on what an illustrator was and did. I showed them examples of illustrations they see every day and wouldn't think about, for example: classroom posters, the t-shirts they had on, sandwich baggies, pencil designs, their binders etc. I also had brought my portfolio along to show them what I did and explained my process what the exact same way I was going to teach them that day. Then we got down and dirty with learning how to look for simple shapes to help yourself draw (lots of rectangles and triangles!) and then how to make them look 3 dimensional.
All the kids had fun and didn't really have any that acted out or misbehaved (those that had some issues, were dealt with by my friend haha). But it was a very interesting experience on teaching and keeping the kids engaged with what you're doing. It was surprising to me how many kids are soo hard on themselves :( if they cant do something right away, they give up. Maybe its the generation, maybe its the parents, i dunno... but it was sad.
All in all, it was a good time :) I learned a lot just by observing and who knows... maybe I'll be doing it for reals in the fall!
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