Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Going, Going, Gone!

I've moved! Follow the yellow brick road to the new ThriftStoreArt website.

Friday, April 15, 2011

My 1 1/2 Year Project Completed

After 1 1/2 years and plenty of complaining about my "timeline" from my brothers and husband this project is finally completed. The last step is getting prints made and put up for sale on my Etsy account.

Here is a photo-log of the process. I'm so happy it's over and pleased with the final result.

The preliminary sketch:


My workspace:


Supplies:


Starting to take shape:


The first panel was the left one:


Finished the middle:


Working on the right:


Characters completed:


The perfect background color:


Left panel with the background color:


Middle panel with background color:


Right panel with background color:


The finished product:


I was surprised at how much the blue background color changed the entire look of the piece. It makes the characters really pop and almost adds a cartoon-y feel to it.

I hope you like it and I'm sure my brothers will be happy to finally have their painting done. Love you guys!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Spray Paint

I have never used spray paint before. After watching this artist create this in seconds I'm completely amazed.

My husband even said "Why can't you do stuff like that?"

Holy buckets.

Click here to watch him paint.

Friday, April 8, 2011

More crazy fun artists

My friend Amelia sent me a link to this cool website and I had to share it with you all.

This artist paints on books to create art. I could never do this because of my deep love for old books, but it is pretty amazing what's been done.

Enjoy.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Copyright? Who cares!

The number 1 question I get asked about my art is the copyright infringement. And honestly I haven't done any research to give an honest answer.

But I also don't care.

The thing is, I'm not the only one who does what I do, and I'm not the first. Other artist are getting plenty of publicity and sales without any issues - why can't I?

Booyapictures.com has a fantastic painting that I just had to share. If my art can be this good, I might have a future in this silliness.

Duck Hunt

So forget about the copyright issues, sit back, and enjoy.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

A Random Art Project

My cousin-in-law, Katria, wants to get a tattoo and called upon what little tattoo designing skills I have. Her requirements were the phrase "All you need is Faith, Trust, & Pixie Dust" and a thimble-or-acorn.

After 6ish hours (don't laugh - I took my sweet time) and quality time on the recliner with my colored pencils my "design" was finished.


I tried to duplicate the font on the cover of the Peter Pan DVD.


Katria says she likes it and plans on putting this little diddy on her foot. It's crazy to think my art will be on her...

Thanks Katria for the opportunity!

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Angry Eyes

The end is near (and has been for over a year now). I'm getting so close to finishing this project. One more character and background color then it's complete. It might even be accomplished by the time school starts for spring semester...

One can only hope.



Here's a sneak peak of part of the never-ending project. Bryce said I've captured his anger perfectly.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

The Trinity

I'm pleased with how this 3 piece set turned out and that the buyer, my MOTHER, is oh-so happy with it. I've heard rumors buzzing around the family gossip that she intends to take it to a frame shop and have a beautifully big and chunky frame built for the pieces. I think that's a lovely idea.

At first I was hesitant for my mom to buy the set. It kinda defeats the purpose of me having an Etsy account. But she insisted on paying whatever my asking price was without a family discount. How can you argue with that? She even said "these can't leave the family."

Well mom, this is the weirdest family heirloom I've ever seen.

Cereal Trinity: Sold to Laurie Dunmire-Beer - $200



And here is a close-up of Lucky with his marshmallow charms...


Thanks for all of the support you guys have shown. I really appreciate it.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Options

Wow, you guys! I had no idea I would get so much feedback on this painting. The response has been encouraging. Thank you for showing your support. I truly do appreciate it.

I'm pleased to announce that I have a silent bidder on these paintings. I plan to keep the buyer anonymous until the art is completed.

Being that there is a new owner of these pieces, I feel that this individual get's free reign on the choice for the last picture.

Below are all of the cereal cartoon character-related ideas. I received some non-cereal character ideas that were fabulous and I am thinking of one in particular that I plan to use in the near future. Thank you to everyone for your amazing ideas - you guys are so creative! I loved them.

The silent bidder will be choosing one of the ideas listed below. Good luck choosing a favorite because they're all quite good!

  • Cookie Crisp: The Cookie Crisp crook and his masked dog sidekick are fleeing the scene in a getaway boat filled with Cookie Crisp while the cop is chasing them. (Picture of Characters)
  • Tony the Tiger (Picture of Character)
  • Rice Krispies: Snap, Crackle, and Pop faces carved into the mountain like Mt. Rushmore. (Picture of Characters)
  • Rice Krispies: Snap scaling the mountain, Crackle relaxing on the shore, and Pop riding a rice crispy treat raft
  • Lucky Charms: Lucky could be sitting on the bank fishing for lucky charms. (Picture of Character)
  • FrankenBerry (Picture of Character)
  • Lucky Charms: Lucky is sliding down a rainbow that lands on a boat filled with gold and lucky charms
  • Honey Nut Cheerios: The bee is flying above the water with his honeycomb. The honeycomb is dripping honey into the water, as the honey spreads/ripples through it. (Picture of Character)
  • Count Chocula: The mountain is turned into a cave where Count Chocula lives. Bats fly all over in the sky with the Count. (Picture of Character)
  • Cocoa/Fruity Pebbles (Picture of Characters)
  • Quisp: The Quisp alien flying in his space ship (Picture of Character)
  • Fruit Loops: Tucan Sam floating in a fruit loop inner tube down the river (Picture of Character)
  • Smacks: Dig 'Em Frog enjoying a lazy day on a lily pad (Picture of Character)
  • Raisin Bran: The happy sunshine in the sky with two scoops of raisins being poured (Picture of Character)

Alright! All input has been submitted. I'm anxious to know what the buyer will choose! Thanks again for all of your great ideas.

I think I'll go eat some cereal...

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Painters-Block

Today I'm suffering from a serious case of painters-block. For my 3rd and final piece to the Cereal Characters trilogy I was planning on painting Tucan Sam into some junky art. Yet, everytime I draw Mr. Sam he looks.... not like himself. And it's getting frustrating.

So I'm open to options. Any suggestions on a creative cereal character for this painting?


Also, due to my painters-block, I wanted to share with you all some of my peers in the art-world and their inspiring paintings.

John Lytle Wilson is one of my favorites. All of his "corrected paintings" contain mostly monkeys, unicorns, or robots - the usual. I'm friends with him on Facebook and it's so much fun to see what he produces out of that wacky head of his.

Corrected Paintings

The first time I ever saw this style of art (ie. corrected paintings, thrift store art, thrift store redux) was at the Wurst Gallery. In 2005 they hosted the Vintage Vandals art display. It's so inspiring to see what all of these unique artists concocted.

Vintage Vandals

While rummaging around online, I stumbled upon these other great artists who have been featured on popular blogs.

Oliveloaf Design

Angry Eel Land

Makenzie Blog

Loyal K.N.G.

Maybe seeing what others have done will help inspire some creativity.

Monday, February 28, 2011

More junk turned into treasure

Picture 2 of 3 is now complete! One more to go and then the set will be ready. I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Silly Cap'n. He found his booty of Crunch Berries on this island. What a lucky guy...





This is a good way to start off a Monday. I think I just kicked Procrastinations trash.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

New Goals

I'm attempting to procrastinate less and get more paintings accomplished. I just opened up an Etsy account to sell them online because Idaho is proving to be a poor state to sell art in.

I have a 3 piece painting coming of popular cereal characters. The main painting is complete, it's the smaller 2 pieces that need attention. I'm hoping to get at least one done this week of the two and being one step closer to putting on my Etsy store.

The next is a painting I've been working on for over a year. I'm so close to finishing that it's silly for me not to. This one is not for sale but is a gift to my brothers. Below is a "sneak peak" of what it looks like. The canvas is 3" x 2".



I was very inspired on Saturday to get back into the grove of painting. I attended a local Etsy sale. All Etsy sellers from Rexburg, Idaho were contacted and had a weekend-only boutique to display and sell their crafts. It was so informative to talk to the sellers. They said all it takes is some good advertising and getting your name out there and then once you've established some popularity things sell quickly, but it takes time. All the ladies were really encouraging and want to host another Etsy sale in March and have invited me to participate if I can get some paintings done.

Sounds like a challenge, doesn't it?

Saturday, February 26, 2011

SOLD

Thank you to everyone who has been supportive of me and what I'm about. Here is a sampling of what has sold, but what you can continue to expect from me.

Delorean: Sold to Billy Vandergaw - $200





Robot: Sold to Billy Vandergaw - $150




Lab: Sold to Keni Grose- $50