Just like Romeo and Juliet

Hey there! Real quick update I thought I'd share. My wonderful friend Kaela's nanny got married over the weekend. Yay! One of the wedding tasks that I got asked to help with was putting together a kids activity book. The interior pages were just various line art and activities I found online since you know, short timeline, but I quickly whipped up a custom cover with their faces. I particularly like how Delana looks a little like Barbie here.

Also really hoping some kids and or guests took the opportunity to color in and or embellish upon their likeness.

Stupid sexy Flanders

Howdy there. So I didn't win the Gravity Falls tshirt design contest. But I did get a lot of positive feedback from friends and strangers alike on them! I'm considering making a redbubble or whatever site and maybe getting them printed? Although I'm not sure where that falls in the grey area that is parody to copywritten/tradmakred characters thing? I don't want to get sued or piss anyone off.

Moving along, i've been posting a little more to instagram than here. just because its faster and I really don't have to think about these text posts thing-y's.

But lets get you caught up and archive these doodles eh?

Gravity Falls t-shirt contest!

Some more of what I've been u to in the past month!

I got off my tuff and made some art for welovefine.com ‘s Gravity Falls T-shirt design contest. If you love me, the show, and/or the shirts I designed, I would be *ever* so grateful if you could go to the following links and give each design a 5/5 rating! Seriously I’ll love you forever! Yay please and thank you!!!

 
Vote 5/5 for The Mystery Shack Souvenir shirt!

Vote 5/5 for the Mister Mystery Club shirt!

Vote 5/5 for the Panther Shirt!

Vote 5/5 for the Puma Shirt!


For reals, thank you so much if you do take the time to go and vote! I appreciate it!

Huey Lewis and I share the same birth date

So I'm in the middle of about a bajillion projects at the moment, but finally, something required a hard deadline and involved people and music I like. That means it got finished! And here are the results:

 It's a poster for a friend's going away show. And now a detail shot.

 If you're in bay area you should go because it'll be tubular.

Stuff and Progress!

Look! I've been up to some things. Although one of them obviously wasnt "updating her blog" A-hyuk-yuk!!

Lets start of with something from the vault. A pair of boobies. They were a gift for my friend, who is an artist in his own right. (click to view it larger)

Then I got crafty, and the Mister and I put together this bit of fall for our door

 

For Christmas, we put together this Nightmare! Get it! It's a joke!

In the mean time, I've also been working on a painting of my friends dog as a thank you gift for puppy sitting Margot.  This is a teaser. In progress and final shots coming soon.

 

Also kind of obsessed with these guys. I might do a paiting (or 2) of them.

And I've got some other poppin' fresh ideas just waiting to be shelled out. What? I don't know. I need sleep.

Endor indoors! Get it! It's a joke!

Behold! A table terrarium? Isn't that's sweet. But wait, whats this? If you look closer...

There's an ewok in my bowl.

Quite a few of them actual, with a couple of friends (can you spot them?) Fighting off imperial forces!

A battle is being waged in what looks like a river bed. Of some sort. (Yes, I added the walkers later)

View from above.

What's that in the trees?!

This was a lot of fun to make. A quick, reasonably priced nerdy craft project.  I got the idea after stumbling across a sweet stash of mico machine star wars toys at a local toy shop. If people are interested, I might start an etsy account selling "kits" for these bad boys since I kind of  stock piled on toys. Or maybe a lucky few will get some Star Wars/Nature related Christmas gift. Yay!

Margot Graduated Puppy Class!

Instead of my usual bouts of infrequent  arting, I have been taking care and trying to train a puppy. We were enrolled in a Puppy 1 class and Margot just recently graduated! So of course I crafted a little puppy graduation cap after I stumbled this instructible (check it out the pictures are super cute!). And so life goes on, we started the Puppy 2 class, and I maybe I'll get back to more drawing and nerd crafts.

 

Puppyhood, or my legitimate reason for a lack of posts lately

Doubt anyone has noticed, but I've been taking a break from making art and diy crafty things and sadly updating this poor blog. Its bittersweet but I don't have much of a choice because all of my time now is spent working and TAKING CARE OF AND RAISING MY BEAUTIFUL BABY PUPPY!

Her name is Margot and she's a Boston Terrier pup. She was about 9 or 10 weeks old when I got her, and I'm told she was the runt. I recused her from a guy in Fresno who had just bought the pup from some couple in Durham and realized very quickly he wasn't going to be able to adequately take care of a puppy. She hadn't even had any shots yet poor thing. So my life has been turned a bit upside down as I try to raise a crazy puppy into a healty, sweet little dog.

Needless to say, there hasn't been a dull moment since shes entered my life. I love her so much. She's like my little gremlin, and this is in fact her theme song. And now I'm going to be that annoying lady that posts a ton of pictures of her dog. 

btw, she doesnt love her onesie jamies. But she'll tolerate them for a while. I picked that up from Mijo & Bambi at the Renegade Craft fair in SF this weekend.

And if you do miss my art stuffs, don't fret. I have one piece i'm still working on but close to finishing, and a bunch of paitings/craft I've made and taken photos, I just need to edit and post about them. But since thats usually less fun than the actual making part, that explains why they aren't up here yet.

Herp derp. The illustration.

Still practicing drawing and colorin' in photoshop. Its helped me to be marginally faster! Huzzah.

Hello my poor little blog. I'm sorry I've gone rouge and've neglected you so. I swear, this whole time I've being doing stupid things to update you with. some are still in progress, others i need to take photos of or scan. 

I'm currently in Vancouver having just attended the Interlink Conference. It was amazing! Seriously if you work as a front web designer/developer you shoulda been there man. All the speakers were fantastic and I can't tell you how stoked I was to get to meet Chris Coyier of CSS-Tricks and THE Jessica Hische of "Don't Fear the Internet" and other awesome things. I also got to meet a bunch of other really cool designers, developers, etc. And I'll hopefully make another post later about how much I love Vancouver and why its fantastic. But yeah it was super fun stuff and I hope to attend the next one for sure.

Anyhoo, between being inspired by all that and finally having a quiet moment here, I've complied and am presenting one of my lame attempts at showing my painting process as I try to keep in shape by practicing random portraits. This is Martin Freeman. Better known as Watson from Sherlock, Tim from the office, soon to be a hobbit. I don't think its very good and because it was always to be a practice thing and not a finished piece, it isn't. I think I may try this again in Photoshop as i'm experimenting with that again for efficiencies sake. Don't forget to click on the image to see in a larger size. More Nerd shit coming soon. MONIQUE OUT!

Arts and Bows!

Gah Talk about an extended holiday break. Continuing on with my arts and crafts kick during these past winter months, I was heavily inspired by this awesome hair bow DIY tutorial over at My Girl Thursday. And then I saw these Beautiful "statement" Bow over at the Red Velvet shop I decided to draw and make my own bows! Eeee. Why yes, I'm a big fan of head accoutrement

Elise of Red Velvet and A Beautiful Mess. She's freaking gorgeous.

Eventually, I'll probably have a bow in every size and color.

Random: I received this adorable Japanese pea pop puppy for Christmas from my beloved. I adore it.

So then I tried my hand at making my own version of the Red Velvet bow in a warmer, Christmas red and stiffer fabric. It turned out ehh, ok. Not sure when or where I'll be able to pull this off. And until I get a new camera, I had to compensate with my crappy HTC phone camera with filters to actually make me look *less* washed out. Sigh.

His name was Rocko

I was on a roll with being better with more frequent updates but then you know, life happened. Also I really need to stop being lame and get a better camera and then not be lame about taking photos with the better camera. Maybe a New Years resolution? Anyway, one of the things that tied me up was this guy. A painting commission of a dearly beloved pet. I really hope I did him justice. I drawn tons of dogs an animals but haven't really painted them before. At least a finished one anyway. And that background.. yeah. Sigh. Not 100% thrilled but it needed to be done with in time for Christmas.

And here's the really rough initial sketch.

Coming up next time, a peak into my new crazy crafting life, and more sketches of pretty ladies. Or something Adventure Time related.