Illustration Friday – Hoard

The pack-rat eyed me suspiciously when I asked him for some cheese.

 

Colored pencil on gray paper

Be Well Productions

I have completed another website! Well, almost. There are still some tweaks that need to be made, but it’s up and running! 

Be Well Productions is a production company run by my cousin Emma Palzere-Rae. Be Well Productions enlightens and inspires with one woman plays of historical characters such as Emily Dickinson, Gilda Radner and Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

To view the performance schedule click here.

We are still working on the news and links sections, but otherwise, the website is pretty much complete! 

Emma will be in Ohio this week performing Aunt Hattie’s House (Harriet Beecher Stowe).

 

It’s my birthday!

Hello everyone! I don’t have any artwork for you today, but I wanted to tell you that it’s my birthday!! YAY! I’m 28 today. I’ve always shared my birthday with my sister. We are not twins, I was born two years after her, on the same day. Sometimes people don’t believe me when I tell them that. but it’s true. Why would I lie in my blog? silly! But if you have a hard time believing that you’ll never believe this: My sister’s husband and my boyfriend have the same birthday too! Is it fate? We’ll see…..  

I love the little coincidences in life that make you think. Are we here for a reason? Am I on the right path? Is someone trying to tell me something. I try to listen and hear things. I may be crazy, but I just might be the lunatic you’re looking for. (to quote Billy Joel)

Punchline – Illustration Friday

The punchline wasn’t even funny… This girl laughs at everything…

 

 

Variety! It’s the Spice of Life.

My new promotional piece for this quarter focuses on the saying “Variety is the spice of life” I’ve always believed that to be true! Without variety, life would be very boring. I think that’s why I like freelancing. I get new jobs all the time and I’m always learning something new and different. Sometimes it can be a little hard when you don’t know if you’re going to get paid or not, but that’s all part of it. There are always pros and cons to everything you do in life. I get a lot more out of the pros than the cons take away from me. 

Since summer is speedily approaching (although it felt like it was already here, last week) I decided to incorporate that into the piece as well. All the variety of things that are coming out of the spice bottle are summer-related! 

This piece was created in watercolor on illustration board. Let me know what you think!

I designed the bottle itself before starting on the drawing, and here’s a shot of the front of the bottle:

Cool Scupltures by Jennifer Maestre

I did an image search for a pencil the other day and came across this:

It’s a sculpture that is made entirely out of tiny sharpened pencils! This sculpture in particular reminds me of the monster-plant from Little Shop of Horrors… “FEED ME SEYMOUR!”  hee hee! Anyway… These sculptures are really neat and I went to her website, she’s got a bunch of them, and each one is more interesting than the next. Here are a few more:

I think these are just so cool. They are prickely and smooth, inviting and repelling. I want to touch it, but it would probably hurt! Jennifer was inspired by sea urchins. Her first sea urchin-like sculpture was created in her last year at Massachusetts College of Art. It was made of silver and contained a pearl in a secret compartment on the inside. The only way to get to the secret compartment was to pull on a spike. I love the juxtaposition of these sculptures. They are fascinating! The fact that you have to touch something that may hurt you to get the treasure is genius! I love it!

She creates these sculptures by cutting the pencils into one inch sections and sharpening them. She then drills a hole and stitches them together like beads. It creates an organic, clean way of assembling these creatures. 

To see more of her work please visit her website here: www.jennifermaestre.com.  You can also see photos of some her work in 500 Baskets, & 500 Beaded Objects, published by Lark books.