West St. First Sunday Arts Festival

After church & a picnic lunch, my friends and I headed over to West St. for the Arts Festival this past Sunday. I haven't been in a couple of years, so it was cool to check out all the new vendors. By far, my favorite was Clay Monsters. Coolest cookie jars, spoon rests & soap dishes EVER!


Naturally, I made a beeline for the clay aisle at Michael's. I picked out some oven-bake clay, and quickly decided a full 3D figure was just nuts to attempt. Instead, I grabbed a couple of small mirrors, and came up with this lil guy. I was trying to copy the eyes & nose of the green & blue guy in the 2nd pic below, and didn't quite make it. Still, he's kinda fun.
Last night, I tried to make a puffer Soapfish like pic 3 above...will post that soon!

Project 3

Wow, this took some time. After days of searching for clips & trying to come up with ANY idea, I finally found www.keepvid.com which lets you download YouTube videos. That helped tremendously. I decided not to worry about any copyright issues, and just get it done. I put it on YouTube so I could share here & on facebook. Here goes!

Past Creations

Sometimes, I like to take a peek back in time, to see how my portfolio has come along over the years. There's not much in it really. I have a dusty old file of drawings that once occupied me for hours at a time...not with deep thoughts, mind you. I spent my formative years filling a sketchbook with pages and pages of my favorite Far Side characters, hand-drawn, then traced with a sharpie. Then there's a file of 80s metal band logos, recreated with markers, construction paper and glue stick, followed by a few portraits, and a stab at airbrushing. Experimentation with different media yielded a clay bullfrog, some stained glass, and quite a bit of jewelry. Someday I might scan a few of my favorites, but here are a couple.

Weekly Inspiration

Every sunday at church, I'm inspired not only by the teaching, but by the artwork created by my friend Valerie. She and her husband Jeff own Exclamation Communications, Inc. Every week, Valerie comes up with new, beautiful graphics for Sunday's presentation. They also designed the Bay Area Community Church website, which I think is gorgeous. I had the opportunity to help with graphics on the web team a couple of years ago, and loved having my creativity stretched & challenged, as I created graphics to go alongside some of Valerie's designs. I'll post a few of those graphics soon.

Part of that inspiration carried over to a project I recently completed for a non-profit organization called Two by Two. I got to design & build the website, along with banners, brochures, bookmarks, & business cards. It was my first big project (other than personal websites), and a lot of work, but SO rewarding to see my work being used out there in real life!

Whoops, don't forget about the blog!

I just realized I haven't posted anything here since last week. I spent last Friday in the ER, and have an appt with a cardiologist this Friday, so things have been a little busy. I haven't done storyboards for Project 3 yet either. It would probably be easier if I had some sort of idea what to do, but even after hours wading through video clips, I'm completely uninspired. Video has never been my thing. Anybody else having trouble?

Link to Project 2 PDF

Okee doke, here's a link! --->> PROJECT 2 PDF <<---

Project 2 Thumbnails

Ok, finally got Project 2 uploaded with the Angel ftp link last night. I'll try to post a link to the pdf on here later, but in the meantime, here are some thumbnails.