misty & more

mistycoverweb

 

Tomorrow is Misty’s book birthday!

I was reflecting back on the whole process and it surprised me how fast this came together. At the end of last year my agent called me with a potential project. It had been a rough year end and hearing about the potential to work on my first kids book lifted my spirits. From the very beginning I knew that working with Hugh Howey would be a treat. As an illustrator, my job is to translate the ideas in someone else’s head and that can be a challenge. Hugh was clear in his vision but also trusted me and left plenty of space for my ideas.

Working with an author who is nice and sincere is wonderful. The project had a few minor hiccups, but even through those, he and I shared the common goal of making the best book possible.  I feel very fortunate that my first kids book experience was so overwhelmingly positive. And I’m thrilled with how it looks – I worked very hard on each spread. I hit more layers on my photoshop files than I’ve ever had before (over 100) with complex backgrounds and I am so proud of Misty. Looking back, I can’t believe we signed the contract in February and by the end of August the book was ready for print!

If you pre-ordered you should receive your book tomorrow. If not, there are still copies available.

Also it was announced that LeVar Burton himself chose my illustration for the Reading Rainbow calendar – I’m so thrilled to know that he liked my work enough to include it!

That’s it from me – happy Monday ^_^

amici

amici

this is a commission i recently completed that made me smile. we have quite a few holiday shows coming up, our first one is one of my favorites – patchwork, this sunday in oakland. we also recently found 3 copies of everyday volume 1! get it before its gone ^_^ aside from that i’m pushing along on pashmina and don’t have much time for anything else.

hope you have a wonderful week ^_^

burn to shine available now!

Screen shot 2014-11-03 at 10.05.24 AM  my solo show, burn to shine is now available here! we sold quite a few opening night but there are still many pieces available to purchase. pieces will be available online or in-store at trickster until november 30th, shipping worldwide. ^_^

happy monday!

halloween candy

halloweencandy

happy halloween!

more minis

minis2available now!

 

burn to shine

minis1

Over the past 3 months, nearly every evening, I’ve been burning mini wood pieces for my solo show, Burn to Shine. I’ve created 100 pieces! It’s what I set out to do, but in the middle (and to be honest at the end) I thought I wasn’t going to make it. I committed to 100 because I thought it’d be a good goal. It’s been physically hard and yet incredibly rewarding. I’ve explored and played with negative space, pattern, background, and character. This was my first attempt at creating such a large number of original wood pieces – I tried to keep each piece distinct and interesting. I won’t say I’ll never do it again, but I might give myself more time!

I will be sharing a few collections of the pieces through this week. I hope to see you at the opening night at Trickster in Berkeley this Saturday! If you’re not in the area the pieces will be up for sale after opening night ^_^

After that, I’ll be taking a long hiatus from wood burning!

happy diwali

hooray

i’ve been swamped with work on my solo show and pashmina, but i couldn’t let diwali pass without sharing an illustration. this was one of my first illustrations for diwali back in 2010. i remember the entire time i was drawing it i had a HUGE smile on my face.

 

happy diwali!

shelter from the storm

shelterfromthestorm

dog walker

dogwalker

book dream believer

bookdreambelieverencouraged by a few folks, i submitted the above piece for the reading rainbow kickstarter calendar. you can vote for it only if you contributed to the kickstarter here.

i was also interviewed by monica lee on her wonderful blog, smart creative women. you can see it here.

have a wonderful day!