LET'S INDEPENDENT! 10.21.08 POSTER

Going super minimal with this months poster! I've been making the posters for every Radio Free Silverlake Let's Independent show for over a year now. It's so great to be able to make something for all the different local LA bands, and exciting to see the change of style and experimentation over a year! I went through a big dog painting phase, and last month's was a really colorful vector image. This month is Jackie-O and JFK as dogs holding their dog baby in another dog dimension/time/space. I have to say, white background is always my first choice for everything-but, I've been playing around with black lately-and for posters, I'll try to make them more colorful and interesting for fun. But, I do think that with the right colors and arrangement, you can catch more people's attention with a white background. I think the white just kind of blanks out the surroundings, like life was 2D and we just cut out a square or just erased everything in that space in front of us, and gave the art a brand new spot of space in the universe to sit on. As if in that white space life started all over again.

LEVIATHAN BROTHERS POSTER

LEVIATHAN BROTHERS! Awesome LA Jazz band.
Uh oh, my schedule has been so crazy that I've been going to sleep at 5am for the past week.5 and now I'm stuck in the pattern! It's just so much easier to get work done in the night because the darkness is like a blanket that keeps me from looking out the window and longing to be outside. Plus the calm of the city sleepers, the closed flowers, the sleeping bees, allows me all the sky to paint my ideas. So many things pop into my head late at night.

Okay! Checking off projects off my list, one by one! Next stop: illustration for the Los Dos Brothers! Then ideas for Ice Cream Man T-shirts, another poster, and a bunch of other things I mentioned below. Phew! Feels good to get stuff done! :)

Love,
Christine

SEA LEGS ALBUM DONE!!!!! YAYYYYY!!!

YAY! I've been working on this forEVVEERRR and now I'm finally done! Sooooo happy! I'm going to take a work break tomorrow and go outside (go to the gym for 5 hours, ha) and see the sun and then will get right back into the groove on Friday for a bit.
Yay! High five!
Love!
Christine

SEA LEGS ALBUM ALMOST DONE!!!! YAY!!!

SO! This is the new direction I took the album! And I still have the entire inside of the booklet for all underwater/outerspace art. Super pretty! Now to choose the final colors! AHH! I love color and I love making all kinds of options, but then, once I do that, it's hard to choose just one. All the colors are my babies!

Sooooo---yes, nothing new posted up in a while because I've been toiling over this album but finally tonight it just busted out of me. I had to clean up my desktop which I think helped (it was getting messsssola!).

So excited to have this thing wrapped up so I can get to all my other projects and then once I bust out all these illustration projects this next week, I can focus on music! I only have a month left here until I go back in November to LA!! Although I really would like to just stay here and get someone to sublet out my apartment and help me take care of business...searching for an assistant in L.A.!!!!!

Power nap time!
LOVE!
C

A BREAK/PECHA CUCHA/TEXTILE DESIGN

Oh! I had to take a break. Plus I stayed up for 60 hours straight this weekend. It was a contest. I won and the reward was a million hours of make-up sleep and puffy eyes. Dreamy dream dreamy.
Lots of new work tomorrow!

Also, if you are in Montreal I would recommend attending PECHA CUCHA MONTREAL #7 on Wednesday at SAT.
I will be there and it should be rad and inspirational: a gathering of artists/architects/designers/musicians presenting their current work.

Love! C

P.S. Did you know I make a lot of my income designing textiles? Well I do! I used to be a fashion designer if you didn't know that or read it below, and through that I discovered the amazing world of textile design! :) I really love doing it because first I have to do a ton of research for inspiration and ideas (which I love doing) then I take my art and design ideas and figure out how to create a repeat which is kind of like putting together a puzzle sometimes if the design is very complicated. The best part is getting the actual fabric samples: my art on rolls and rolls of fabric. Super neato. Sometimes I sneak in a very tiny heart with a C in it for Love, Christine. :)
Here are some I did for Fall 2009.

PICK UP STIX

Whew! I've been working for a million hours. Sometimes I can really pump stuff out and sometimes it takes a lot of research and thinking and doodling up ideas until I get something finished. I always forget, though, and pile up so much on my plate! But I just love it all and I get it all done in a timely manner, so all is good. Whoa! It's almost 5AM. I've been up all night. Power nap and then up again to work on a few more things, then sleepytown. Usually when I'm working too, I always start a new idea ( like this elephant drawing and the gum comics), they're my art breaks because I'm already artin' it up. Pllbbbb.

I've decided to make some books once I get over these project hurdles.
Detoxing right now---drinking something that tastes gross and lots of water. No toast and marmalade!

Montreal news: it's awesome. I saw a yellow leaf fall to the ground. Uh oh! Fall is coming. I LOVE fall, but, it just means winter will be here soon and that means I need to figure out what to do with my life. Geeze! ;)

Love,
Christine

GOOD GUM vs. SUCKY GUM

I've been chewing a lot of gum lately. Tropical, fruity, berry. I've never been into fruity gum, not until this summer. Sometimes I'll chew a whole pack in a few hours just so I can have a chunk of gum to make a decent BUBBLE. Oh yes, the bubble is the best part. It's like an old game like hopscotch or marbles or jump rope: blowing bubbles. POP. So simple and so much fun.

Anyway, after trying out all the different kinds of gum, I have come to the conclusion that the rectangle kind (like Chicklets) are really sucky. They don't get solid and rubbery enough for a bubble. Chew the little ones with the wrapper or bubblicious ( you can't go wrong there) and save the other kind for recreation, not serious bubble blow play.

Love, C!

THE LINK cover

Okay! The top one is the final version art for The Link! First I started with watercolor (bottom) and then tried playing around with it. Each one has their own vibe, but I like the top one best. More art, more art, more art soon-working through the nigghhht!

Oh yeah, and if you tried to call me and couldn't get a hold of me, I ran out of minutes yesterday and I haven't recharged them yet. Whoops. Try my house or my LA phone for now.

Love!
C

CATOPUS

I almost went to bed without posting but I really want to try to post every day as many times as I can so I whipped this lil' thing together. I LOVE this new Vector world I've entered only because I can draw a thousand times more quickly and in vivid colors. And I like building things up too--for example, all the elements in the cheeseburger are their own image. If you peeled it apart, it would be as if you were pulling apart a cheeseburger. I'm sure lots of people work this way but it's fascinating to think of creating in more than just 2D, because 2D is about the angle and the perception, whilst making this cheesburger was about making every part of it real and then laying them together.

Another advantage of working with vector is that I can work as fluidly and lucidly as I like with minor adjustments. The purpose of Catopus was just to make something for tonight, but I had no idea so I started off with just a doodle of a monster body and as I added each element, the story grew in my mind. In the end we have this Cat-octopus monster thing eating cheeseburgers from this creepy cheeseburger that makes cheeseburgers every time it opens its mouth. They're friends which is odd because the cheeseburger is making it's own kind to be eaten by his friend. But, I don't think the cheeseburger really cares, his reason for existing is to make cheeseburgers, nothing more and nothing less.

What else, I worked on some music today, and I slept A LOT, like a CATOPUS! In and out of sleep in the sleepy sun that shines between the buildings, getting up to make toast (I think it was my last day of Toastcapade), and then sleeping more.

Later Simon and I met up with Boris and we ate at a sweet little Italian place and then headed over to Drawn & Quarterly for Matt Forsythe's super cute comic book release called Ojingogo. Ah, Montreal why are you so amazing? Should I try to see what winter is like or just be a summer lover?

SEELING MY CAR: If you live in LA, I'm selling my car for super cheap, like mere handfulls of rubies!

Speaking of "lover", I wrote a new song (and now I have recording equipment that I borrowed from JP) about the moon being my nighttime lover and the sun as my morning.

OTHER NEWS: OH! I fell off my bike today too in front of a windowful of people. Whoops! It was really funny, like in slow motion. I was talking to someone and leaning up against my bike and then the bike fell back, slowly, slowly, and then I fell back slowly slowly on top of it plop.

ZZZtown now because I have too much work in the morning and I want to go to Quebec City in the evening.

Love!
Christine

SOCK DOG

...is a lookin' for his pups. Oh oh!




Oyasumi!
Love, Christine

WATERMELON MONSTER

and mustaches! Crazy!


Well what a good day! I ate 5,000 pieces of toast with marmalade, cleaned my fish's bowl, drew some things, and then started my path down to Vector Village. Super duper fun and my WacomWonderTablet is overjoyed at all the attention I'm giving it.
What else...a couple of my poems are going to be published, one of the albums I'm working on is finally going to print! Yay! I have to tweak some of the artwork again and then it's party time. Just got my new illustration assignment from The L.A. Record: MOGWAI and SIAN ALICE GROUP!
RADICULOUS!

Ahhh. I want to draw every second of the day---it's hard to pull myself away sometimes. It's just super fun and I have a thousand ideas for paintings and illustrations every time I close my eyes! It's like if I take a break from looking at the world (and I am always always looking at every little tiny thing all the time) then crazy art takes advantage of me when my eyes are closed. I just did an experiment. I closed my eyes for one second and I saw:
A pink dog with blue ears and big eyes wearing a frenchy hat swing it's head to and fro, slobbering all over the darkness. Isn't that a little crazy?! I mean, it's super fun, I see cartoons all the time. I really don't have any complaints, I just wonder if anyone else see's that? The same thing happens with music sometimes---especially while I'm falling asleep I can hear an entire symphony and point out every instrument and note. Oh the brain, the wonders of the brain and the wonders of the unfamiliar familiars.

Sleep tight.
Also, listen to This American Life #361 Fear of Sleep. The very first story told by a comedian about sleepwalking is very funny.
Love,
Christine

DOGS AND TOAST

I am totally obsessed with toast.
Toast is obsessed with butter.
Dogs like talking to toast with butter on their tongues.

I don't know why I haven't been drawing more toast! I've been eating toast with marmalade like a million times a day. MMM! I haven't had toast in such a long time (years and years and years of a toastless life!) so now me n' toast are hanging like every second every day. Toast. What a weird word when you think about it. If you didn't know what toast was, you might think it was a cousin of FROG.

DOGS DOGS DOGS!

DOGS DOGS DOGS! I've been neglecting my dog obsession for a while, but, now that I have a new medium, the lil' pups are ready to take back the stage. AWW!
This is totally different from the folky/baby designs from earlier today, dawg.
Love! C

TAP WATER

Reason #684027052 why I LOVE (j'adore) MONTREAL:
You can drink all the tap water you want and it's free. So free it's almost gold. So free it's gold giving away gold and diamonds on slices of pizza, you know?

Why can't Montreal be summer all year long?

THIS AMERICAN LIFE

I love these. I'm putting them up here because I did them right before I came to Montreal. I found out about the contest under an hour before midnight (deadline) and jammed on them, submitting the final one at a romantic 11:59. They haven't made their decisions yet so everything is tense, the weather is wondering, but, if they chose my design I will probably shoot up like a rocket, seed a cloud (like the chinoise!), and make super sunny happy weather for Montreal (deposit raindrops over a sad pond or presently parched big mouthed prehistoric frogs that come out when no one is looking). This American Life makes me cry all the time and I have a crush on the translucent voice of (pun?) Ira Glass. Love, so much love. If one of them doesn't win, it's okay, because I like these so much I'm just glad they exist. The first is my fav: it is a take on our society:
"Oh, uh...hmm...we share this very small pond...well...umm....I'm going to pretend I don't see that person...oh okay, they're not leaving, alright, well....hmm...I'm going to practice saying hello, maybe it will look like I am saying goodbye..."
Eventually you've gotta do something.

When I was in Russia I smiled at everyone and got strange looks. Someone told me they automatically assumed you were mentally retarded. You know, it's not that bad in the United States. I think people are pretty friendly, at least, I grew up in the Midwest and everyone is friendly if they aren't racist or drunk ( deep in the woods, yes, it still exists) and in California the weather is so insanely nice, you can't help but smile. Maybe I'm thinking of New York, the trains, or maybe I'm thinking of all of societies, or maybe I'm thinking of something far greater than all of this. Hmm!

The second one is the view from a TV or a Radio or a Computer, watching us, watching us watching them..ooh, the life, our lives.
The third is American pride, freedom of speech, the youth, etc. I snuck Snoopy in there too for many different reasons, one being that I love Snoopy and I think Snoopy is genius.
You can interpret these any way you want. My process is that I love something, I make it, then I realize what it means after. Thats usually the best way to get from A to B, although it seems to be a little backwards and upside down...like...
in...space...oooohhh!!!

If TAL asked me to do work for them, I would backflip while saying yes in 7 different languages. It's love=true love.

I LOVE CUPCAKE

I have SO SO SO many patterns and textiles that I don't have uploaded online!

But this one is new. It says "I LOVE CUPCAKE" in cyrillic because "cupcake" is the new "mochi" ( I used to make a comic strip, a little book, some jewelry all about MOCHI [ a japanese confection made of gooey rice], and even met with the Mochi Ice Cream guy about making plush mochi dolls and t-shirts). A lot of people call me Mochi, actually. Isn't that strange and amazing? Some people ONLY know me as "Mochi". Wow. I like it. Nicknames are endearing, they take an extra effort to remember.

OH! I won a contest today!!!
I won HOOD ART by INFECTIOUS.com by submitting a really crazy picture of me that I just happened to have lying around of me with a mustache and a unibrow drawn on my face...if you dig deep into my Flickr, you might find what I'm talking about. Haha. I'm going to submit my own hood art as well! Maybe you might see someone driving around my with illustrations on their car! Crazy! :)




I can't decide whether this is a cat-cupcake or a cat crawling up on a cupcake. I like the idea of a super happy cat with a mustache (bien sur) crawling up a giant cupcake he found saying "I love cupcake" in Russian. That's the winner. :)

Love! C

ECO BRANDING

Workin away!

I've been branding and designing the website for this super cool eco-consulting biz and store in Nashville! This is just the temporary splash/concept page, but by the end of it all it will all be mostly illustrated by hand with this notebook paper feel to it. Since Jennifer Casale (the owner) is also a poet-I wanted to give it a vintagy/bookish/screenprinted look to it as well. I'll have my jewerly in the shop when it opens since they are made up vintage parts and hopefully be more involved with it all! :)

I do a lot of "eco branding" and I even have a website I'm working on for myself called "ecoloveco" that specializes in ecobranding or rebranding! :) I love creating identity for a greater cause. I've been really lucky to have had a lot of eco or "green" clients like:
+SnL is an awesome PR company that I've had the pleasure to re-brand their company, design invitations that were 100% recycled and sustainable, and give them a look for their whole eco section.
+Gramicci clothing I rebranded their ecoline and called it "greenicci" and was in charge of designing and making the trim, hangtags, packaging etc. made of sustainable materials! That was fun. ! :)
+Neat Clothing I was in charge of their image and logo, they're all specialized bamboo materials.
+CleanDreams is a super cute bedding line I did a little consulting with and designed some bedsheets.

Super fun eco party. News on "ecoloveco" soon. :)



ALSO my friend and I are starting an all organic company called HEART ORGANICS (of course! It has to have something to do with love or hearts! Haha.) and the first line is a baby line called "love,baby"...:) I'm working on a whole team of international cute animals with stories from each of their countries--which will be printed on little baby clothes, made into little, books, textiles, etc...but this project is going to go very slowly and sweetly, baby step at a time because we are both busy busy bee's and we're just doing it because we love organic stuff, cute things, and babies (she has two). But, my other friends with babies are jumping in with great ideas and I think if we all work together, HEART ORGANICS can be a huge hit. Why? BECAUSE we all do it with love. Always!

:)
Love, Christine

L'EPHANT JARDIN

Ahh! Yay! I made some major progress today with my website.
Well, I just put this splash page up, but I've been meaning to make it for years and years! Today I got a lot of compliments on my "2D3D" style. I've been doing it for a while and I love it so much. It's like my dioramas but, all 2D. I love the idea of allowing people better access to another world, to look at a picture and feel like they are there. I did this for David Labruyere's album: Farrago Dance Mix ( you can find it and me in Wikipedia too!) and for some other things, but, oh it would look so nice as a book, an animation, and I have whole landscapes planned out for possible gallery stuff as well! I can't wait to create more and more intricate worlds that people feel like they are peering into! Here is today's "2D3D" and some older work that fall into the same category. Enjoy! Love, Christine
P.S. So art usually reflects the artist and this is what I think it is saying: I am fat and happy elephant eating ice cream. Hahaha. Well, I have been eating a lot of sweets lately and feeling a lil' rotund. ;)




The above "Hands up Yeah Yeah" was published in the first Penny-Ante book ( where I had an interview and tons of art in it right in between Devendra Banhart and Daedelus. T'was neat. :)

This was the inspiration for David's album: Whisp of the Wheat Whipporwhills

PEUGEOT

Such a lovely day. Got a bike! An old Peugeot (frenchy french bike)! Walked around Italian marchee in Little Italy, went to the island and had a picnic, rode my bike around and took a million pictures, ate more super good food, cleaned, and worked on my gardens below. I think I'm going to do a detox tomorrow, it's like I've been on a french cruise or something: manger manger manger tout les temps!
Tres bien, tres bien, tres bien.
What this place does to my art: childlike nature and whimsical treats. I like it.
Love, Christine

JUPITER

Tonight was so perfect: the temperature, the moon, the the smells of flowers and dinner and cinnamon. I walked to the grocery store, made a new friend, walked home and decided I was going to stay outside the rest of the night. My sweet roomies had supper outside at this lil' restaurant on Mont-Royal and then jammed over to the Jupiter Room. Ahhhh! Simon and I went soul dancing for hours and hours and hours. I love love love love love it. I could dance forever to old soul: getting all sweaty, drinking water like nectar, big smiles, crazy moves, craziest moves and dramatic exits...haha. Also: I made up 2 new songs today! One is has a very pretty lullaby old sad soul feel- and the other is a blues jammaroo!

Below is something I painted I think in the winter when my hand was broken. I am probably the pig drinking tea. But, maybe I did this in the spring, reflecting on being a pig drinking tea. Either way, it's my new/old "la bonne idee" contribution: une doodle finally worked on tonight.

In a few hours I'm going to wake up early, make super yummy cookies for a picnic avec my roomies, meet up avec my french friend Ben and go to to the Italian market to get some fresh veggies and check it out, and then to the island for a picnic avec mes bonne roomies! What a package deal: a room, a garden, and wonderful friends. Ah, j'adore ma vie en Montreal maintenant , I wish it would stay summer forever so I don't have to leave. We'll see, we'll see, we'll see. It all depends on how much work I get done. So many things. So many many things.


Love love!
Christine