Cat girl

I lied. The Swamp Thing sketch wasn't my first superhero sketch -- this one of Cat Girl was! A quicky marker sketch for Brian during the comic con this past spring -- I believe he built up quite the collection of sketches!

New template!

I got sick of all the bugs with the original (pretty, earthy, fanciful) design, so hope y'all like this new look!

My swamp thing

I gave Alan Moore's Swamp Thing another try this past weekend, about 5 years after trying to read it the first time and simply not being able to get past the nauseatingly garish artwork! But I'm so glad I read it, and without getting too "I love Alan Moore" like every other non-comic-reading girl, this series is such a beautiful description of life and nature and how everything is connected because we're all made up of the same thing -- the radiant energy of life. It resonates completely with how I've been seeing life in the universe, and here's a hero that's, first of all super buff, but also totally depressed, but also green and earthy like the swamp itself. Who wouldn't fall in love with him?

Anyhoo, here is a sketch I did of my beloved Swamp Thing, with a few alterations from the series' beast, namely he has a kelp beard -- obviously! Also his lower half is all soft long grasses, his "ribs" are mud, and his hands and feet are wood, like tree roots. I love him with flowers and moss growing on him, and some leaves sprouting from his viney veins.

There you have it, my first comic super hero drawing. I also love Frankenstein.

Kid's bedroom as sanctuary

A new book just came out for kids that I illustrated, about decorating your own room... it's kinda nice, discusses colour concepts, layouts, tapping into your "uniqueness" -- stuff that I think would resonate with a 9-year-old!

Here are some of the illustrations for the book, called It's Your Room (...excuse my super cheezy bio if you go to this link, I don't know what I was thinking!) by Tundra Books.

Another year, another birthday

Yeah, we can either laugh or cry at relentlessly getting a year older every twelve months... or we could go with the flow, lay back and enjoy a good cubano!

I'm 32 for another week, and in this past year I think I learned a little something, something very liberating, and that is that most of the stuff I spend my time worrying about is really really really unimportant. No, really! It is finally sinking in that we're such tiny blips in all of existence through time and space, that a lot of stuff we fret about isn't really worth our sweat. Or the paid work we devote our waking hours to might not deserve our attention at all. I am simultaneously rejecting most of what is out there in our society, while really appreciating what there is. And being way more picky about what I choose to spend my energy on, and what I choose to worry about.

I think I'm going to be late a bit more often. And maybe I'll get a tattoo. : )

Fan mail

I've been teaching Saturday art classes to kids recently and got my first piece of fan mail ever! There's a little girl named Claudia in the class, and we have a routine greeting each Saturday: she says "Hola, Claudia!" and I say "Hola, Claudia!" At the end of the morning it's, "Chao, Claudia!", "Chao, Claudia!" The only thing sweeter is her drawing for me, of us. I think she meant to switch the "from" and "for" since she's the little girl...!