Vive la France!Charles-François Lebœuf, Eurydice Mourante

Pierre Legros, L'Automne

View of the cat at my feet, cafe on the Mediterranean.

View of Notre Dame from the banks of the Seine.

I've been a little absent from the interwebs of late, but for a very good reason: I just went on an amazing trip to France with my husband! A friend of ours currently has an address in the City of Lights and she and her boyfriend generously offered us an air-mattress, maps, milk & cookies and their company during our visit. Of course, when traveling things don't always go according to plan, which is part of the adventure. My husband and I had grand plans for doing lots of artwork on this trip. We packed sketchbooks, pencil cases, new watercolor moleskin pads, palettes and brushes. And...we barely used any of it! It was our first trip to Europe, and we definitely underestimated how tiring it would be.

After some delays (thanks, American Airlines!) we got to Paris, and got settled in at my friends' place (i.e. took up all the space in their studio apartment). We toured the city by boat ride on the Seine, saw the Eiffel Tower up close, went to the Louvre, spent a day at Versailles, wandered the Marais and visited Notre Dame over four days. Then we took a three hour train ride to Marseille, where we stayed at a little B & B on the outskirts of the city. We took it easy the first day there; then we went into the city and trekked up to the highest point (another Notre Dame) for a 360º view; the next day we hiked the calanques (large limestone fjord-like cliffs) and took a dip in the Mediterranean; then we trained it back to Paris. In Paris once again we went to the Musée d'Orsay, the Louvre a second time (to sketch, finally!), saw Les Halles, did some shopping, went to Montmartre and saw Sacre Couer, grabbed macarons at the oldest Ladurée, strolled the Marais again, had a picnic on the Seine, went to a British pub and saw a real, live French bar fight, all in another four days in Paris.

In conclusion, unseasoned travelers that we are, we had a lot to learn about traveling Europe, and learn we did! For example:

• every French girl owns at least one striped shirt and loves wearing it.
• everyone does walk around carrying baguettes.
• men do say "ooh-la-la" on the street.
• most Parisiennes do have an effortless sense of style...
• and even their graffiti is neat.
• an urban public transport system actually can run on time! (and now a big F-U to the MTA)
• yes, you actually do need to make reservations for dinner before your trip...every interesting restaurant is booked every night...
• however, standard brasseries and bistros may not be exciting, but they know how to cook food well.
• unsurprisingly, New York is considered very cool...
• surprisingly, comic books and super-heroes are, too.
• the French love terrible pop music.
• everyone is friendly and helpful, as long as you are polite, too...weird, huh?

Now, back to Brooklyn living, which really is pretty cool.

Zodiac Series

One of my next projects will be a series of Zodiac pin-ups, done as vignette-style paintings. I'm doing this project for a few reasons: I love drawing and painting sexy girls with a twist, I get a kick out of the Zodiac and horoscopes (maybe because, as any of my friends or family could tell you, I am *slightly* bull-headed and I just so happen to be a Taurus) and it requires research on animals, nature and fashion.

Sounds good until I start my next musician/band illustration...will it be Peaches, of Montreal, Die Antwoord...or perhaps something a little more classic, like Springsteen, Bowie or the Clash? I dunno, but in the meantime, check your horoscope!

The Dead Weather

I am happy to finally present my illustration of Jack White & Allison Mosshart, aka "Baby Ruthless" of the Dead Weather. This was a ton of fun to work on, since it was inspired by an awesome, hard-rocking band and two performers with tons of stage presence and charisma. I've had the pleasure of seeing the Dead Weather twice now, recently right in my backyard of Prospect Park, and they don't disappoint.

The Crucible

Recently (okay, over 6 months ago) I did a project for SparkNotes, which is kind of like the Cliff's Notes I remember, but more hip, and I was just informed that the project is now live on the website! SparkNotes is so hip, in fact, that they are now creating Video SparkNotes, to make studying "faster, prettier and sound-ier". I was asked to create illustrations for the Video SparkNote for Arthur Miller's classic play The Crucible. It was a lot of fun to work on, even if I had more than a thousand things going on at the time. I hope to work on more Video SparkNotes in the future– you know, to help the kids with the "book-learnin".

Check out the video here, and take a look at my 5 favorite pieces out of the 30 illustrations that I did below:

Sneak Peak! The Dead Weather

This piece has been a long time coming, but it got put on hold for a bit with summer traveling, etc. I've still got a little more to go, but I'm really psyched about this one so I thought I'd share a sneak peak with you. It's an illustration of Jack White and Allison Mosshart of the Dead Weather, who my husband and I have seen live twice, recently in Prospect Park. Rock 'n' Roll!

Leeloo

Wow! I haven't blogged in a while. That's pretty lame, but what isn't lame is randomly happening upon a decent movie on TV, especially when you only get 12 channels! I happened upon The Fifth Element on TV the other day and I was psyched. It's such a fun sci-fi/action movie, and it's really visually interesting. So of course, I had to draw Leeloo, the beautiful and kooky "perfect being" (played by Milla Jovovich) that Bruce Willis' character can't help but fall in love with.

The funny thing is, the movie did predict some future (albeit only about 10 years into the future) fashion trends, such as gold lame leggings, neon colors, and crop tops— all of which have been coming back into fashion to some degree lately...for better or worse.

Shop Your Closet! Special Guest Edition!It's another edition of "Shop Your Closet", and it's a special guest edition, featuring my buddy Anna. We recently got together for our friends Rob & Michelle's going away send-off, and I decided to wear an item I've never worn before, even though I've had it for a couple of years!

It's a super-cute Mexican dress that I got at, of all places, Disney World. It's bright red with white flower embroidery, but worn by itself it's a little but too "abuela" for going out to a hip bar, so I put one of my many American Apparel jersey scarves to use and wrapped it around my hips to add a little more shape to the dress. The bright turquoise scarf looked killer against the red and white of the dress. And I had the perfect necklace to match– a really cool turquoise resin "invisible" necklace my hubby Tom had gotten me as a Valentine's Day gift from the MoMA store. Add casual leather flip-flops and I was ready for margaritas outside.

My friend Anna works in the fashion industry, and she's always looking cute. That night was the first time I saw her new bleach-blond 'do, and it looked great with her cropped cut. I'm sure some details of her outfit are off, but from what I remember she had on a cute strapless maxi dress in an orangey-red with an off-white pattern. She wore a white crochet vest over the dress and a brown belt cinching the vest at the waist. The new 'do and the breezy summery outfit Anna had on were also perfect for drinking outside on a hot summer night, and saying farewell to good friends.

So if you have something in your closet you've never worn– get it on! You just might get a few compliments.

Wonder Woman!

Everyone's buzzing about the new Wonder Woman costume, but have to say, I'm not crazy about it. So here's my version of a Wonder Woman redesign. Okay, so this actually isn't much of a redesign, more like an adaptation or modernization of the current costume– which is how I feel it should be. Wonder Woman is an icon. Regardless of how "silly" or non-functional her costume is, she's been an icon for so long, I don't think it's possible to completely change her look and still have the same effect.

I think we have to keep the eagle/WW breastplate; it just fits so naturally and nicely over Diana's endowments! I think the star granny-panties do have to go, but I don't think pants are the answer, either; everyone wears pants...a superhero shouldn't look like every girl out there wearing leggings or skinny jeans– or heaven forbid– "jeggings". So, hot-shorts to the rescue! Low-cut and very short, in a dark navy. Add a white belt with a gold star belt buckle and you have some nice shapes and colors breaking up the form. And what powerful woman with strong, thick legs wouldn't look amazing in hot-shorts + over-the-knee boots? But just so they're not too ordinary, keep the red with white stripe color scheme. I see no need at all to change the bracelets– they are sweet. I did think the star tiara was a little on the silly side, but she is a princess, right? How about a call back to her regal Greek roots with a golden Grecian headband? Add a golden lasso and we're done!

Simple, I know, but when it comes to an icon, there's only so much we can do!

Roaring Vamps

So it's been a while since my last post (my bad!) but I'm coming back in style with a sketch of Pearl from the new Vertigo series American Vampire. So far it's a pretty cool story, with cowboy outlaws, Hollywood damsels, old-world Euro-trash and good amounts of bloody gore. Something for everyone! The art by Rafael Albuquerque is pretty awesome, as well.
I certainly love 1920's style (my wedding dress was by Jenny Packham :) so it was lots of fun to come up with an outfit for Pearl. I'm sure I'll be drawing more of her in the future.

Shop Your Closet!I love to shop for clothes (as long as it's not too crowded!) but since I need to save money for bigger and better things, I'm going to have to shop my closet for a while. Which is okay, because I have a lot of clothes I really do love. Above are a few sketches of my favorite outfits.

The left ensemble is an outfit I recently got from Uniqlo and I wore it out for my birthday this year. It was my first time at Uniqlo and I loved it! I got an awesome tribal printed tunic with ruched sides and semi-shiny black leggings with gold zippers at the ankle. I wore beautiful antique gold and black gem earrings by La Vie Parisienne and a chunky emerald green gem and gold chain necklace sold by Guru at the Brooklyn Flea. I used my grey coach wristlet (a gift from my sister-in-law) which is a great bag because it goes with everything I wear, practically. And maybe my favorite part of the whole outfit was my MaryRoks shoes by Jeffrey Campbell in grey suede! Love them!
The center outfit is a lot simpler, but super cute and comfy. The top is a really interesting ruffled bubble tank from Victoria's Secret (on sale, of course) and the bottom is a acid wash grey denim mini from Uniqlo. I love the contrast of the really feminine top with the slightly edgier skirt. The top is great too because it has a built in bra– ladies, you know you love that. I wore this with my Natural Comfort gold platform sandals I got a few years ago, and another great pair of antique gold earrings from La Vie Parisienne.
The right look is an outfit I got from Forever 21 a couple seasons back. I loved the top the minute I saw it because the stripes and colors really reminded me of the beach. I think it also reminds me of one of my mother's tops from when I was a kid. I also love the back because it has a V neck, which shows off the tattoo on my back, and a there's little sliver that shows a peak of the lower back, which is pretty hot. The shorts are standard dark denim bermudas, which are great because they're classic and I'm not really one for short-shorts (on me, anyway!). I usually wear white lattice-work style earrings with this outfit to complete the beachy look.