My Fuzzy Valentines

Hello Lovelies~

I hope all is well with you out there! As usual, I have a ton of things I'm excited to share. To start, I have finally finished my brand new, professional portfolio! It took a long time to decide on a site I liked (with nice, big pictures and a simple lay out), and then a lot of work getting the site loaded up, but I'm happy with how it came out. I'll be posting all my new work to it, so bookmark if you want to follow along. Check it out HERE.

(It was like this much work, only not as embarrassing...)

I did a shoot this past weekend I'm really, really excited about. I think it's going to be amazing once I'm done with it. I'll give you hint, it involved the following things:

Oh, and while we were in the studio playing around with all manner of glitter, confetti, streamers and party poppers to get what we needed, my Sweetie went nuts with the confetti and I made a GIF of it for all to enjoy:

I was browsing at my favorite local book shop over the weekend, the Green Hand Bookstore, when I came across an entire box of unused vintage Valentines! Some of them were flocked, some had glitter, all were adorable and they were only 50 cents apiece. Needless to say I got some for my friends for V-day and to share with you fine folks here.

I also found this Men's Adventure artwork book from Taschen (who else) and I have thoroughly enjoyed flipping through all that great artwork. I find it immensely inspiring as a lot of my work starts with vintage imagery like this.

And speaking of random vintage stuff, I saw this old toy on a blog recently that I just had to share with you guys. Have you ever heard of Gre-gorey the Bat? Not in all my vintage trawling have I ever seen such a toy. Made by Mattel around 1979, it was literally just a huge rubber bat with a transparent chest through which you can see its guts. I don't think it even did anything, but... I love it anyway. Take a look.

I love this family photo + Gre-gorey. Priceless.

And on that note, I'll leave you.

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...

Dark Playland...

Hello Lovelies~

I hope all is well out there in the world for you! Things here are busy as usual, but so much to share. First, I took a spin down to Old Orchard Beach to people watch and see the rides and to take some pictures. It's neat to live so close to such a big tourist attraction. A ton of vacationers from Quebec, Canada stay down there so it's chock full of craziness. Take a peek at my latest shots, more here.

I also turned some of those shots into my Welcome Swami gif. He reminds me of the Zoltar machine from Big. It's creepy, he kind of squeaks as he moves. It kind of looks like he'd climb down from there and eat small children and kittens at night to be honest. Regardless, he lives on my blog now and you may use him too. Enjoy!

Speaking of creepy, I recently read an article about Baron Georg Haas' dog collection at Castle Bitov. I say collection, because the 51 dogs are stuffed. You heard me. Apparently, Baron Haas was an animal lover who had his favorites taxidermied upon their deaths. The Baron has been dead for many years, but his dogs are still cared for and remain in pristine condition. They're the big attraction at Castle Bitov, in fact. That's taking eccentricity to a whole new level, folks.

And going to the other end of the scale, we have these adorable and highly styled kids, featured on the Marie Claire Italy site. The sets, the clothes, the children themselves? Amazing work here. I don't know how the photographer got them to look so mature (and plotting), but he did it in spades. The little girl in blue is my favorite.

Exciting new work coming next week, standby!

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...

Bright Lights, Dark Tees...

Hello Lovelies!

I hope you are all well. Boy howdy (I've always wanted to say that), do I have a lot to share with you Lovelies. First, you may have noticed that little skull animation over there to the right. Like it? It was my first foray into the world of GIF images. Thought I'd spice things up for you here on the blog.

Also, if you'll notice below that, a link to my first Threadless t-shirt submission entitled Chasing Pirates. I plan to do regular submissions to Threadless to bring some beautiful darkness to the masses (haha) and they will all be posted here if you want to score them. This tee is up for scoring all week, so hop on over and score it really quickly if you have a second. Thank you. Oh, and here are some process shots just for you followers:

What else? Oh! My Dark Playland piece was featured on the front page of Etsy, which is exciting! It's kind of a dark piece for Etsy, and it's great to see it up there. Coming up this week, I will be posting a new Cigar, Creeper & Dark shot (that's really creepy), as well as some new mini cards I'm excited about, so keep an eye out!

Are you all familiar with The Little Friends of Printmaking? I've posted about them here a few times. They are wonderful. The other day, I ordered their 2010 calendar because it was on sale, and any opportunity to get some letter press goodness, I'm there. Well, I got it, and it is wonderful! The artwork? The quality? Look at the imprint depth in these shots I took. I am now a huge fan!

I have found another wonderful design studio I wanted to share. I Love Dust is based out of the UK and even their flash intro is beautiful. I really like the way they mix the old with a new sense of aesthetic, oh, and those circus themed milk cartons? Sigh.

Until next time: unpleasant dreams...