Lars and the Real Girl

I watched "Lars and the Real Girl" the other week: I give it five bazillion stars. It is kind and innocent, words that I'm hard pressed remembering ever having used to describe any other film, least likely one involving a life-sized doll. If you want to check out the trailer, meander over here.

And I'd meant this for last week's Illustration Friday (sweater) because Lars's sweaters are epic. But, time got away so I just finished tweaking it this morning. Better late than never, huh?

Illustration Friday - Layer

To get the ball rolling this snowy (sigh) Monday morning, I thought I'd take a shot at this week's Illustration Friday theme, "Layer." Pencil, watercolor and a bit of photoshop.

Girl Friday

Sketched this morning while eating an oatmeal cookie for breakfast, 'cause that's how I roll.

And if you haven't yet had the pleasure of listening to the delightfully retro-esque Fitz and The Tantrums, do yourself a favor and cue up a song or two. That and peppermint hot chocolate are helping me kick the winter doldrums to the curb. Ka-pow.

Tools of the Trade

Things I work with that I like a lot:

1) Eagle Drawing Pencils: These are old. Like, pre-dates my existence old. My maternal grandfather was a draftsman and over the years managed to accrue a whole lot of pencils, stencils, rulers and all other sorts of neat tools. I'm the lucky recipient of a lot of this - I really like the Eagle pencils in particular. I use the HB pencils mostly - they hold up well and make a nice line.

2) A kneaded eraser: Doesn't tear the paper, fits into small spaces and if you're stressed, I find shaping it into small monsters is kind of relaxing.

3) KUM Pencil sharpeners: Up until a year ago, I thought a pencil sharpener that didn't eat pencils was an urban legend. Boy, was I wrong. I picked up one of these little guys at the art store awhile back because (let's be honest) it was cheap. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be the Holy Grail of Pencil Sharpeners. Okay, maybe that's hyperbole, but pretty darn close.

In terms of purchasing art supplies, there's a lot of great catalogue options, but I'm a fan of the brick and mortar/buy local thing whenever possible. So, three cheers for Artist and Craftsman. They're throughout the country (Portland, representin') and between selection/price they are very, very awesome. I know I've waxed poetic about them before, but they are pretty great. It's sort of like the Shangri-La of art stuff.

And mix it all together and you get:

"Make a Little Birdhouse in Your Soul"

They Might Be Giants + Friday = Win-Win.

Tesseract

I hereby declare a moratorium on freezing rain and germs. All in favor of the motion, say aye.

To counter the aforementioned, I am drinking chamomile tea and re-reading "A Wrinkle In Time." I'm once again falling in love with the story and it's just as good as I remember. My sole quibble is that Calvin O'Keefe seems a bit too good to be true for a 14 year old boy, but I'll let that slide. And Camazotz? Still gives me chills.

So here's a Meg Murry sketch. And sorry for the recent lack of posts; things should start picking up again around here real soon-ish.

Illustration Friday - Surrender

Coming up for air to do a real quick Illustration Friday submission for this week's theme of "Surrender."

Also, if it snows one more inch I am personally going to stand outside with a White Flag, 'cause darn it Mother Nature, this is enough.