It's arithmetic, baby, 123.

Spring is here! The "Your Body" Anatomy Show opened at Orange Glory this past Saturday. Since I haven't updated in quite awhile, there's quite a bit to catch up on!
Below, some sketchbooking. I had some projects that I was working on which included likenesses to the people involved, so some facial sketchbooking was in order. Cameron Diaz, anyone?

This is the last piece that I made for the Anatomy Show before I hung it up! Sadly, and happily, it has already sold.

I had the privilege of working with my first international band recently! Phly Boyz are a really fun group of guys, based out of France, who travel throughout Europe (and beyond) to play private parties. Their videos showcase the energy and charisma that the band encompasses! Below, the concept sketch:

The final illustration:

On the drawing board, currently, Mister Thom Yorke. This image is for a self-promotional mailer coming out this month with the launch of... CARLABARTOW.COM! It's almost finished, and I can't wait to get it out there and become one step more professional... and start marketing my illustrations to more music publications and record labels.

Another piece that went into the Anatomy Show, since I love skulls, and diver's helmets, and of course, flowers.

One of my best friends is moving to Florida and opening up a restaurant in the fall! I'm so proud to be working with them in this new venture in their lives.

I'll close out with two more anatomy drawings, arguably some of my favorites in the show. It's amazing to me, when working on a themed show, how different periods of working on the show take on their own sub-genres, and these two belong in a sub-genre of their own.

Please excuse me but I've got to ask, are you only being nice because you want something?

Right now, two musicians that I'm really into have some new music out. Not only is the new music good, the art for their albums is done by linocut artists like myself. First of all, Stanley Donwood has done Radiohead merch illustration for YEARS. His fold-out cover of The Eraser has been on my studio wall since the album came out, I just adore his work. Atoms for Peace's new album, Amok, features his illustrations in the packaging and in some of the music videos.

The second artist that has a new album out I first saw at SXSW at the Palm Door in 2010. I more recently saw her in Buffalo with the Punch Brothers. Anais Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer's "Child Ballads" came out less than a week ago, featuring the art of Peter Nevins. Nevins' earlier album cover that he illustrated for Anais, "Hadestown", was nominated for a Grammy for the album cover design! That's pretty swanky, if you ask me.

Speaking of album cover art, I created the back illustration for Liana Gabel's new album. The type will go under the umbrella for the track listings.

I also created an "evergreen" poster for Liana to tour with for this album.... kind of the fill in the blanks poster.

I got the Anatomy Show poster all finished up! The show is coming up on May 11. It's time to make flyers and get advertising that show.

I'm really excited to see old and new friends at this show in April at Abilene! Record Store Day is such a wonderful hipster holiday. I can't believe how much it has grown in the past few years. I played around with different color layerings in my final output of it... and I can't choose a favorite, I guess I'll let the client do that.

I don't mind you coming here, and wasting all my time.

Hello! Since my anatomy obsession started in September/October, I finally formulated a plan to have an art show of just my anatomy work. I've been working on the poster for about a week now, and I'm really excited with how it's coming along. The show will be in May, and I'm hoping that it can be a continuing themed show. Since I have different media and outlets, it feels really important for me to section out my work into separate shows.

I recently entered an online contest through Creative Allies to design this summer's Fleetwood Mac tour poster. I haven't entered any of their contests since I won the contest to go to SXSW in 2010. It seems like a million years ago now! Here's hoping I win, but if I don't, I have a sweet peacock now.

Here's a photo of the progress work that I did on the piece. I had a lot of fun drawing the tail feathers!

Speaking of progress work, I had an art opening at the Genesee Center for the Arts and Education this past Friday. I took some wonderful letterpress classes here in the printmaking studio, and I was honored to have a showcase of my poster work along with the original linoleum. If you ever wanted to try your hand at linoleum block printing, they hold classes in it!

This past week I learned that the poster that I did for the Kingsley Flood album release has some of the wrong bands on it, as the lineup was changed since I made the poster! Since I am having posters screenprinted to sell at the show, I had to think fast, so I bought a white acrylic marker to write the new bands on the poster. This is really embarrassing... lessons in poster making, I guess. I am looking forward to the show at the Bug Jar this week, regardless, and am so excited to work with the Kingsley Flood!

I've been really into the human face recently, and I remembered today that John Cleese had a great series on the human face a few years back on the BBC. So, I watched that in the studio today and drew John Cleese as my warmup drawing.

My face obsession started when I read this NPR article about people who cannot physically smile and the portraits taken of them by photographer Sage Sohier. There's a beauty to their faces that I can't describe, their eyes seem to hold more emotion than those of people who can smile.


Take care, everyone! It's almost springtime!

You are my lucky star, I saw you from afar.

Wow, I didn't realize that it had been over a month since I blogged last! 2013 has been wonderful and crazy all at once, and it's only just begun. I'll start off with my second linoleum block print of 2013, Mr. T-Rex bicycle commuter. What a cutie pie!

I got to take a trip in the beginning of the month to visit my brother in Brooklyn for his birthday. I got to attend my first gallery opening in Chelsea, How and Nosm at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery. These boys did a wonderful mural that I see almost daily here in Rochester! One thing I love about visiting NYC is taking the train, and buying magazines for my ride home. I always end up with fun photo reference, on the way home I ended up drawing Mr. Walken here:

My art store gave me some brush pens to play around with, and I did a little. I love fashion magazines with makeup advertisements, they're always so glamourous!

I was honored to take part in the Boys vs. Girls show at The Yards at the beginning of the month! It was my first time participating (with fourteen other lovely ladies) in a collaborative installation project. Late at night after cutting and gluing cardboard for hours, things don't always feel awesome, but when everything was finished and we cleaned up for the opening it was SPECTACULAR! Here's a shot of the nautical corner I worked on with a few others:

Here's a shot of an octopus I'm quite proud of and some of the paneling I did on the ship's exterior:

My piece for the show was a mermaid! It was really nice to have a break from my usual media to tap into other parts of my creativity.

SPEAKING OF NAUTICAL THINGS, I went down to Buffalo this past week and one of the stops was Righteous Babe Records!!! I got to pick up my tee shirts, including this jellyfish Ani logo one, and I got to finally take my Righteous Babe pose pic :D
I brought along one of my best friends, Melissa, who introduced me to Ani Difranco's music when we were both angsty teenage girls. We both got to tour the church where the offices are held, and one of my favorite things we saw in the offices was this Philip Burke painting. When I was in fine arts school, unsure of where I was headed, seeing Philip Burke's portrait work for Rolling Stone helped me make the decision to head into the field of illustration. This portrait of Ani was featured in the Rolling Stone table of contents page.

Here's some more anatomy illustrations based on my yoga practice! Your hips don't lie:

Proper posture is SO IMPORTANT to everything in life!

I'll close with one of my absolute favorite poses that makes me feel so strong when I do it! NAMASTE

There's always a siren singing you to shipwreck.

This January marked a special anniversary in my life! It has been exactly one year since I started my journey of my yoga practice, and I have to thank all of the lovely instructors and just the entire community at Tru Yoga. I entered my practice as a way to protect my body while training for my first century bike ride, and it quickly became a much broader part of my life. While chatting with one of my instructors about my anatomy and breakfast series, it became clear that the natural progression would be to take the anatomy drawings into a yoga notes series. Here are the first two for that series:

This poster was the first one of the year! While driving around during the holidays, I re-discovered my Kingsley Flood cds, and I decided to find out when I could see them next. Lo and behold, they are scheduled to play Rochester March 8. I quickly emailed the band, and they were super nice and said I could make a poster! I will be selling a limited edition screenprint of the poster at the show.

You can now see more of my process work on my FB Business Page. Next up: more mermaids and some dimensional stuff I have cooking!

A year in posters

It's the last day of 2012, so I figured it was time for the sentimental end-of-the-year post. Here we go. January: The poster that started everything, for Ms. Liana. Right now she's trying to fund her new album via kickstarter, you should support her because she's awesome.

February: Payton's Bug Jar show! What a wonderful year for Payton's band as well, such an evolution. They are now known as Paxtor.

March: My freaking favorite band in Rochester! This show was so much fun.

April: A celebration of the joy included in my yoga practice. AH!

May: A celebration of bikes. Also, I rode my first century this month.

June: Working toward an internship at the legendary Hatch Show Print. I didn't get the internship, but I did get this sweet poster! You can't win them all!

July: My very first show at the Owl House, and one of my favorite posters to date. The little diver is also tattooed on my right arm now.

August: My first trip to Portland for Pickathon; a bluegrass music festival on a farm. What happened after was this illustration for Brady Dillsworth.

September: My first month working for the Babes. You can purchase this tee shirt here.

October: Ani and Ruthie's Florida tour. Posters available here.

November: A celebration of autonomy. Tee shirt available here.

December: A poster definitely inspired by Pickathon as well. Big thanks to all the iterations of the Windsor Folk Family.

Here's to another year of posters! Cheers!