Happy holidays

"May your holidays be magical"

Hey guys and gals - figured I'd throw this year's card up here, and take the opportunity to say "happy holidays"... hope everyone has a busy, fun 2011!
Cheers,

-Amy

And We all Go Down Together.

I caught a quick glance of the "Sailor Jerry" show as it was going up... looks awesome. I wish I could be at the opening Friday!

Here's my piece. (I kept listening to "Mariner's Revenge Song" while I was working. I think it shows.)

Jack the Gentleman.

Late to the party as usual, I just cleaned up and resized the scan and figured I'd post it. Here's my piece for the "Hallowed Halloween" show. I'm so, so psyched about this show! Everyone's work looks so great!

I always loved the idea of the original Jack who carried the Devil's glowing ember around in a lantern (though I love pumpkins too much to not paint a pumpkin instead of a turnip), but over time, he turned into this Magritte / Sleepy Hollow abstract for me. As shown here. :)

Cheers!

Fonts to the Rescue!

I just heard about something pretty cool, and I figured I'd share.

SOTA : The Society of Typographic Aficionados, has joined up to create "Font Aid IV: Coming Together", a benefit font set to benefit the Haiti earthquake victims.

They've said it best:

The font consists entirely of ampersands, to represent the idea of people coming together to help one another. Type designers, graphic designers, and other artists from around the world contributed artwork to the font.

The font is being be sold for $20US and is available through font distributors Ascender Fonts, Veer, FontShop, and MyFonts. All proceeds from the sale of the font will go to Doctors Without Borders, to help with their relief efforts in Haiti.

The “Coming Together” font contains over 400 glyphs and is supplied as a single, cross-platform OpenType font. All glyphs are accessible using OpenType-savvy applications, Unicode-savvy utilities, the Character Map utility on Windows, and FontBook on Mac OS X.

I was psyched to see a lot of my favorite font-wizards involved, like Alejandro Paul.

There are a lot of phenomenal ampersands here, and if you were thinking of making a donation to Haiti and Doctors Without Borders, what a great way to do it.


Cheers!

When Things Don't Get Done.

Here's a sob story to make you all feel better about your productivity. :)

So, sometimes, even with your most frantic efforts, things just don't get done. I had signed up to be part of the Dia De Los Muertos show, and then a whole lot of work that took precedence (aka paying) and I never got to finish the painting to my satisfaction. My dear Day of the Dead piece got the shaft, and now sits, forlorn, in the corner of the studio. Someday, I might finish it.

In the mean time, I thought I might be able to ease a little of my frustration by at least showing it to you guys!

If You Offer It To The Dead, The Dead Will Take It.

Art for teh Kittehs!

Hey all - sorry in advance for the long post, but it's for a good cause. So, I'm not really sorry. ;)

When artists can contribute their services towards philanthropic or humane causes, it's really a win-win situation. The financial benefit goes to the cause, and artists get great exposure to a totally new cross-section of viewers.

So of course I feel fortunate to have the oppourtunity to make art for a good cause (if only all my work had such a good end in store!). West Philadelphia-based City Kitties is a non-profit no-kill animal hospital and foster-care organization dedicated to bettering the lives of the significant population of West Philly stray and feral cats, and it's having its Second Annual Art Show and Auction this Friday.

I was first introduced to City Kitties a few years ago through my good friend Mike and his friend , the also-contributing artist, talented photographer and super cat-philanthropist Kyle Cassidy. I was blown away by how much a few awesome women can do out of a house, from providing veterinary care for hundreds of cats (some literally healed from within inches of death) to organizing a network of foster homes and adoptions to loving homes. I'm super happy to have a way to donate my services to such a worthy cause. They're making a difference, and I want to help.

The details are below - if you're around and are looking for an awesome, unique night that you can be proud of having attended, please please please come - see some art, bid on something (the auctions start at incredibly low opening bids) - so snag something awesome for yourself or for a gift! What could be a cooler gift than one that benefits animals?

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(from their site)
2nd Annual City Kitties Art Show & Auction
Join us May 29th at Studio 34 for the 2nd Annual Art Show & Auction to Benefit City Kitties!


When: Friday, May 29, 6:30 - 10:00pm
Where: Studio 34 at 4522 Baltimore Avenue
How Much: $5 at the door (which goes towards any winning bid)

* Buy great art from talented artists
* Win fabulous raffle prizes
* Listen to great music
* Eat and drink with everybody who's anybody
* Support a great Philadelphia charity

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The piece I'm contributing is a small one, but it was super fun to paint. I had the idea of doing some sort of Francis of Assisi / St. Gertrude / "Patron Saint of Animals" thing, but I wanted it to be fun and light-hearted.

Introducing Mme. Gertrude Von Skeffington, Patron Saint of Stuffed Animals. She's got a whole story in my brain already. I know, goofy - but fun. The auction is for the original watercolor, approx. 8" x 10" framed in a simple black oval moulding.

Hopefully it fetches a few bucks for mah kitteh frendz.

Thank you so much for reading!

Take Our Hands.

Hey guys -
Here's my entry for the "Heart Earth" show - meant to post it before.
Dandelions are surprisingly fun to paint. The sketch for it is over at my blog.
Can't wait to see the rest of the show!

Woo, Last Minute Post!

Yeah, I didn't post this earlier. Freshly scanned.
Looking forward to seeing it all tonight / Friday -
everything looks sweet so far, guys!