"Cat & House" Interior Environment

Here's the finish for my "Cat & House" project's interior environment - just to give a sense of how I want the house to feel for them! They spend most of their time in the family room just sleeping, anyway. I wanted everything to feel bright and sunny!

All of the books are interpretations of real paperbacks and hardcovers found around my house - if you look really close, you can spot Memoirs of a Geisha! Enjoy!

XO Meg

"Requiem Mass" Update

Although I have recently received some great critique from my mentor, Lisa, I have updated my piece "Requiem Mass" and thought I'd share this version as well - although it will be changing as soon as I get a free moment to fix it up!

Enjoy!
XO Meg

"Death Of A Novelist"

Here are the full-page illustration and accompanying 1/4 page spot illustration that I did for Robert Gover's short story "One Novel's Tortured Sojourn through The Culture War and Copyright Legalities" (what a mouthful!). I enjoyed doing these because, for the first time in quite a while, I got to experiment doing an illustration free of people! It's been a while! I am pleased with where they ended up. I might tweak them a bit before handing them in Monday, but otherwise, I'd say they're pretty much where they'll stay! Enjoy!

XO Meg

and on to the next one...

Seems like there's no shortage of projects, eh? Now I'm working on another editorial piece for Heidi Younger's Illustration Workshop class. This one deals with copyright infringement and loss of work. I'm enjoying the simplicity of this one -- I don't usually do illustrations without figures/animals of some sort, so focusing on an object for once is a lot of fun! It was particularly difficult to obtain reference, have you ever tried to cut a shape out of a book before?! Utterly exhausting! (Sorry Dean Koontz...)

Here's the progress so far! It's actually about halfway there. I'll be sure to post again when it's all finished!

XO Meg

"Requiem Mass"

I finally finished up "Requiem Mass" for Andrew McCarthy's short story "Going Back In", featured in the National Geographic Adventure Aug/Sep 2009 issue. It was an editorial assignment given to my Mentor/Specialization class by our professor Richard Elmer. Done in Adobe Photoshop, and I'm quite pleased with the final result... I don't know if I've ever done such a really complete looking finish! I'm experimenting with digital finishes a lot lately and I'm very excited about this new direction I'm headed in.

The idea is that  the girl, Katy, has drowned and you are seeing the reactions of her peers reflected in the water. I wanted the focus to be on Katy and set the mood with a split-complementary color scheme. And now... back to work!

XO Meg

Dirty Drowning Man

Here's a sample shot of progress of my first finish of this semester for Richard Elmer's mentor/specialization class. We had to do an editorial piece from a story about camping and a girl who drowns and this dude's road to redemption. I drew a drowning girl and listened to a lot of Primus...

I'm doing this piece digitally, as it is now my fastest and most proficient form of color rendering. I'm really excited about where this is heading - I've decided to meld together flat shape and full render and linework. I want to maintain the freshness of my original drawings and still keep a strokey, brushy, painterly atmosphere. I'm stoked to see where this new direction leads me!! I'll post the full finish by Weds (because that's when it's due... heh, heh...)

XO Meg

Three Little Pigs

This was a simple sketchbook doodle of a pig's severed head that went 360 degrees in a split second... I decided it would be cool to do some sort of tribal-esque version of the three little pigs, plus a sexy wolf head lady. Okay, okay, I just wanted to draw severed pig heads and a wolf skull. Anyway here it is!

I actually LOVE where this ended up! I so seldom use ink anymore these days in my sketchbook, it brings me back to my sophomore year of school when I ONLY ever used ink! I had a lot of fun with this one, hope you guys enjoy!

XO Meg

Asphodel Meadows

Aside from my work on "Cat & House", here's a painting I did called "Asphodel Meadows". It's based on the Edgar Allen Poe short story "Eleonora". I'm a huge EAP fan, even did a report on him in the fifth grade (I was a messed up kid, I get it)... anyway, Asphodel Meadows is often a term used for the afterlife, reserved for people who led lives close to godliness. I use the term ironically here, as in Poe's "Eleonora", the main character falls in love with his younger cousin in their secluded meadow. I flip-flopped the role of the female and male cousin.

This was done in gouache and I'm pretty pleased with the final result! I was heavily influenced by some shows I went to see down at the Chelsea galleries in Manhattan, NYC. So many inspiring exhibitions down there!

XO Meg

Cat & House: Interior

Here's a preview of some more concept work on my current project, an interior layout design! I've really been enjoying playing around with photoshop and playing with color combinations and settings... I wanted this scene to focus on the idea of the cat toys and scratching post invading the living space. The birds as decoration are meant to further the idea that the human world of the owners is colliding with that of the cats, causing a lot of unexpected outcomes! I'm having a blast with this project and can't wait for it to unfold even more.

The books and birds have been SO much fun for me - I decided to base the birds on several driftwood-carved Jersey shore birds my mother has floating around the house. I'm just really excited about how this project is turning out! Keep looking for updates!

XO Meg

Cat & House: Re-do

I ended up re-doing one of my character paintings for my current project, I just wasn't happy with the way the earlier version ended up - it didn't capture the character well enough. So here's some sneak peaks of the re-hashed version!

I hope you guys are all enjoying the last dog days of summer... Or should I say cat days? ;)

XO Meg

Cat & House Preview: Jasper P. Kittens

I know I posted a sneak preview from "Cat & House", and here's another one! The second of my two main characters, a grumpy old man of a cat, Jasper P. Kittens (but don't ask what the 'P' stands for... you might not want to know!). I had an ultimate data malfunction that ended up working to my benefit, but here's a few progress shots. He's not 100% done and I'll be sure to upload the final product! Enjoy!

I'll be sure to post when he's all finished so you guys can see where he ended up!

XO Meg

"Cat & House" sneak preview

Here's a little sneak preview of a big project I'm working on! Photoshop painting for the first time in eons, but really enjoying myself. I've been so focused on my gouache painting thus far that it's fun to branch out again. Miles from being done, but I'll be finishing it up in Corel 11. I'll be sure to post the final product. In the meantime, you can look forward to some more concept sketches and small illo's. It's been a busy summer!

From Yesterday:

From Today:

I haven't decided yet how I feel about linework versus no linework, and I think I'm going to try and incorporate some sense of linework back into the piece. I'm enjoying trying to figure out what feels right!

Wow, it's so awkward to roll up on your blogspot after abandoning it for like forever. I'm basically going to be re-establishing this as a place to showcase works. Everything that once was on here however will be deleted at some point.

I'll upload works as I go about them. Unfortunately I had a data issue this past spring and my hard drive was compromised, and with it all of the digital archives (and a great amount of my body of work) of my artwork and all of the photography I've done thus far in my life. I learned a great and horrible lesson about proper file storage and respect of external hard drives! But unfortunately I am starting from scratch, which is both terrifying and completely liberating.

Thanks for hanging in there, ya'll! I'll be sure to attempt to keep this somewhat up to date.