New: Cutie Mayo Mini Painting

I've been working on more mini paintings for the shop lately. It's a great exercise to keep me constantly making new work. They're also super affordable (typically $30–40) so anyone can own at original.

Now available in the shop!

New Bunny Dumpling Print

Sometimes when I get stuck on what I should paint, I revisit old ideas. I thought about how popular my dumpling pieces for Grumpy Bert's Red Envelope Show were and decided to do a different version of them. The pieces from the show sold and no prints will be made from them, so I thought this newer variation would be great for anyone who wants to own a similar piece.

Now available in the shop!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I've kinda been obsessed with mice lately. I've been putting the little guys in almost every one of my drawings. I think a lot of has to do with feeling small. So, often times, I'll depict the mouse being helpful or kind to others. I think even the smallest acts of kindness can make a huge difference in someone's day. 

So here's a little mouse bringing his lion friend a little luck, because we can all use a little luck sometimes.

 Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hey Ladies Preview

Here's a sneak peek at one of my new pieces for Co-LAb Gallery's one-year anniversary show, Hey Ladies. The show opens next Saturday, February 27th 7–10pm. So if you're in the LA area, stop by!

I also plan on giving this blog a little bit of a long-overdue makeover. It's time for a new look.

Panda Weekend Reading

I've been working on a few small & affordable original paintings. Here's a panda reading a book on gymnastics. Now available in the shop!

New Things & Do-Overs

One of the things that has been on my to-do list for a while has been re-doing my Hello Hotcakes card. It was one of my favorite cards in my shop but I wasn’t happy with the image quality. I learned very quickly that colored pencil doesn’t really scan all that well. As you can see below…

During its run, it sold pretty well. I mean, what’s not to like? It’s pancakes and butter and syrup and butter. But the biggest reason I wanted to redo it is: my work doesn’t look like that anymore. This card is almost two years old, and my work has evolved since then. So I’ve been wanting to give it a facelift so that it would fit with the rest of my work.

One of my serious goals for 2016 is to get more comfortable with digital drawing/painting. Yeah, my degree is in graphic design but I’m mostly skilled in typegraphy, vectors, and shit. Stuff like this was considered too “fine art” or “illustration” to be taught in the department. As if having a wide range of skills was a bad thing. And due to state budget cuts, I was restricted to staying within my major’s curriculum. (That’s the shitty thing about going to state universities, but I could never afford to go to a place like Art Center. But that’s a story is for another day.)

Here’s tonight’s progress with the messy sketch layer turned on so you can kinda see what it’s supposed to look like.

Hand-lettering the final version of “Hello Hotcakes!” isn’t going to happen until near the end. And here’s what it looks like with the sketch layer turned off…

I still have quite a bit of work to do on it, including the final lettering and final line drawing that will give it structure.

Skip Love Skip-it!

Here's a sneak peek of my piece for Wonderland Art for Animals opening July 18th at Leanna Lin's Wonderland. All net proceeds from the event will be donated to the North Central Animal Shelter.

Sneaker Sleep

This little guy was added to the shop this week.

Lucky Cat

I added this Lucky Cat mini painting to the shop yesterday and it was snatched up within 15 minutes. I'll be working on plenty more mini paintings for the shop, so keep an eye out! Also, follow along on Instagram if you want to know when new pieces are added.

Sale Item of the Week: Purrito Print

This week only, the Purrito Print is on sale! Originally $12, you can get it this week for $8. Head over to the shop!

Happy Easter!

Hello There, Tangerine Cat

I just added this little guy to the shop. He's a quick little painting I did earlier this week. I have a couple more things I've working on this week, one of which is an Easter special; you'll just have to wait and see.

I'm also having a Spring Cleaning Sale in the shop! Get 25% Off all orders with code: SPRING2015 now until Monday. I'm looking to cut down some of my greeting card inventory to make room for more prints.

Hot Tub

It's been really hot in LA. In case you haven't heard, we're in a horrible drought! Spring is here and it feels like Summer! The weather has been in the 90s for the past week or so and it sucks. The heat has been influencing my work. Here's a little piece I worked on this week.

Egg Camp

This is probably the weirdest thing I've painted to date, but sometimes it's good to get this kind of stuff out of your system.

Happy Pi(e) Day!

My all-time favorite pie is chocolate cream. It's a classic that's essentially just chocolate pudding and whipped cream with crust. But even better is eating a slice of chocolate cream and banana cream together. YUM! Wishing everyone an awesome Pi(e) Day! Now go get yourself some pie!

Hawaiian Vacation

I'm finally back to working on some new stuff and I'm pretty excited! Here's a little mouse guy I painted tonight. I wish I could just chill out all day just like him.

Lil Bub

Back in September, I did this little watercolor painting of Lil Bub for the LA Feline Film Festival. It's still available in my shop!

Yiynova Test Drive

Kevin's co-worker recently bought himself a Wacom Cintiq Companion so he let us borrow his 19in Yiynova. For those of you who haven’t heard of it, Yiynova is one of the most popular alternatives to a Wacom Cintiq (drawing tablet monitor). It costs a fraction of the price at just under $600 vs. $1800 for a Cintiq. I did this quick little doodle of my cat, and I like it so far. I’m just too used to drawing on the actual surface of whatever I’m working on, so I’ve struggled with using an Intuos. I think having one of these could definitely improve my workflow too. Now I just have to save up some money for one!

Practice, Practice, Practice

This week, I've been focusing on getting better at painting in Photoshop. I have a degree in graphic design, but I mostly worked with making illustrations out of shapes…never actually painting freehand digitally. I've been wanting to get better at painting digitally for a while. The biggest hurdle for me has mostly been getting used to drawing with a Wacom tablet. My hands haven't quite gotten used to the sorta disconnect that comes with trying to coordinate what your hands are doing on with tablet with what's happening on the screen. But this is on my list of goals for 2015 and I'm determined to get better at it. I believe that if I can nail this, my workflow would be so much more efficient and the actual work may even get better. So here are a few things I doodled from the past couple of days.

Weekly Want: Tiger Scarf by Leah Goren

A little over two weeks ago, Leah Goren announced her new Fall/Winter 2014 scarf collection and it's absolutely gorgeous! There's six different beautifully illustrated scarves to choose from, so there's bound to be one for everyone! Of course, being a tiger lover, I naturally want the Tiger Scarf.

image from Leah Goren

The entire collection is currently available for pre-order (with early September delivery) in her shop.