Help me celebrate Le Poisson d'Avril!

This Sunday I'm leading an opening activity at Animamus Salon in the spirit of 

  Le Poisson d'Avril! (French April Fool's Day)

 

[All I'll say is it has to do with fish...wink wink nudge nudge]

 INFO:

Sunday April 1st

7-8:00 My activity!

8-11:00 Presentations!

@ The Schoolhouse: 330 Ellery Street (Bushwick, Brooklyn)

Cost: $10, Facebook Event

Presenters include Karla Carballar, Andy Cavatorta, TJ Hospodar, Jason Martin, Tessa Mauclere, Mihaeko, Kathryn Moise, Mariette Papic, Max Piersol, and Justin Orvis Steimer as well as a musical performance by The Push Pops.

My Strand Event!

Last weekend I had an event at THE STRAND!

I did a reading, shared the my new sample art from Will & Whit, and led a little workshop...

We did mirror self portraits, where we drew what we saw beneath the surface when we look in the mirror. (I drew myself as a lion.)

I might have had a small group, but they were so much fun! And that happens to be Kim Gordon from Sonic Youth there on the left. Which is pretty darn rad! Oh, New York...

My "Sad Produce" series is on Trip City!

Normally I illustrate my emotions through self portraits, but for once I thought I'd channel my metaphors through images of produce instead. Why? Well, the sad grape idea popped into my head first and it really made me laugh at myself, "Woe is me!" I figured that my issues and problems would feel less intimidating if they were expressed by, let's say, a cantaloupe.

Really, I see this as my first try at an "illustrated column" sort of format which I feel most naturally lends itself to my style of art.

CLICK HERE

TRIP CITY is a Brooklyn-filtered, multimedia, literary arts salon that launched in November. It's curated by my talented creative friends Dean Haspiel, Seth Kushner, Chris Miskiewicz, and Jeffrey Burandt and features lots of new fun content from folks like me every week. I feel really lucky to be featured on their site!

PRINTS

I've created a print featuring all the Sad Produce (without the captions), mostly because I wanted to hang it in my kitchen. But I've also made some extra prints if YOU wold like one, too!  It's signed and on 13x19 inch watercolor paper. It's $12 plus $4 for shipping in the US. (If I don't see you in person)

Artnership (Weeks 9 to11)

My ARTNERSHIP with Lauren Larken continues on, and I have been feeling SUPER inspired with the development of this curriculum! Puzzle pieces falling into place. Big things are happening. So stay tuned and enjoy this latest chunk of work!

Week 9:

Creative Exorcism

 Assignment: We’re all haunted or trapped by things we don’t want to. Creatively these can be doubts, fears, obstacles, so forth. Perform some sort of ritual or ceremony to rid yourself of these things you want to let go of.

This video runs you through my exorcisms, where I brought in guest artners Andrea Sparacio and Bishop 203!  (Andrea posted about her side of the experience--and her inner lion--in her blog HERE.) And here are the drawings we made as sacrifices to our creative spirit during our exorcism.

Week 10:

Secret Spirit

Assignment: Seek out images within images in your everyday life. An animal in a cloud, a face in a water stained wall, and so forth. Document this hidden spirit or use it as a springboard to create something new.

My hidden spirit was an eye looking back at me from my iced coffee...

So to make something new in response, I thought I'd switch the two "eyes" digitally. I've never played around in photoshop that particular way, and found it surprisingly fun. I find the result to be rather creepy yet amusing...

Week 11:

Makeover

Assignment: Select something that you think seems neglected, whether it's an object, place, or living entity. Give it some TLC and document the process, especially the before and after.

For my makeover I revamped a table I found on my curb on trash day a few weeks ago. Here is my process video and the before/ after pics! I have some chairs I found on the street last week, so now I feel inspired to repaint them sometime.

In our next project we'll be teaching each other how to do our craft, so that should be really fun!

To see my part Artner projects, go here & here. Then Larken's lovely projects are here.

If you're interested in becoming an Artner, please email me! lauraleegulledge@gmail.com

"Will & Whit" Samples

I'm please to announce I'm now working full throttle on my second YA graphic novel with Abrams Books...Will & Whit! I finally just signed the contract so it's official! My goal is to be done by Christmas, and it's slated for release in May 2013.

The look of Will & Whit...

As I'm editing my script and developing thumbnails, I thought I'd start playing with the look. I want it to have a different look than Page by Paige, since my new character's subconscious is expressed through her shadows rather than her illustrations. I know I want the panels to be rounded, to bring in some dry-brush texture, and use fewer ink washes than Page by Paige. So here are a few variations I'm tinkering with! Process pics...
 

Sample 1

Border: Black outside the border, with dry brush edge.

Linework: All dry brush-pen. Thin outlined fox shadows.

Shading: Darker digital shading.

Sample 2

Border: White outside the border.
Linework: All clean brush-pen lines.
Shading: Digital shading using some drybrush texture. (subtle)

Sample 3

Border: Black outside the border.
Brushwork: Combo of clean brush-pen & dry brush-pen lines. 
Shading: Lighter/less digital shading. Darker wolves shadow.

 

If you have an opinion, I'd love love love to hear what you think! 

lauraleegulledge@gmail.com 

***

Friendly reminder...
I have an event at The Strand this Saturday 3-4:00!  

I'll be doing a reading and leading a little workshop making Mirror Self Portraits. Please come by!

Bushcraft visits the Brooklyn Art Library

This month I led Bushcraft on a field trip to the  

Brooklyn Art Library! 

It's the permanent home of the Sketchbook Project, and you can sit there and flip through tons of artists' original sketchbooks! (You all know how much I adore sketchbooks) They're organized by city, theme, artist, and year.  And it's totally FREE!

 

  

Some of our group have already participated in The Sketchbook Project, like Diana Arge whose book from 2011 was there in the library...

 It was really fun to pick out and share our favorite sketchbooks with each other. It was interesting how some were very conceptual, some were not finished, some artists really altered the book itself, etc. It was QUITE inspiring. I'll just share a few...

After the library, we went next door to Radegast Biergarten where we played drawing games. 

(Look how focused we are!)

For this game, we all started with the word "Bushcraft" and then passed around our paper so everyone could each turn a letter of the word into something. We each chose the theme for our paper, so by the time it made it back to us we had a whole collaborative drawing! Here are some of them...

Then us late night kids played some rounds of drawing telephone, which was a drawing game I actually featured in "Page by Paige." (But this was more, ehem, adult themed!) Here are some highlights...

If you want to see ALL the pics from this month and previous months of Bushcraft adventures, click here.  And I recommend checking out Andrea Sparacio's blog post about this latest field trip...she has way better pics than me!

"Page by Paige" event at THE STRAND

*NEXT SATURDAY*

I'm having an event at legendary bookstore The Strand!

Family Hour Event

Saturday March 17th 3:00-4:00pm

The Strand Bookstore: 828 Broadway

Children's Department on the 2nd Floor

Event website

I'll do a reading followed by an activity: Mirror Self Portraits! Who do you REALLY see when you look in the mirror?  Perhaps you have a secret identity or you imagine yourself living out your dreams?  In this workshop, I'll help you reveal you true self by drawing on ACTUAL mirrors with wax pencils. No special artistic skills are necessary! Afterwards I'll be signing copies of Page By Paige.  Please stop by, it'll be fun! 

Animamus Art Salon

Last week I presented my work at the Animamus Art Salon!

I talked about my illustrations, graphic novels, and even shared some fun new drawings of Sad Produce I made the day before.  (More on those later!) Check out my awesome jacket--it's my Mom's from 1969! The world needs more green crushed velvet.

 

Thank you Ventiko for inviting me! This was a really great salon, I'll definitely be returning again. Definitely do something interactive next time.

 (Here are more pics from the event.) 

Other presentations included super cool micro-environments by Kim Holleman...

 

Live cooking with chef Jean Pierre Lauret...

Performance by writer/illustrator Min Ji...

And an interactive installation by Lutheran pastor Ben McKelahan, who I was especially excited to meet because his collaborative art pieces are in the same spirit as my ARTnership project with Lauren Larken!

 

(Black & white photos by Andrew Bridge.)

ARTner projects: V-day & Craving

We've moved passed the name Freckles and Art Sluts to ARTners now, sorry for any confusion! Yesterday we applied for a Creative Capital grant, so keep your fingers crossed...

ARTner Week 7: 
AVANT GARDE VALENTINE'S DAY

For this week I decided to use performance, creating live art on the spot as I made mad-lib valentines with lipstick and markers while donning a homemade cigarette girl tray. I would turn a guest's lipstick kiss into a drawing of something they loved. I walk thru it in the video here! It was at the HiChristina! event at The Oracle Club. Thanks Reid Harris Cooper for the video footage, Ventiko for photobooth pics, and my Dad for helping me build the tray out of an old drawer!

ARTner Week 8: 

SATISFY A CRAVING

This week I intended to write a poem about nachos but then things went in a different direction...involving trespassing! I'll just let the video explain... (Song by Lance Brenner)

Basically I ended up with two photographs as my finished product.
One is about looking out, and one about looking in...

Currently Reading: Aya written by Marguerite Abouet and illustrated by Clement Oubrerie