Happy Holidays CD Cover

Another Christmas themed post today,  the cover for my annual Christmas cd.

Stardust Skating Academy's Holiday Extravaganza

A little something I threw together last week for a program I was creating for a holiday skating show happening this weekend in Sarasota.  Check out the event here https://www.facebook.com/events/129904890453678/.  Tickets for the show are $10 in advance and $12 at the door.

My Gatorama Adventure

Since moving back to Florida one of my goals has been to visit more vintage roadside attractions.  This past Thursday, partially due to my boyfriend Nick's obsession with gators, we made a trip to Palmdale, Florida to visit Gatorama.  It was everything I expected it to be and more. As Thursdays are clearly not a busy day, we were the only visitors which afforded us plenty of time to view the reptiles and other animals without interuption or distraction.  We then watched a feeding of the gators and got to hold one as well. Nick was practically giddy with joy.  It was all incredibly fun and felt good to help support these increasingly rare vintage attractions.

My new best friend and I.

While nick loves gators and would like to wrestle one, he's scared of getting his eyes pecked out by a bird and wouldn't get any closer to one than this.

Lunch time!

Basking in the sun.

This guy is much larger than he appears and came out of the water and right up to see us.

Rambling

Not been so "Daily" has it.  As if going from unemployed to full time wasn't enough of a time sucker, I have become even more addicted to social media lately and have thrown myself head first into the shark infested waters of the dating world in a way that I never have in my life.  So far I've met a couple of really nice people.  This in addition to my regular circle of friends, ones visiting from out of state, and upcoming holiday extravaganzas has made it virtually impossible to create anything new to post.  Anyway, enough excuses.  I am really enjoying my life.  Sooner or later this new found social adventurism will subside and other activities will resume.  I do still have stuff to post I just need to be better at getting it scanned and uploaded.

Hippychick

One of a number of drawings done years ago with a friend while listening to music.  This one was quickly sketched while listening to the Soho song "Hippychick".

EPCOT's Italy

Another rough/unfinished drawing from who-knows-when of the Italy pavilion at EPCOT.

Yikes

Time has gotten away from me.  I have certainly not had time to create any new art recently but it's been hard to even seek out, scan, and post old art as well.  I'm just not used to having to juggle a job in with my social life and online presence.  At work we are racing towards a theme park grand opening and things have been particularly frantic the last couple of weeks.  Soon it will all be over and hopefully I can fall back into some sort of regular routine.  I've spent the last couple of days trying to get some posts ready on my other blogs and if all goes well, perhaps I can get some ready for this one tomorrow as well.

Meanwhile the busy holiday social season has begun with Halloween festivities and there will only be a short hiatus before the Christmas parties begin.  Perhaps some holiday themed art is in order.  Things to think about whenever there's a spare second to do so.

A Night At DV8 Volumes Forty-five & Forty-six

The photo quality of all the original elements of this cover were not very good which led to an overall fuzziness in the finished product.

I do like how this one turned out with the halo surronding the model as his front side is lit by the silver rays of the disco ball.

Patterned Block

This began as a photo of a concrete patterned block wall.  I cropped that down to a single block and then did some digital alterations.  Then copied and created a new block wall which may look familiar as the background for this blog.

A Night At DV8 Volumes Forty-three & Forty-four

Volume forty-four is more exposed than I had ever noticed.  Don't scroll down if you might be offended.

A Night At DV8 Volumes Forty-one & Forty-two

Funny that I never noticed until now how similar these poses are.

Agatha Christie Book Covers

These were created for a project on Agatha Christie for English class in 1991 and are covers for some of her book titles.

A Night At DV8 Volumes Thirty-nine & Forty

Lotta Balls In The Air

A perfect photo for the way I'm feeling at the moment.  No time for art and barely time for posting.  Having a job interfers with life.

Groucho Mouse

A little doodle from I have no idea when of Mickey Mouse as Groucho Marx.

Parking Tram Minnie

Here she is, sporting her skort and reminding you that you're parked in Goofy row 46.  One of several parking themed drawings I did in the years I worked in the parking lot at the Disney-MGM Studios.  It may be noted that Minnie is not wearing her usual bow because it was not approved wardrobe for a parking lot hostess.

Jodie Foster

Maleficent

I've got two versions of this which I drew back in 1993.  Prior to these drawings I had traced a lot of Disney characters but only drawn a few and none of those were as difficult as this one so I was very happy at the time I completed this.  The first is just pencil and the second is color done with Prismacolor pencils.

Perhaps I should have done the flames on this version as well.

A Night At DV8 Volumes Thirty-seven & Thirty-eight

Not the best cut-out job on this one (though it's not as noticable in the printed version).  Always room for improvement.  I believe this is one of my Mannequins photo backgrounds.

Grace Kelly

Erica Of The Lamp

Rub rub, get your three wishes ready.  It's the Erica of the lamp.

Madonna

Escape

From a Calvin Klein Escape fragrance adverstisement.

A Night At DV8 Volumes Thirty-five & Thirty-six

I'm not sure if the background for volume 35 is a photo of Mannequins but volume 36 certainly is.

Live and learn.  If I was to recreate this cover today I would change the tint of the model to better reflect the lighting in the background.

Kiss The Cook

Kristen whips up a delicious dinner and always looks stylish while doing so in her blue and white apron.

Pat Benatar

Barbara & Matt

A couple of drawings today based on photos from a 1992 photo shoot.  The models are Barbara and Matt.

Wonders Of Life

This little doodle of the Wonders of Life pavilion at EPCOT is from 1994.

Sigourney Weaver

Based on a 1997 portrait of Sigourney in an article on the film "The Ice Storm".

A Night At DV8 Volumes Thirty-three & Thirty-four

This is the beginning of a different kind of cd cover.  The hand drawn days are over.  I'm skipping volumes 31 and 32 as they are just simple photographs with text layered over the top.  The remaining DV8 covers are all photo montages.  None of the models on the remaining covers are my photos but some of the backgrounds are.  Many of the backgrounds are actual photographs of the lighting inside Mannequin's Dance Palace.  This is where the covers can also occasionally be a little more risque.  Also, as the original digital files for many of these covers have vanished I had to scan the physical covers resulting in diminished quality.

Volume 33 features an actual Mannequins background.  The cutout job on the model was not so great on this one as there is some white edge showing.

Volume 34 is not a Mannequins background.

The Hollywood Brown Derby

I think I drew this in 1995 while I worked at Walt Disney World and it was originally intended to be used as a poster for a cast member initiative.  I had done several Studios themed drawings and then the blank space was used for information on meetings and such (this has been cropped removing the blank space).

Roommates

From 1996, this picture of three roommates out on a cool winter's eve.

Brian, Kristen, and Al.

A Night At DV8 Volumes Twenty-nine & Thirty

I think I originally intended for Volume 30 (whose completion coincided with my 30th birthday) to be the end of this series of cds and so it was a double disc set with some of my favorite songs from the other 29 volumes.  Later I decided to continue the series and used Volume 31 as a starting point for switching from hand drawn covers to photo manipulated covers.  I believe Volume 30 was also the debut of my logo (strategically located on the front cover).

Original Frontierland Train Station

Demolished when Splash Mountain was constructed, I drew this in 1994 in its memory.