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Le Nope

December 30, 2014

I was just missing Paris. If I was a fashionable person I would probably like to live there. Being a lazy person and a bit of a shut in I probably wouldn’t fit in too well. Or maybe I’d change… no idea. I dig coffee quite a lot.

I like simplicity in art quite a lot, but it never seems to do as well with social media. I have’t quite figured out why that is. I swear some of the worst art pieces I’ve done do the best. It’s kinnnnnd of embarrassing. It’s weird something this simple takes so long, but trust me, it does. It takes forever to do something like this. By forever I mean about 2-3 hours… which is a surprising amount of time for that kind of simplicity. It’s not perfect, it’s not the most exciting thing ever, but that’s what you do as an arty person. You just keep going even when your work sucks, when it’s hard, when it’s ugly or when what is in your head doesn’t come out how you wanted. Keep on truckin.

-Trace

Last Mermaid of 2014

December 29, 2014

Woah, well well well, 2014 is ending. It was a lovely year full of friends, laughs, fun, parties, babies, weddings, love and of course a few scares. That’s life. I love every second, the good and the bad. I hope everyone had just as wonderful a year and you are ready for 2015!

This is the last Mermaid of 2014. Monday Merms comes to an end and I thought I’d just enjoy the simplicity of pastel colors and not a lot of painting.

Happy new year from The Chubby Mermaid!

-Tracey

Sassy Holiday Party Antics

December 23, 2014

I love rough brushes.

Anyway, with all the holiday parties going on right now I hope you have a little bit of fun too. ;)

 

Rainbow Maid

December 10, 2014

Here is a little tidbit totally unrelated to art… I am sooo sooo sneezy. I have no idea why, it’s allergy related I think, but I am not typically an allergy sufferer. As a side effect of allergies I am so sleepy I feel like I am going to fall out of my chair even after the aid of two cups of coffee and a reasonable amount of sleep last night. I just keep imagining a boneless me slithering out of my office chair into a blorpy pile of goo and giraffe sweater to be found by terrified janitorial staff.

Anyway, rainbow mermaid. Believe it or not this is MOSTLY chartpak marker. Then I scanned the little lady and added some details. Originally her head was turned away from the camera so all you saw was hair. It looked fine and all but, a better illustration with of more fun with her face in profile. I love the simplified forms of her face and it reads nice as a smaller icon.

AAAAHHHHHCHOOOO!

*sniff*

-Trace

Raised by Urchins and Stars

December 2, 2014

Though hugs are prickly and holding your breath can be tiresome, one really can get the whole meditation thing down.

Feral Kids number 5 is here and it’s cute! I just love painting these little things. I hope they’re appealing enough to others. I just love animals of all sorts. Sea life has always been such a mesmerizing thing to me. I could STILL spend an entire day at a tide pool (and have recently) just poking around discovering things in the water. I even saved a Humuhumunukunukuapua’a (the hawaiian state fish) from certain death that had been trapped in a shrinking pool of water when a wave tossed it out of the ocean. I have the video somewhere… that I can’t find. Oooofff course.

xoxo

-Trace

Jurassic World

November 25, 2014

One of my favorite and influential movies during my kidhood was Jurassic Park. Well, Jurassic Park and Back to the Future. Part of that was because both of these movies came with specials on how the movie was made. Both films made me want to go into entertainment, specifically making movies. Since we all know how that turned out it’s clear that perhaps the movie thing didn’t work out, but the entertainment part did. Just sittin’ over here… being part of the magic…

Now enters Jurassic World. It might be dumb; I mean why did they need to invent a new dinosaur? I may never know but despite odd story plots I am still excited. Who doesn’t love dinosaurs!? Here’s the trailer so you can decide for yourself.

In this drawing I combined my themepark expertise and know-how with genetic engineering of a new dinosaur. It’s a happy t-rex with a propensity for giving hugs and rides around the neighborhood. Don’t act like you wouldn’t line up for a t-rex ride. Look at her. She’s so happy about life.

 

xoxo

-Trace

Mermaid Sponge Garden

November 24, 2014

If you’re going to take a bath, take a colorful one. MondayMerms!

Raised by Sloths

November 21, 2014

Some kids are slow and lazy and poop once a week at the bottom of a tree.

This is way more fun than I anticipated. How weird can this get! How about raised by sea cucumbers?

Penny “The Hams”

November 20, 2014

Adam and I like to give our cats a lot of backstory. Penny is a wrestling champ in her extra-large weight class. We call her Penny “The Hams” Pennington. She mostly just sits on socked toes and inconveniently parks her bum in places that make us uncomfortable. She’s really sweet and doesn’t actually beat anyone up, but she’s so big she can just sit on something and win a match. She’s got big hams, that’s all there is to it. So here she is in a fetching Lucha Libre outfit.

Raised by Squirrels

November 20, 2014

Raised by squirrels! This is a WIP or work in progress for those not savvy with acronyms. It’s part of the Feral Kid book I’ve got big plans for. It takes me a little while to do these things in watercolor. Since I can really only do them after work and in between workouts the accumulated time I have to paint isn’t a whole lot. While I would like to do one a day it’s more like half a painting a day. So while this isn’t finished it’s close enough to show.