Gig and movie prints

Simple printed posters are high in my list of things I must do before the year is over. I’ve been drooling over some really nice pieces and thought I’d share with you.

First off:  DOUBLENAUT- Andrew & Matt McCracken

And then for some bad ass line art illustration, please meet: Tyler Stout:

And Rick Kelly:

And my most favorite of them all: ZOMBIE by Jeff Proctor, seriously one of the most talented illustrators I’ve seen.

I’m in love with every single aspect of this poster. I loved this movie – I mean come on, a zombie and a shark battle royale style?!? Best zombie movie ever AND best movie poster ever. The colors, the splatter, the foreground, the background, the layers, the lines, the smudged blood… *sigh*

These are all really awesome, yet totally different styles. I love each one and wish I had enough mulah to buy every last one and make a shrine in their honor (not really)…  But until then, I’ll drool and try to make some of my own.

Malus Health Organization

I’m pleased to announce that the newly designed Malus Health Organization (malushealth.org) is now up and running. Congrats and best of wishes to Dr. Tineke Malus and crew!

Stay tuned for business cards, letterhead and envelopes for Malus Health as well.

-MB

Vector illustration process

My husband, Brian, and I went camping for the 4th in Tillamook and I was able to snap this shot before it got too dark. You can see the light from the campfire in his left eye. I loved his expression and thought it’d be a great addition to my vector studies!

I really enjoyed doing this one. My timing was about 2 hours. All vector- Adobe Illustrator paintbrush and pen only. I used the skin-tones palate as well.

Step 1: Pen in lines

Step 2: Paintbrush with Wacom tablet & pen

Step 3: Create depth in eyes

Step 4: Lips & tone down skin

Step 5: Small paintbrush strokes for facial hair

Step 6: Tweak any odd shapes & finalize!

In other news: I updated my website and added different pages for my art- before it was all meshed into one page and now its separated into web, print, illustration and logo. www.manda-borealis.com

Hope all’s well in your neck of the woods!

xo

My Inspiration: Amanda Sage

I just started a logo project for a new client, whom is a naturopathic medicine student opening her own practice later this year.  I’m doing some Google Image searches for inspiration and stumbled across this artist and wanted to share them with you, her name is Amanda Sage.

I can’t take my eyes off her paintings. The girl is waaaaay talented. Hope you enjoy her portfolio as much as I do!

Newbs

Portland’s unemployment rate is currently at 11%. There are an estimated 334,265 unemployed people looking for work as of December 2009. Everytime I send a resume packet to some post on Craigslist, I either never get a reply or I get a “User listing has been cancelled” because they were flooded with too many resumes within hours of the posting. In that sense, the fish bowl metaphor definately applies to this, only it’s a goldfish bowl overfilling with piranhas.

Since the job market is so low and it’s so hard to find a job, let alone get an interview for a job, I’m amazed at the trouble my husband is having hiring people for his cafe. Woodz manages a local owned bakery/cafe specializing in Stumptown coffee and fresh baked breads, bagels and pastries of sorts. It’s a small company, not at all corporate and is basically a super chill job to say the least. And yet he’s had such a tough time finding and keeping good employees. He posts on Craiglist, gets hundreds of emails full of “I’m the best” and “hire me and you won’t regret it”. Then he sets up a handful of interviews, hires them on the spot and they start within 2 days. The amazing part is the newbies lame quality of profession and lack of interest in their new job. Out of the 6 employees he’s hired in the last 1/2 year, only 2 remain. One newb came in 2 hours late (the other opener was alone during the morning rush) and then he asked for a week off- all within only a week of having started the job. Another new-hire  failed to show up on her first day (Wednesday) and claimed she thought he said Thursday. Yikes… Another has taken 4 months to train (how hard is it to put cream cheese on a toasted bagel!?), and the last was fired within a couple months because of his anger issues~ he would get pissed off if the customer wouldn’t look him in the eye while they were ordering… (seriously?). He just hired 2 more people this week. The first gal that started today came in 5 minutes late with out saying a word about it (yes, he mentioned the fact that he had to fire the last guy because he came in late).  We’ll see what drama tomorrow’s newbie brings.

I really don’t understand these people. Here there’s such a “NO JOBS” scare going on and yet they get a job, and think they can sleep their way through it. It’s not rocket science… When I was looking for work, and got an interview~ I made sure to get there super early, check out the surroundings, research some good highlights about the company to mention in the interview, etc. Then if I was lucky enough to get the position, I started by coming in at least 5-10 minutes early and mosey around till they had me clock-in. Then I made sure to pay close attention to details in training and would try my best to ‘hit the ground running’. My husband is the same, and the other folk that have worked at his store for years are the same way as well.

So what gives with the new hires? Have they all gone emo and pretentious? They are too good to actually stay or TRY at their job?  It’s no wonder hiring employers ask for no less than 5 years experience!

Anyways, that’s just my piece of mind.

xo~mb

Mr. Happy Whale

carved rubber block

Stay tuned for cards and postcards!

These will be available for purchase from our Etsy store within the next month or so. Stay tuned!

xo

Squid girl: painting process

It’s been a while since I actually painted something that had meaning to me. One day I picked up my sketchbook and started drawing like a mad scientist. I wanted to draw in a way I’ve never been comfortable with. I always colored inside the lines, always was my erasers best friend. I worship the Ctrl-Z hotkeys to undo any and all flaws. So this time, I set the eraser down far away and just drew.

I love what flowed out my pencil! I’m now excited to say I have a painting series I have started and hope to finish by summer.

Meet  “Squid Girl”:

Squid Girl: Empress

I started out with this sketch, and went straight to a wooden board:

I actually drew her a little bigger than I intended, but I just went with it.

After this first layer I stopped and took a long breather. Took me a week or 2 to come back.

almost done!

She still has a couple more sittings. But I think she’s really coming together nicely!

New website is up and running!

Yay! My portfolio website is finally up and online!!

www.manda-borealis.com

Finally I can take a breather and go outside for a walk!

Baby shower invites: start to finish

Woodz’ friends’ wife is having a baby in April and we got to design and print their baby shower invites. She’s a fan of Owls *yay!* so it was no problem at all coming up with a super cute drawing. I actually sketched it out at work on a post-it note:

post-it sketch

I designed the full invite and set it 4up for Woodz to print down in the basement.

hanging to dry

After they were dry, it’s my turn again. I take them upstairs to my little art room and cut them all to size:

all cut up!

Next is the painting. Since we aren’t set up for 4 color screen printing, any color added to our work is hand-painted… I like the raw style of that, but it sure adds hours to the process. I painted all these little guys, thankfully there was only 20! I basically do it rally style, all the brown at once, all the blue at once, then green etc. That way it’s not so mechanical by the end.

how cute!

Next these suckers have to dry and then get our stamp of approval on the butt:

♥bird brain prints♥

After all ink is dry, I then pile them up and flatten them under a couple art history books and a pot full of heavy books (yes, Lord of the Rings was included). Then the next day they get to go to bed in their cute little envelopes:

Night night!

This is as far as we went with the invites. We packaged them up and gave them to the girls in charge for addressing and mailing.

Sorry for the blurry type in the photos, but I gotta respect a person’s privacy!

xo

Beginner block printing

my art table

The first print I did a whale, sky, circle bubbles and words…. This was a bad decision on my part. I should have started out nice and easy! I had to draw the letters backwards (so it’d print forwards) and that proved to be the trickiest part. The block was so hard I fudged a couple times and ended up cutting the last ‘r’ in Remember, and forgot to do a backwards ‘a’, so that print ended up being pretty bad:

1st try: on hard rubber mounted on wood blocks

Remember to breathe: oops!

Next try was with Owlie:

love the texture of these white softer rubber blocks

2nd try: Owlie

I like the little owl but I was disappointed the sky came out so blank. Try, try again!

xo