The Red Shoes


















I watched the 1948 film "The Red Shoes" recently for the second time. I had forgotten what a gorgeous, artist's film this is. The painted backgrounds, the costumes and makeup in the ballet production within the film are lush, drenched in color and so creative...and the DVD has an extra which features the many original paintings done by Hein Heckroth, which the ballet "The Red Shoes" was filmed to match--AMAZING stuff. Hard to believe this was done nearly 60 years ago!

Even if you're not a ballet fan (and I admit I'm not), go rent this and watch it. It's a little bit melodramatic by today's standards but I guarantee if you're an artist you'll appreciate the incredible creative work that went into this production. And young Moira Shearer is gorgeous with her flaming red hair, her lithe dancer's body and her eye-popping stage makeup. :)

I was inspired to do something depicting the unfortunate girl who cannot resist the red shoes...and is doomed to dance the rest of her life, unto death.


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Blobs!














This was a lot of fun--scribble some shapes with marker and then create faces...after seeing this on Mark McDonnel's and Patrick Kendall's fine blogs, I had to try it out!


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Illustration Friday: Sorry



















Sorry...as in, "Who's Sorry Now," one of 1950s songstress Connie Francis' big hits. Amazing hair, amazing voice...not sure I captured her smoky, smoldering attitude here but it was fun trying. Also—still trying to stay LOOSE, so let's just call this Loosen up! Part 3.


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Loosen up! Part 2



















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Hey — loosen up!


















I'm disappointed with my stuff lately, particularly that last one for Illustration Friday. Time to take some time to scribble and stop obsessing so much!

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Illustration Friday: Angels and Devils











I played around with this until I ran out of time—again. Another experiment that began as a pencil drawing and ended up in Photoshop. Feels like it needs more but I'm not sure what, so...I'm going to just move on. :)

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Illustration Friday: Fat


















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More than a week...


















...without an update—yikes. The days are flying by as we continue to navigate through a mine field of paperwork in preparation for moving at the end of the Summer (the paperwork comes from the fact that we are being forced by a nearby airport to move; they want all the properties on our street in order to expand. They can do this, legally, thanks to the law of eminent domain.)

Anyway, here's something I did a little while back; vector art from a sketch done of a Victoria's Secret model. I really enjoyed the process, so different from working in Photoshop; would like to do more vector art.