Gotye and Kimbra --- on CANVAS!

Yesterday I went to pick up the 20 x 25 canvas print of my Gotye and Kimbra illustration. Not only was it finished early, but the shop (Tropicolor) did a gorgeous job. When I unrolled it at the counter I literally danced. My apologies to the man finishing my order, I occasionally break into dance when supremely happy.

I'll sign it, re-roll it and then it ships out to California. Great timing too, as tomorrow is the Gotye concert here in Miami. Pretty excited, should be a good show :)

Lyrics in a sketchbook

Over the years I've learned that if I take my sketchbook too seriously - I won't sketch in it. Or, if I buy an expensive, beautiful book, I will always have trouble marring the pages. Took me 3+ moleskines to figure that out!*

For a sketchbook to function as a sketchbook for me, it's got to be cheap, small and preferably a bit dirty. Starting out with a less-than-beautiful book makes the act of filling it with quick sketches a far more sacred event. I'm making the ugly book beautiful, rather than making the beautiful book ugly.

If I start taking my sketchbook too seriously, (Symptoms; attempting to tear out offending pages, erasing too much, or noticing the desire to purchase another book and start over) I stop and write a bit instead. I fill a few pages with quotes, ideas, or random collections of text. Anything to take the focus off whatever images I added that I didn't particularly like.

This restores the balance for me a bit, and allows me to continue working in the book. The above paragraph is the lyrics to a Gotye song; Puzzle with a Piece Missing. It's an excellent song.
Adding this to my sketchbook took the pressure off some of the previous pages, and I can continue with my quick and dirty sketching.

*Note on Moleskines*
I love them, they are gorgeous books. But I can't sketch in them.
I use them for studies for paintings (especially the watercolor ones) or as list books. Anything that requires a bit more time and attention than sketching. My current sketchbook of choice is actually selfmade, with some help from this great youtube tutorial. --My books never look as good as hers though!--

What do you think? Any favorite books to sketch in?

Added Kimbra to the Gotye Painting

I've had Kimbra's 'Settle Down' on repeat all evening. I love it. The Barbie, Ken and Barbie v.2 motif is killer. I meant to paint both her and Gotye into the piece I did a few weeks ago - and finished adding her tonight.

Gotye painting on 0 hours of sleep...

In the process of staying awake all night (to hopefully jolt my body back into a normal sleep schedule for a weekend in Michigan) I stumbled across an excellent video by a very excellent musician. Gotye's "Someone I Used to Know" has been on repeat for the majority of the evening, night and early morning. My goal for the night/day was to finish a set of new transfer images - but after a few hours of his music and being so struck by the visuals in this video I decided I probably needed to try to paint it.

Now that I have done that, I should probably go chug gallons of coffee if I hope to stay awake until this evening. My body doesn't seem to stay awake as well as it did in college...