Liz Calvi

Hello!

Today I wanted to talk about my dear dear friend and incredible photographer Liz Calvi.

Liz and I have known each other for about 19 years, which is really wild considering we are both 22.

Anyway, Liz has basically photographed everything for me since I started talking my illustrations seriously and at this point I wouldn't trust anyone else with this task, not just because we are soul sisters, but also because this girl is seriously talented both technically and conceptually.

Here are some gorgeous photos she has shot of my books and such:

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I had been wanting to photograph the dollhouse that I made for my Secret Garden project because I only had shots of the individual rooms and no photos of the entire house. Liz suggested that we try to find a Victorian house to shoot the dollhouse in. I contacted a few houses in the Hartford, CT area (my dollhouse currently lived with my parents in CT) and eventually got a reply from the lovely Jacques Lamarre at the Mark Twain House. Liz and I toured the house and knew instantly that the Victorian charm would be the perfect companion to my dollhouse.

AND we got to shoot there this past Sunday!! It was ridiculous, and beautiful, and so inspiring and surreal to be in this house when I spent so long crafting Victorian miniatures last year.

Liz is currently working on editing the photos but I cannot wait to share them, so as a little prelude to that I wanted to post some of Liz's work, that she has done for me and otherwise.

Besides doing a variety of commercial freelance projects she also does beautiful fine art work, AND she makes jewelry:

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Be sure to check out her website & blog

Plugged

The past week or so I have been working on a really interesting project for a short film called Plugged.

"PLUGGED is a short film written by Dea Jenkins (BFA, Digital Filmmaking, The Art Institute of Houston), based on the true events of a life-altering incident in New York City. The focus of the story, set in a ballet studio, concerns the adults in a young girl’s life who were either unable or unwilling to assist the girl following this traumatic moment."

I created 6 illustrations that will be displayed (and for sale) at a fundraiser for the film this Saturday at:

Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance, 55 Bethune St, NYC

From 6:30-8pm

Although I didn't have as much time as I would've liked, I am happy with the simplicity of the pieces, and the gritty aspect that was an important characteristic and something I haven't really explored.

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I hope you can all attend the event, be sure to check out the facebook page!

February Birthdays

A few weeks ago I was discussing with one of my best friends Liz about how there are so many birthdays in February, and we named off quite a few mutual friends.

So although I made this quick birthday sign for my girlfriend (whose birthday is Saturday) it can be for any of you out there who have just celebrated or are about to celebrate a Feb birthday!

happy birthday

PS: I have a few very exciting projects coming up. I have also just discovered Neil Gaimans twitter illustration project, and if you did not know this before I LOVE NEIL GAIMAN and it has been a recent dream of mine to illustrate for him, so I cannot wait to participate.

Vicky Healy

In honor of valentines day, and also because I have been annoyingly busy with 9-5 work, I wanted to post about Vicky Healy.

Her work is completely surreal and whimsical but also has a fun playfulness that I feel is so rare in art today.

It is sort of like an escape to another world.

Here are a few of my favorites, and be sure to take a look at her website:

www.vickyhealy.com

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swimming

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last photo by Liz Calvi

Creatures 2 (just about) finished

deer

So the first piece of Creatures is finally complete. Although this is part of the series, I wanted to create something for Jenny Nieh's birthday and I knew that she was really liking these new animals, and I also knew she loved deer, so this seemed perfect. I gave her the piece on Saturday.

Upon seeing my buffalo piece a few weeks ago (and a boar before that which I will probably be posting about on Thursday) Jenny had a great idea about displaying these pieces, to put them in between 2 pieces of glass (or plastic) so it would be completely clear, and there would be no paper or backing distracting from the actual animals. I had bought 2 clip frames, to use the glass panels but it didn't work out and I am still looking to solve this problem if anyone out there has any suggestions?