Agh! It's been eleven days since my last post!!

How can this be? Well, you know Christmas was here and like a good little procrastinator I waited till the last possible moment to do my Christmas shopping and work on my hand made gifts. Okay so only a few people got the handmade stuff, but I've been busy :)

Anyway...just wanted to show my latest ATC (Artist Trading Card) swap. One of my moly exchange buddies and I did a private swap...I asked her to add to my very small Alice in Wonderland collection (you know, my collection of one whole card, LOL) and she asked me for animal card...preferably owls, she asked. It's funny how many people like owls lately...well maybe they've always liked them, how am I to know?

So here it is my Hooty Owl for Elvia.

And the game continues to move forward...

Hello all! With the Holiday season upon us, I just wanted to show some of the progress on the Ugly Baby Studios game project I've been helping with. If you follow my blog, you may remember me mentioning my work for UBS before, here. Up to this point, most of my contributions have been in the pre-planning or concept stages. Character sketches, mostly. It's definitely one of those projects or assignments that I would consider a challenge. It's not my normal style or process, so the challenge has been a fun one. I thought I would take this time to show you one of the background paintings I've just finished for one of the XNA game's levels. XNA being the programming framework that these guys use to get the job done. That's the limit of my knowledge on that, so no questions, please, hee hee.

This was all done on the computer....ahhh, so nice to paint digitally. No clean up afterwords, lol.

Sketchbooks

Sketchbooks are supposed to be an artists tool, are they not? For as long as I can remember, I've found sketchbooks so appealing. Especially the process of picking out a new one. The filling up of said sketchbook is another story completely. I've never been good about doing daily sketches or setting aside time for the sole purpose of doodling or drawing. Sad but true. I should be fired as an artist. Wait...don't you have to get hired as an artist first?? Whatever!

Anywhoo...this last year, with J (also sometimes referred to as The Boyfriend on this here blog), I managed to fill one up. Why do I put it like that? In those terms?? Because I truly believe that this man spurs my creativity. In my whole life, all twenty nine years of it, I have never once filled an entire sketchbook. Not even during my semesters at art school. Not once...in fact if I go look through most of them I can guarantee you that none of them made it past the first twenty or so pages. It was a wonderful surprise and complete shock to me the other day, when I came across the fact that my sketchbook is almost completely filled up. How did this happen? Did I really draw that much in this past year? The answer is yes! And that's not including any of the many drawings I've done for the molies or the extra side projects I constantly have going...it's just sketching...so there you have it. One totally boring blog about the fact that I filled up a sketchbook, LOL. I could leave it at that but since I rambled on and on, I figure you deserve a treat...here's a peek at one of those sketchbook pages.

More monsters...

Monsters, monsters, there are always monsters. I'm not sure what it is about monsters and little kids, but I love to draw them. I think part of what makes drawing monsters so fun for me, is taking something that is supposed to be ugly or scary and giving it a personality or making it endearing to the viewer. Anywoo... these are the monsters I managed to come up with last week. Notice the lavender guy's grill?? Diamond crusted, LOL, I'm sorry I couldn't help myself.

I now consider myself a member of Tiny Art...

So....a few months back, one of my online exchange buddies introduced me to ATC's (Artist Trading Cards). Not knowing anything about them, I signed up with a small group of very nice artists and was totally flabbergasted by the artwork they put forth on these itty bitty cards. They are literally trading card size, so 2.5 by 3.5 inches and yet some of them are detailed to the point of being ridiculous. With all the molie exchanges I had going on, I didn't feel right getting in on the ATC's because I wasn't sure how long it would take to get the back to the artist, but I did accept an invitation for a private swap. One of the members asked if I'd design a raccoon themed card for her, apparently she's accumulated quite a few and wanted me to add to it. So I did. And here it is...I think he's adorable myself...Hope she finds him as cute as I do...My little raccoon robber....hee hee.

Molie Update, Part One.

So clearly I am infatuated with the moly exchanges. They've almost become "the other man" at home, I'm kidding, the boyfriend gets a kick out of them too. Plus he feeds my ego every time a new one comes and says, "yours is much better than that," AWWWW.

Anywhoo, my friends and coworkers are all quite familiar with my little projects. They ask about them, love to see them when they arrive, it's great. I must say, however, I'm probably the most impatient of all, wanting to know where my books are, you know like every other day?? As if it can bounce all over the world in a matter of nights. It's not hitching a ride on Santa's sleigh, hell, I know that...but I just want them all back and filled up because it so much fun to see how they're evolving. So I'll do a break down of each one, so you can see the progress...this early in the game, some may only have one or two entries, but at least you'll get a chance to see how they started if you missed my earlier posts.

My first exchange....was Monsters! Since it was my first attempt at the exchanges I was a bit nervous and ended up flubbing up on this...this isn't the final version...if you look closely you can see where I painted over one of the monsters.

and this is Katya's entry following mine...as you can see I have some dark swirlies leaking over on to her pages :) Right now it's on it's way to the east cost for more monsters.

The Wonderland Exchange. This was the exchange that I got to choose the topic...Wonderland has been on my mind a lot lately...and I've alwyas really liked the story....so there you have it.

above are my intro pages....just a little extra wonderland for everyone to see.

and of course my opening pages...looking at them now I should have done more to fill up my book, but I can always add more on later towards the end if there is still space left over. Below is Rose's entry in my book...I just love that little slouch...I couldn't be more pleased.

Rose's Moly

So Rose's moly is officially on it's way to Oregon and into Amy's capable hands. For those of you just tuning in this is part of the International Moleskine Exchange, which I've been a part of since September of this year. That's four months ago...since I discovered this flickr group I have joined four exchanges and had so much fun drawing in strangers sketchbooks and seeing what they are putting into mine :) Go check them out when you have time...and if you are artistically inclined, join up and start an exchange or pick one from the list...you will find it highly addictive. I did.

Where has Kelley gone off to?

You may be wondering what I've been up to...or not :) Man, how sad if you didn't even realize I'd been away for awhile, lol. Anyway, with Thanksgiving and work, I've been kind of busy. And unfortunately the blog got a little neglected. I've been busy working on my art too though...so I thought I'd do a smorgasbord for you all and show you all the fun I've been having....

This is a self portrait for another one of my moly exchanges. For this particular swap, they call it a Portrait Party. Basically, we draw two portraits in each book...one of ourselves and one of who-ever's book you have. We all post pictures of ourselves online or put a couple snapshots in our sketchbooks and send them off to strangers so they can draw us :) Kind of weird, but think how cool it is when you get a book back with 15 different versions of yourself along with 15 strangers faces staring back at you, LOL!! So crazy, I'm loving every minute of this.

My Moly is Going to Moscow!!

Here's the final version of Little Red, she is now on her way to Natalia in Russia, Moscow to be specific...how freaking crazy is that???

Updates on the Molies....

So I've now completed my second contribution to someone else's moly, still waiting to see what's going on in my other exchanges. It's hard because while I love surprises, I totally hate the waiting for them. Here is my addition to Michael Nightmare's monster moly...again, his work is on the left, my addition is on the right:

In addition to the Monster and Wonderland exchanges I signed up for a portrait exchange and an open exchange. The open exchange basically means all artist involved get to pick their own theme for their own individual book. I picked Fairy Tales, and this is still a work in progress but here's what I have so far....

I was going for a black and white theme and then changed that to shades of gray with just the color red as focal points. I still have to color in Little Red's hair and basket, make some changes to her face, but overall this is pretty much my layout for the fairy tale entry.

I just have to share...

So remember the moly exchange I mentioned, oh I dunno, a couple a times recently?? Well I got the coolest surprise yesterday. My english pen-pal/sketchbook swapper, whatever you want to call it, Rose Hudson, posted the painting that she created in my book and I absolutely love it!!


She did a really fantastic job and I just wanted to send out a thank you to Rose, because let's face it, when you send your sketchbook out to a stranger, it's really any one's guess how it'll turn out or what they'll come up with. And not even that, but we all have different styles and things that we may not necessarily appreciate in another art style...I actually invited Rose to participate in the Wonderland exchange because I was scrolling through flickr and found a great painting she did and thought the subject might appeal to her...who knew I'd get such a nice surprise. Rose, I think this is so great...I love her little pouty slouch and the expression on her face, so sad - but we know it'll get better. Thank you!!

It's official....I'm Loco for Gocco!!

For my birthday last year, my parent's bought me a Gocco machine I was just dying to have! I had all these grand plans to start an Etsy business and make and sell my art....well I got the machine and then promptly got swept up in a ton of other things...like moving and work, then moving again. Yikes, it was a nightmare. Anyway, last week my mother sends me an email and says, "Get busy" so I did :)

I got out the Gocco and took it to her house and started printing away. You know...best to make the mess at Mom's place rather than my own (hee hee). So here they are...my Christmas elves. At some point I would love to go the Etsy route and get a little shop set up, but at the moment I'm afraid I have too much on my plate and would need help getting that whole mess started. So for now they live here on the blog and of course some of them will be given to friends and family at the holidays...who knows - maybe I'll discover I have readers besides my regular three and someone will want to purchase one or request a custom Gocco for the holidays...Wow, that would be awesome!!

Starry Skies

So part two of my contribution to Ugly Baby Studios' production of a Halloween short has just been completed. I've just finished painting a back drop or background of a starry sky for the night scene. Remember the storyboards I did, last month? Well this is all part of the same project.

Awwww, I messed up!

Okay...so the moly exchange stuff is going awesome...I got into the first exchange that I really wanted, Monsters, woo-hoo, and then I started my own theme, Wonderland. (Did my links work this time? Hope so). Anyway......I got so excited about starting these exchanges that I jumped in too fast, I think, hee hee, and instead of concentrating on one book at a time I started two at once. What I should have done is worked out all the stuff in the Monster book and then moved on to the Wonderland stuff, however that did not happen. I started them both at once, sketching in one then the next one, then inking one and then inking the next one...So my entry in the Wonderland book is done, see the previous entry for picture, however when I got to the color portion of my monster book I had a brain fart and fudged it up! Dammit!! So last night, I spent the evening trying to fix my major blooper....and to be honest it wasn't that bad...where I had used colored pencil with Wonderland, I used ink pens with the monsters and I just plain didn't like it. I wasn't happy with the colors or the technique I was using and I wanted to start over, however there are 10 artists involved in the monster exchange and so my pages are limited, I am not to exceed three pages, so I had to go over what I already had. How in the hell to do that, hmmmm? So I used some india ink and watercolor and painted over the top of my pages. It's definitely a night scene now, hee hee. I re-drew my characters on watercolor paper and will attempt to glue them down over the tops of my flub :) Hopefully that works because at this moment in time I'm not sure how to fix mistakes in the molies.

So here's the moly with the background re-painted. At this point it's still missing one of the monsters and you can't see some of the curly-swirly night wind I've going but this is as good as it gets for now :) More to come later.

I AM ADDICTED!!!

To what you ask? At least my mother will before she jumps to conclusions, LOL, just kidding. A couple of weeks ago, I managed to stumble across something known as "moly x"

I, of course had no idea what that meant, and immediately went out exploring. Moly X is simply this...a Moleskine Exchange. Moleskine being a specific brand of sketchbook, and the exchange being something started by Mr. Marty Harris (MrtyHrrs1 over at flickr). Any-hoo, I have found myself completely addicted to this group and in the space of two or more weeks signed up for four, let me say that again, four exchanges!!! I have no will-power *sighs* Essentially what this is, is a group of artists from around the world, they set up a topic, a blog, and swap sketchbooks with each other. I draw in theirs, they draw in mine, and by the time it's full, I have art from around 4-10 or so other artists and a sketchbook that's traveled the world. How Effing Cool is that???

So I wanted to share what I've been working on for that, because god-forbid I work on only one project at a time, right? What kind of sense does that make? Keep in mind that these are just my contributions at this point...I'll post more on the moly exchanges as they start picking up here in the future. Just for reference, the black rectangle in the image below is where my name and address are located...I didn't feel all the blogging world needs to know my apartment address.

So these two pages here, are my intro pages...these are for the exchange I started :) which basically means, I posted the topic and asked other artists if they wanted to join. My choice was to do "scenes from Wonderland" that way people could pick to use scenes from Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass, I also wanted to make it as non-specific as possible so people had the freedom to go a little crazy with it. So the above pictures, like I mentioned before, are my intro pages, meaning that they are there to serve as a reminder of who's book you are working on....I also used the next two pages in my book to write down the title of the exchange, and the names of everyone participating. Which brings me to the three pages of my entry... I really wanted to do a scene with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb, of course I had no idea which part in the story they took part in, since it's been so long since I actually read the story....so I looked it up :) And was immediately smitten with the scene in which Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb do battle....so here it is, my interpretation of the twins doing battle...

What about the other three exchanges I'm involved in, you ask? Well as of right now, two of them are still recruiting more members, so there's nothing to post for those except that one will be a portrait group and the other's topic will be different for each member of the group...I'm still trying to decide on the theme for my personal book. Any suggestions, readers???

The last group that I'm in, is actually the first one I joined...and it's theme is Monsters! Woot!! I of course, did cutesy monsters...and while they are getting colored in, you will have to wait a little longer to actually see them.

Thanks for reading :)

I HAVE BECOME ADDICTED!!!

To what you ask? At least my mother will before she jumps to conclusions, LOL, just kidding. A couple of weeks ago, I managed to stumble across something known as "moly x" I, of course had no idea what that meant, and immediately went out exploring. Moly X is simply this...a Moleskine Exchange. Moleskine being a specific brand of sketchbook. Marty Harris (MrtyHrrs1 over at flickr) started this awesome exchange, that I have found myself completely addicted to. Essentially what this is, is a group of artists from around the world, get together and swap sketchbooks with eachother. I draw in theirs, they draw in mine, and by the time it's full, I have art from around 4-10 or so other artists and a sketchbook that's traveled the world. How Effing Cool is that???

So I wanted to share what I've been working on for that, because god-forbid I work on only one project at a time. What kind of sense does that make? Keep in mind that these are still works in progress and only have artwork in them by me.... but, oh well, take a look:

Side Projects

I thought I would designate a post this time around to a little side project I've been working on. It's something I've had a lot of fun doing and hope to do more of. Storyboarding. Let me give a little background about how I got started with this.

My boyfriend happens to be ridiculously good at rhyming. Weird sort of talent, but quite entertaining, none the less. I'm not sure where he got it from, whether it's an acquired skill or just natural talent, but it never ceases to amaze me, the ease with which he can create goofy slogans or funky little songs off the top of his head. Sometimes I look at him and think, this man is truly gifted, I have never known anybody to be able to create things like that on a whim. Other times, he'll drive me crazy with the constant singing of said goofy songs, specifically when he's at his computer perusing the gamer sites and I'm trying to work on my latest and greatest idea, it's in those moments when I'm trying to concentrate that I realize, he really does take advantage of such an "e-ville" gift. But his timing is always impeccable, it's always the moment just before I'm ready to snap and turn into the bratty girlfriend that he whips out another funny one liner, and honestly, how can you do anything else but laugh?

So it's because of this unnatural talent, that I've put him to work on a children's book I've had "in the works" for over a year now. The pictures have all been roughed out, but I am not really a writer and needed loads of help getting a script together. So we made a deal. He would write me a story and in exchange, he put my skills as an ar-teest to good use on a side project of his.

[Side note: In addition to writing short stories (and goofy little ditties) he's really involved in 3D modeling and video games. I don't know how he does it, but he has a way of creating these amazingly detailed stories or situations. The man has so many concepts and ideas floating around in his head, that I constantly find myself envious of his imagination.]

Anyway.....he asked me to help create concept sketches and storyboards for an animated short he wants to create for Halloween. It's a really cute concept, so I jumped at the chance. I won't tell you the full story, let's see if you can figure it out, but take a look at what I've come up with so far:

Concepts for my website...

The concept of re-designing my website has been on my mind constantly lately. I'm trying to put my best foot forward to get noticed professionally and starting with my website seemed like the most logical place to jump from. As I mentioned in my previous post, I've never been happy with the quality of my current site...it's just too slow and more than one of my pictures appears to be cloudy or the scans didn't come out the way I had anticipated. All in all it was a first attempt. So when it came time to sit down and come up with what I really wanted I made lists and lists. One list of things I liked about the current site, a list of what I wanted for the new one, I had a list in regards to just things I didn't like about the site. Aye yay yay, the lists went on and on. Sorry bad joke. Anyway, when I finally sat down to visualize what I wanted for the new look...well, I had a major brain fart. I just couldn't get my brain around all of the new ideas I had and how I would incorporate them all into one cohesive unit. Not to mention...I didn't want to create something so difficult I was only going to disappoint myself in the long run if I couldn't make it work. Ultimately, my inspiration came from a tutorial I was working on. I was trying to brush up on my Photoshop skills and learning a little more on using textures, when I inadvertantly made my background. Let me explain.... I was trying to figure out ways to make my cutesy little illustrations appear somewhat aged or give them a vintage look. Really it's a total contradiction, because my little character, well to me, seem very modern. Any hoo, I started playing around with filters and wood grains, experimenting with adding fibers and what not when I realized that my simple background had turned into something resembling wooden slats. Then I started playing with colors and before I knew it had these cute cream and red stripes going along the length of my screen. So that was how my sideshow/circus idea came about. After that it's anybody's guess where the ideas came from, all I know for sure is, I was on a roll and cracking myself up along the way, hee hee. So here's a rough sketch or thumbnail of my layout and my main character, the ringmaster. I'll have more details later, but for now this is all your sneak peek allows you. Sorry, you'll just have to deal with it :)

To the left here, you'll see the layout in the upper half of the page. The new site will have links to a gift shop, my gallery, a contact page, an about me section and even a link back here to my blog. The rest of jibber jabber is me working stuff out on paper, playing around with concepts, but I doubt they'll be used at this point....I'm just running out of space, that's all there is to it.

And this is my little ringmaster. She really serves no use other than the fact that she's cute and the greeter for the website. Over the course of experimenting with this concept, her face has changed twice...her hair style at least four times... I think she's gone through three sets of costume changes and this is her second round of hats. LOL, what can I say? I obsess over getting the details right. I want my viewer to look at my pictures and go, "AWWWWWWW." Hope I've accomplished that.

Update...coming soon!

LOL, as you can see it's been awhile since my last update. And sorry to say, I have no pictures to post at this time because I'm at work and secretly typing away here instead of doing my actual job....hope the boss lady doesn't read this :) Anyway, just wanted to put a note in to say that I've been working on a re-design for my portfolio site, www.kelleyfrisby.com , and as of right now there hasn't been much drawing done except for in terms of the new layout I've been trying to get started. I'll be posting pictures of my progress soon, but in the mean time, didn't want my followers, all two or three of you to worry I'd vanished :) Thanks for reading.

Happy Birthday, Jackie!

So...yesterday, Friday the 5th, was a friend of mines birthday..... this is what I made for her : Her very own recipe box complete with a kitchen alphabet! I won't go through all the letters but let's just say there were Cupcakes, Aprons, Measuring Spoons and all kinds of fun little things I had to paint. This was one of my first projects with painting on wood....normally I paint on canvas or watercolor paper, so I had some fun experimenting.

This was a fun project, especially when you give something away to someone you know trully appreciates these home-made type gifts.

My very first post, EVER!

Okay, so I must admit, I'm a little nervous. This is officially my first post to my blog, ever! My intentions for starting a blog were to keep myself in check and to get my artwork out into the world by doing the whole "self promotion thing." However I'm a little nervous now, because I'm afraid I won't have much to say, LOL. I suppose I'll just have to let my pictures speak for themselves and hope you, my viewers, like what you see. Please feel free to leave me feedback, comments, or requests. I'd love to hear your ideas.

So for my first entry, I thought I'd share with you, a little something I've been working on....I've been helping out a friend as she prepares for her daughter's fourth birthday. After a bunch of brain storming it was decided that theme would be a Mad Hatter's Tea Party, because let's face it there are so many options to go with and we figured we could get away with a lot of cheap buys :) So my job, in this crazy scheme was to try and come up with a vintage-looking invitation, with Emma, my friend's daughter, as Alice. I sketched out Emma with the Mad Hatter and then scanned my drawing. Using Photoshop I was able to create an all over texture and this is what I came up with :

After I added the vintage texture, I started adding color to the invitation and found that I was really excited about how this was coming along. I must admit, I tend to think of myself as more of a traditional illustrator. In the sense that I love to draw and paint and I like to have my materials sitting in front of me, where I can see them and smell all the different mediums. Using the computer for my art, is something I've had to force myself to do, LOL. But this project really got me excited about using digital mediums. Here is the finished piece. Hopefully Miss Emma, likes it :)