This morning, my friend Dan asked me if I wanted to accompany him to meet a well-known instagram artist named N.C. Winters. He had posted on instagram that he was doing a live-painting in front of Rhino Art Shop here in Encinitas. Very cool. We go to check it out, met N.C. himself and talked to him for a few minutes, then let him focus back on his painting. We were in awe with his work.


 Alongside N.C. were about 10-15 other artists working on their own barrels, along with a DJ playing inspiring tunes while they worked.




Afterwords, Dan and I grabbed coffee/tea, and Dan spoke with the person in charge of the Barrel painting event. Apparently they hold it once a year, and once the art is finished, they display them in front of the art shop for the year. Dan asked if he could be a part of it for next time, and the guy explained "Well? There's still a few hours left, and a couple barrels available if you want to do one now!" I convinced Dan to do it, and Dan convinced me to collaborate with him. So, we rushed home, changed into "whatever-don't-give-a-shet" clothes, grabbed our art supplies (spray paints, paint markers, etc) and rushed back to the shop. The man in charge showed us a barrel we could use, and we immediately started putting whatever on it. We had no plan. The event had started around 10-11am, was scheduled to end at 5, and it was already 3 when Dan and I began our bin! I was very intimidated, due to not being that great at spitting out artwork like no other. Dan, on the other hand, is fantastic at it. Either way, we were both nervous at first, especially with only having two hours to fill this thing. It was fun and exciting, none-the-less! And so, it begins:

I recently adopted a rescue german shepherd that I named, Soja, after one of my favorite reggae bands that have some pretty inspirational music. Soja has been a dream come true to me. I've grown up always wanting a German shepherd. He's incredible. Every time I look at him, I feel as though he popped out of a movie screen or from the TV show K9 cops, he's that stinkin' gorgeous.

Here's some photography of that handsome boy.

More art projects from my Art: Design & Color class, and Photoshop class. First two are the most recent: The Lion King one is a movie poster I created and painted for my Design and Color class. The second is for my Photoshop class where we had to create a magazine cover. Mine has my dog, Prissy (R.I.P little lady), as the model and a photograph I took of Torrey Pines State Beach in the background. The third one was a project for my Design & Color class by, well obviously painting many tiny dots to create the image. And lastly... a picture of me on the left side, and on the right, a warped picture of myself that I drew. Fun! This semester blew by so fast.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The past year has been very hard on me artistically because nothing seems to come out on paper creatively on my end. So, here is something random that I decided to do called "Life's a beach". The ocean is one of my favorite places. I used to think I'd be a mountain girl living in a cabin, but something tells me that I'll never live far away from the beach.

On Monday, I had asked Dan to send me a nice picture of himself because I wanted to paint a portrait of him using my new oil paints. He, of course, decided to be funny and sent me a silly picture of himself ...and in my opinion...looking as if he were trying to let out a big fart. HAHA. So, I decided to draw a caricature of him like that in my sketchbook.

I used prismacolor sketch pencils, prismacolor fine line markers, a markette pen for the tip of his hair, white out for the shine, and prismacolor colored pencils & art stix. This whole thing took about two hours. One thing I'm upset about is that I didn't make him fat enough, but I still am pretty happy with the outcome. Click on the pictures to enlarge.