Hello, Caricatures... we meet again. ;) Brushing up on my caricatures and did one of Gisele Bundchen. I sent it off to a facebook group I'm in that was using her as the subject.

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.

Mine and Dan's newest obsession is spray painting. I have found a new love for creating stencils and using spray paint on canvases. It takes hard work and dedication (like all art) that leaves you with a creative reward in the end. I'm loving it, and hoping to create a side business in the future of my own T-Shirt company. I'm thinking way ahead too quickly as I have a lot I still need to learn, but it's always fun to dream and take action. :)

PS. That tree and skyline stencil took 9 hours to cut with an xacto knife. Left my fingers feeling bruised. TOTALLY worth it!

This weekend has been wonderful going out to different beaches in San Diego and hiking around. It felt great to take my Canon out since it had been a while since I used it.

These first two photos are from Torrey Pines State Beach where you can hike the trails before heading to the bottom where you end up at the actual beach. The second to last photo was hard because I had to level my camera on the cliff and set a timer. I seemed to be the only one who didn't jump in time. :( Still a great photo, though. ;)

























Here are some photos taken the next day at La Jolla Cove. Beautiful beaches, just smells like fish and seals. I don't care, I LOVE it there! The second picture looks like it could be half the earth.


















After the cove, we headed down to check out the Ocean Beach Tide Pools and the pier. It was gorgeous, the beaches were richly blue, and I almost felt like I was in Hawaii. Dan and I want to get our friends together and spend half a day at this beach. There's a little secret area where you have to go through a cave to get to the other side where it's a more private beach with cliff diving. Photograph of me on the other side of the cave was taken by Dan.





Later, we ended up walking the pier. Beautiful views, great tans. ;)

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.

One of my all time favorite beaches I love to go to by myself, or with friends, is Moonlight Beach. This special place is where I love to take walks, swim in the waves, lye out while blasting hard rock music or reggae through my headphones, whatever have you. For quite some time now I've always wanted to paint this beach, and finally I got the opportunity to today.



I did this painting off a picture I took on one of my walks. I used, of course, oils. One of my favorite things about oil paints is that when you mess up, you have plenty of time to fix it. The hard part is, it's a piece of work to get your paint brushes cleaned up. Well worth it, in the end. This painting took about 3 and hours to complete. I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome, although I'd like to learn more on how to make sand look more presentable and real so my next beach painting can turn out even better.



Here's a look at the picture I took as my reference. Thanks for reading. :)

An attempt at drawing a pacific ocean wave with the San Diego skyline on the inside of the tunnel. I drew it out and colored it with Dan's new Prismacolor pencils (shhh) on one of his mat boards (again, shhhh) and used toon paint and a program for effects and color boosts.


Next is another doodle I did capturing a horse on another one of Dan's mat boards. Thanks for all the supplies, Danny! ;) His constant spurts of art work has pushed me to become inspired, and although it's not exactly how I'd have liked for both pieces to have turned out, it still feels good to kick myself back to drawing again. For the horse, I didn't add any special effects. It is what it is. I had a cheerful experience drawing this one specifically because I jolted back to my childhood love for horses. One of my goals this year before I turn 27 is to go for a ride.

I've been slowly getting myself back on the art track, which has felt pretty good. I got a call from an old friend of mine asking if I could draw a t-shirt design for her boss. It's for a kid's camp, and the theme is called "Get Your Dirt On". The kids will have fun activities to do along with a crazy obstacle course that involves: water balloons, shopping carts, a huge duck boat, hula hoops, LOTS of mud, basketball, and more. This is what I came up with, and they loved it:





Next is a piece inspired by my boyfriend, Danny. We were at the Del Mar Fair walking around and stopped for a beer break when he asked if we could draw while we relaxed for a little. I gave him a look of yes - but I am very uninspired... but he encouraged me to let loose and just draw. So I did: