laura's new cool blog

THE GIRL'S BODY BOOK!

2008-07-09T23:24:25+00:00

OMG! This wonderful package of books arrived in the office today and I'd thought I'd take a photo and SHARE WITH THE WORLD!!!!!!

This is the hands-down, high-fivenest book on girl's puberty that you ever have seen. Not only is it written by the spectacularly knowledgeable sounding Kelli Dunham, RN, but it's illustrated by the one and only Laura Tallardy!!! (that's me)

It's over a hundred full-color pages of advice, tips, tricks and interior illustrations on how to grow up fabulous and well-informed teenager- including everything from bras to tampons (quickly growing into my speciality, disturbingly) to BFFs to BFs to looking fabulous (including a great section on shoes, my personal favorite topic).

Some art for you!

So if you are a darling girl on the cusp of blossoming into a full-grown woman or know of any of 'em, this book is totally perfect for you (or them). Now available in bookstores naaaaaationwide, and of course on Amazon!

live from brooklyn!

2008-07-05T03:48:56+00:00

happy 4th of july everyone!

i was at the big icon conference in midtown and didn't get back in time to meet up with my pals to watch the macy's day fireworks display. i managed to get a pretty good view from my roof though, and watched it in the rain for a while. headed in and was getting ready to go to bed when the fireworks on the other side of my apartment started up- and this time i didn't even have to stand in the rain. much better!

F2F: Girl Talk!

2008-06-24T19:28:32+00:00

Friend2Friend, the great book club series I've been working on for Scholastic, has finally been released in its entirety. It's unfortunately an exclusive book club release so you aren't able to purchase them through bookstores, but I thought I'd give everyone a quick rundown of the books and some of my favorite illustrations that came out of them.

So without further ado, Book 1: Girl Talk! This was the first round of art for the project (obviously), and I was working in a slightly new style, so this was really cool to see it all come together like this.

See you all next week, for the unveiling of BOOK 2: GIRLFRIENDS!

Orphan Works Sucks!

2008-04-29T16:43:18+00:00

Hey everyone-
Normally I'm not a big advocate of anything except for kittens and cheeseburgers and whatnot, but this Orphan Works thing sucks!

Everyone's been writing about it, so hopefully you know what it is (if not, read on...). I received this email from Mz. Cheryl Phelps, a NYC-based licensing artist and speaker, and it's got some great ideas on how to take action.

Illustration geeks unite! And write some letters!

----from mz. Phelps...-----------------
Time to write! Please take action now! These proposed changes to the copyright law affect YOU!

The changes in the copyright laws proposed under the new "Orphan Works" bill have been released and it will affect your creative career!

Write your Reps and Senators.
Refer to Bill H.R. 5889 when writing a House Rep.
Refer to Bill S. 2913 when writing a Senator.
Same Orphan Works bill, different #'s for Senate and House.

Go to: http://capwiz.com/gag/dbq/officials to get the contact info
for your state's officials.

This affects all of us, painters, photographers and designers alike
and is getting fast tracked to get through now.

Please take time to write! Fax or snail mail in addition to any emails you'd send too please.
A sample letters is below at the end of this email.

For more info on this matter go to:
http://www.gag.org or
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org

A webcast interview with Brad Holland about the Orphan Works act bill can be heard at:
http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html

Thank you for joining with other creative image makers to get your voice heard!

This was posted by Stella on "The Art of Licensing" Yahoo group I belong to and sums up the consequences if this bill passes:

"If we do not stop BOTH Orphan Works Bills NOW-
It does not matter that you created it.
It does not matter that you have a copyright mark on it.
It does not matter that it is registered in the Library of Congress.
It does not matter that you signed it.
It does not matter that you put a big fat watermark across it.
It does not matter that you put digital signatures on it.
It does not matter if you get a lawyer- you will get a pittance
determined by the offending company and no reimbursement for legal fees.
It does not matter even if you do as they demand and pay to register
it in the new registries that they will form - there is no real
punishment for using your work for profit.
It does not matter that you do not want your image used on a product
or to promote an agenda.
They can even sell your prints and make money!"

From Illustrators Partnership and posted on the Art of Licensing Yahoo Group by Stella too:

Here is a sample letter you can edit and send to your local and/orstate representatives and Senators. These letters work best when you make your point clear, do not curse, and make them aware that you live in their district or state and can vote for or against them.

Feel free to make this personal with your story on how the Orphan Works legislation will harm your income. Stories are incredibly powerful.

Faxes work better than e-mails, as e-mails are too easy to delete.

Congressman/Congresswoman/Senator (their name)
(their contact info)
Fax: (their fax number)

Re: The Orphan Works legislation Bill # (either H.R. 5889 or S. 2913 depending who you're writing)

Dear (their name),

My name is (your name) and I live in (your city, state). After reading about the Orphan Works bill, I am shocked and outraged that this could happen in our country.

This Orphan Works legislation, if passed, will severely impact my income and life as an artist. Not only will it give license for others to legally steal and use my work for free, it will be virtually impossible for me to afford the time and money to register my creations in all the potential new registries.

(your personal story if you wish. It should show hardship under the new bill)

I strongly urge you to vote AGAINST the Orphan Works bill and protect my rights, my copyrights, to all that I have and will create.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

(your name)
(your address)
------

PLEASE PASS THIS ON TO EVERY ARTIST YOU KNOW! THANKS!!!

St. Lucia

2008-03-19T15:14:32+00:00

Hola!
I have been MIA again, and I'm NOT SORRY! My sweet awesome boyfriend pulled the most insane birthday/valentines day gift I've ever received... a week long trip to St. Lucia in the West Indies.

As soon as we got there we were informed of an upgrade straight from God and into the fancy section of the resort, called Jade Mountain. This included amenities such as a missing 4th wall, and a 30' private infinity pool in its place.

The whole trip was insanely fabulous, from the beach to the biking in the jungle to the fancy pants room to the room service cheeseburgers (which we ate in the pool) to fruity drink after fruity drink.

I am very bummed to be back in Brooklyn. It's cold, dirty and there's no room service or pool in my room :(

Ladies of Twin Peaks

2008-01-04T16:01:28+00:00

Drawing off the TV... I love this show <3 all the actors are so expressive and wonderfully pensive all the time.

all kinds of jazz

2007-12-19T15:28:26+00:00

Been away from the drawger front for a while (like the rest of everyone).

In the meantime, I've had this Creativity 36 book by my desk for WEEKS now trying to post it. It was for a fun job doing school supply packaging for Walmart, the agency that contracted me entered it in the annual Creativity contest and hey, it got in! Aces! I was thrilled when I got the news, but even more thrilled when I saw who else I was sharing pages with... Istvan Banyai, Tim O'Brien, Rudy Guiterrez, James Jean, Yuko Shimuzu, etc etc etc... hi guys!!

Also the second installment came in for Scholastic's Friend2Friend book club. It's all about GFs and BFFs and I got to help propagate the phrase "Best Friends Forever, 4-eva." I'm working on the seventh book at the moment- and I just got word that it's being extended to 10 books total. Thanks Scholastic! I will continue to paint my little heart out for you <3

I'm not sure if I blogged about the Sheba Lee book- a cute story about a ballet dancer betrayed by her BFFs I illustrated for American Girl magazine a year or two ago- but it was recently made into a minibook to be sold with their ballet outfits for the dolls. And great news! The other story I did for them, the Misadventures of Average Girl, is getting turned into a minibook as well! Not sure when this one comes out but I'll be blogging about it I'm sure.

And last but certainly not least I just finished up work for a girl's puberty book called the Girl's Body Book. It was a mighty feat of deadlines, cafe bustelo and mild hallucinations, but it was all worth it now that it's all finished :D I believe it'll be hitting bookstores nationwide next spring? Summer? Who knows. Watch for it though :>

Friend 2 Friend!!

2007-11-11T23:47:37+00:00

The first installment of the book club I've been working on for Scholastic has just been released to the subscribed masses!! It's a very exciting project that's been keeping me from sleeping for some time now- about 7 books, covers + interiors, about how to be a cool technologically connected tween.

Every month the kiddies get a fabulously designed and illustrated book about makeup/boys/parties/computers and some kind of cool toy thingy, this time it's some kind of text messaging calculator-looking thing I can't figure out. It came with instructions but I was so psyched to finally have a plain old-fashioned calculator that by the time I figured out there was no +/- button I was too depressed to keep reading the instructions and gave up. I'm assuming the fine folks at Scholastic have it all worked out.

You also get a way-cool secret diary with a magic magnet key- I had to play with this for a while before I got freaked out about the magnets and put it all very away from my computer. You slide this innocent-seeming bit of plastic over the lock, and poof! it opens! Neat :)

I don't know if it's every month or just a one-time guide to being the most acronym-tastic kid on the block, but good heavens I thought I was a computer geek! There's an entire BOOK of emoticons included, people. Edel, don't make me break this out. Kitty faces ain't nothin.

You also get a free pass to this online magical wonderland of a social networking site that I haven't checked out at all- once again I'm assuming the fine folks at S-to the -lastic have the magical wonderland bit worked out.

All together a very fun package that I would be thrilled to have gotten as a kid (oh heck- I had a great time getting it as a relatively immature adult), and if there was still time to sign up for it I'd say y'all totally should. But.... it's too late for any of that now ;_;
Anyway, some art!

Stay tuned next month when I get the next packet 'o coolness and procrastinate blogging about it until it's not really as relevant as we'd all like it to be! Yay!

Chairlift & Purple Crush

2007-10-23T14:51:29+00:00

Kate and I caught the Chairlift show last night at the Knitting Factory. It was very dark and I missed everything but the last two songs :( but here they are. Chairlift is a great group from Brooklyn, they recently got back from their national tour and are back to givin Brooklyn their love <3

The myspace: http://www.myspace.com/chairliftmusic

We also hung around for the next show, Purple Crush, which was one of the cutest bands in existence. Composed of newlyweds Isla Cheadle and ...her new husband, they were really too energetic to be contained in one venue. The music was deliciously addictive too. http://www.myspace.com/purplecrush

musicians takin over!

2007-10-15T00:56:53+00:00

luckily i didn't have to go far to hang out this weekend, a bunch of friends came over with armloads of electronic music equipment and had an impromptu jam session for a few hours. everyone sounded fabulous for as long as i could stay awake :)

here's kate on violin, jp on the drum machine, and dan on the synth.

The Lily Series!!

2007-08-28T19:26:37+00:00

This just in!! The Lily Series, a collection of fiction and non-fiction Christian books for girls and tweens, has officially hit the shelves nationwide :> Here's a great photo of the display from the A/D at ZonderKidz (who was a dream to work with!)

It's so crazy to see so many month's of work all crammed onto two shelves! It may look like I whipped all those out in a week ;) but that was like night after night of all nighters, being 5 and 10 minutes late for work while waiting for files to upload, tons of mornings getting drawings done on the subway, and so many sleep-deprived zombie days- and it's all finished and out in stores!! Yayers!!

!!!!!

up late

2007-08-28T08:07:09+00:00

the window in my temporary studio... looks like i'm not the only one still up :>

met drawings & photos

2007-08-23T04:01:31+00:00

some sketches from my day at the met... photos of some neat art below.

sketchbook roundup

2007-08-09T17:06:21+00:00

a few drawings that have been kickin around....

figure drawings.... and kittehs

2007-08-01T23:54:25+00:00

Campground sketches

2007-07-03T23:13:30+00:00

Here's a quick mess of sketches I did over the weekend...

I visited some great old friends in New Jersey, one of which is a DJ (I used to run around and help him out with dances and stuff). Saturday night he DJed a dance party at a campground near the beach, and when I saw the crowd dancing I had to grab a pencil and paper.

How cute are these kiddies!! :> They were even more adorable in real life, I promise.

Kava Ceremony

2007-06-18T00:42:33+00:00

The second night we were at the resort (we came on a Sunday, and they didn't do much on Sundays), they threw a welcome ceremony where we all sat on a woven mat around a giant wooden bowl and they mixed up this drink called Kava. It's made from the root of this pepper plant, mashed up and strained into water. It's supposed to be a mild narcotic and anasthetic, which was a little concerning, but when in Rome :P

The ceremony went that we all introduced ourselves, and there was some chanting and we passed around a little bowl of kava. You say "Bula!" (which is a hello/general greeting), clap once, down it, and then clap three times in thanks to the spirits that you didn't throw it back up immediately. It has the taste and consistency of some dirty stream water mixed with dirt. It's passed around until the big bowl of kava is finished, or until people start refusing (which doesn't take long).

After our welcome ceremony, the guys who conducted it broke out some guitars and ukuleles. They played throughout dinner and then more people started hanging out on the mat and finishing up the kava. Some of the travellers could play the guitar as well and we ended up having singalongs, drinking, and chatting all evening.

The kava wasn't any extreme kind of craziness, I'd equate it to the western tradition of having some beers with friends. I took a walk out on the beach afterwards and the stars were amazing - you could see the arm of the milky way coming over the island, the southern cross, and the moon. Beautiful!!

full painting: http://lauratallardy.com/drawger/03_musicians72.jpg

Fiji Hammocks

2007-06-15T14:34:17+00:00

This is the main beach of the Octopus, which was rated incredibly insane by some magazine, which it was. The red boat out there is where you came in from the mainland about an hour or two away. You came up on shore, they sing to you and give you drinks and your room keys, and then you're turned loose to lay on the hammocks all day.

The central hammock, pictured here, was okay during the daytime because the sun was crazy hot, but after about 3 the shade of the trees made it perfect to lie on. At night was even better, there were a zillion stars and you could see the milky way and everything. The trick to getting a good swing going was to just run and jump at it full-speed, and cling to it like a crazy monkey. That'll give you at least 10 minutes of breezy swinging before you have to start flailing around trying to push yourself.

There were chaise lounges and chairs as well for people to sit on who didn't see the hammocks, or for when they were all taken. Suckers.

full painting: http://www.lauratallardy.com/drawger/02_hammock72.jpg

Fiji Painting 1!

2007-06-13T16:22:25+00:00

Hey everyone! I recently travelled to Fiji with my sister to attend her friend's wedding. It's absolutely the most beautiful place on the earth that I'm aware of so far... I never thought I'd be sad to come back home to NYC, but here I've been the past week, laying around and wishing I was back on the beach.

I took a gazillion photos but did 6 paintings- the first resort we stayed at, Octopus resort, was very laid back and awesome. It had gorgeous clean white sandy beaches that led out to some crazy coral and see-through blue water. Everyone was obscenely friendly- apparently Fijians used to be cannibals but now they're the friendliest people in the world :P There were flowers and delicious fruity drinks everywhere.

This first painting is of the Dive shop- Octopus isn't a really big operation, it's run by a couple New Zealanders who rent the land on the island from a local village. They also employ people from the village to work at the resort, doing maintenance, distributing flowers, playing music and doing kava ceremonies and all sorts of good stuff. So basically this is the equipment center where you can rent diving, kayaking and snorkelling gear for super cheap. They also ran fishing trips.

When I started on this painting I was just sitting by a palm tree near where the employees were relaxing- and there were some visiting kids that took interest. They started sitting around me and by the time I looked up there were like 10 little kiddies playing with my paints and brushes :) It was pretty cool but I got locked up as usual, not being able to paint very well in front of anyone (even some kids that don't even speak english). I think it came out pretty cool though :)

Anyway, I've been meaning to get this and some other stuff up lately, so be expectin' a few more of these!

http://www.lauratallardy.com/drawger/01_diveshop72.jpg for the full painting...

additional photos for flaherty and bob....

Cool sketches

2007-05-18T03:30:02+00:00

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't been posting much, I finally wrapped up the illustrious LILY PROJECT I started way back in the fall- 26 covers of Christian tween book glory to be released this summer. I also started on a neat project for Scholastic, so I haven't really gotten a break from working like a maniac.... haha, just kidding. I'm going to Fiji for 2 weeks tomorrow, my sister's friend is getting married and I'm tagging along like nobody's business.

Not to say I won't be crazily behind on everything, but it's worth it to get out of the city... and into the south pacific 8)

See y'all in JUNE!!!!!!!

PS: Here are some cool sketches that have been kickin' around. Hope you enjoy them.

howdy!

2007-03-20T03:56:04+00:00

just wanted to drop in and say hello- haven't been by in a while :)
the big book cover project is almost almost done, and i'm still settling into a new apartment- so it's been a busy winter. i'll post some photos soon- it's my dream apartment. studio and roof and everything.

anyway, glad to see drawger's getting bigger and bigger by the minute- hi to all the new folks! and good to see everyone else too- looks like everyone's been up to new cool stuff this spring 8)

sketchbook doodles

2006-12-17T03:48:37+00:00

I haven't posted anything up here in a while- I've been doing a lot of stuff that'll be out in the spring, but I can't really share 'em yet :(
So I went through my sketchbooks, and here are some random doodles hanging around...

Painter Tutorial - Basics

2006-11-30T07:55:52+00:00

I got Corel's Painter a while ago and put off learning it for the longest time. It's so big and scary and there are totally a zillion billion options, but it turns out it's not as hard to use as I thought. Following on some advice from fantastic illustrators Steve Ellis and Greg Capullo (thanks guys!), I plunged in and managed to make a few crummy paintings, and then really get the hang of it- now I'm doing everything in Painter. It started as a way to cut down production time for illustration, so I could spend more time sleeping, eating, and other frivolous things like that. Once I really got into it though, it turns out I want to make it look so good that I spend twice as long working on it.

Anywho, I thought I'd write up a little basic how-to on Painter, cause there are no good manuals out there and the tutorials that come with the programwebsite suck. Keep in mind I don't know this program 100%, I'm just sharing what I've learned so far.
So here goes! To join in, you'll need Painter, a good computer, a tablet, and a pre-existing sketch all scanned in.

Boot up painter, and click the "Start a new file". I'm going to start it off as a 5x6" 300 dpi file- normally I start around 8x10, but to be honest my computer runs a little slow once things get that big- the paintbrush lags and it drives me crazy. You can start however you want, but for just playing I recommend a small file. Also, you can pick your paper color - I like the tan moleskine-page color- click on the swatch to choose one. It's more fun than starting from white. Picture type: image.

Open up the scan of your sketch. I didn't think ahead about my canvas size, so I rotated it (a lot of Painter works just like Photoshop- just go to Canvas>Rotate Canvas). Hit apple+A to select all of your sketch, then copy and paste it onto your colored canvas.

This makes all the white on the sketch transparent, so your drawing looks like it was done on your canvas color :) Crop your canvas to size using the little cropper thing if you need to. Same as Pshop. Close your sketch scan.

Now we're ready to add color! I like to put off thinking about it till the last minute possible, so I do all the skin tones first. Go up to your brush selector in the upper-right hand corner, and go down to "Oils",

Use the little color-wheel thingy to find a nice skin tone, select it, and get to painting- although make double sure you're painting on the Canvas layer.

It doesn't have to be a perfect fill either- it looks more hand-done if you leave some of the canvas undertones. If you don't like the way a color looks, no need to erase- just choose a new color and go right on top of it. If anything, it makes it look cooler :)

I went ahead and put in some rough clothing colors too. Sorry for not warning you there. Now, I must think of colors for the rest of the piece... If you need to cover bigger areas at this point, try the Flat Oils 30. 40 lags too much on my computer :(

By this point you should probably save. File>Save... wherever. Make sure you save as .riff- this is Painter's native file format, and you need to keep it to save your layers and settings and stuff.

So here, I've roughed out some colors. Maybe not the most fantastic, but we're not finished yet. Now I'm going to go back in and smooth some of this stuff out... If you need to pick up a color, use the eyedropper from the menu bar. If you'd like to "jot down" a color, you can make a swatch of it somehow that I haven't figured out, or you can put it on your virtual palette. Open your Mixer tab, and you'll see a white space. So if you have your color selected, you can go over here, put some of it down, and mix with other colors. Click the trash can to clear it off. To select a color, use the little eyedropper icon right at the bottom of the palette.

Sometimes I find it helpful to turn off the sketch layer when I'm working at this point- the colors make any mistakes in drawing a lot more obvious without lines.

At this point we should have a passable color painting. It's not perfect, but then again I'm tired and don't want to make coffee, so everyone's gonna have to deal. Find your layers window and click on the "New Layers" icon. Double-click the new layer and name it "Lines"- hit okay, and then dbl click your sketch layer and label that "Original Sketch".

Now, select a darker color- or lighter, if that floats your boat. I usually go with a dark brown. Go to your menu where you clicked "Oils" before, and select "Pencils" (2B). Turn on your sketch layer again, and select your lines layer. Trace whatever liney details you'd like.

If you want to zoom in to work more detailed, just go to the bottom-left of your canvas and slide the bar in and out. You can really see how nice the detail is on the brushes from close up :) Not your average Pshop airbrush!!

By this point I usually have a pretty good idea of the illustration as a whole, so I go back and clean up the painting on the "Canvas" layer. For fine details, try a Camel Round 10- nice and easy. You can change the brush size too- go to Window>Brush Control>Show Size. Slide the "Size" bar around until you find what you want. There are a zillion different brush controls, but this is the only one I've really mastered so far. Be sure to set it back thought when you're done- it doesn't reset the sizes like Photoshop does- so if you make your Flat 20 a 10, it'll open as 10 every time you use Painter until you change it back manually. Weird, huh?

The secret of the magic blush I will never tell... but it has something to do with the "Chalk" tool. Shh!!

A few more details, and viola! I don't know if I'd go with this most excellent sundown for a finish, but it does look kind of cool... which is the cool thing about Painter. You can really work and re-work something to death, and it doesn't show it like traditional media does- no colors getting muddy or anything like that.

Sundown? Midday? Who knows. I'm sure I'll probably end up re-working this for a few more days, but there's some basics on Painter :) Hope it was helpful. I'm going to bed.

Modeling for Jerome Witkin

2006-11-15T06:59:32+00:00

When I was studying illustration up at Syracuse, I modeled a number of times for Jerome Witkin. He does paintings about the Holocaust and other crazy stuff.. very heavy paintings. He also taught a number of classes at SU, and I ended up taking like 6 of them- he was one of the best professors there. He had a passion about drawing and making your pictures come to life and not just sit and be passive about what you're creating. Very inspiring person- I haven't met anyone else with such a burning drive to make great art.

Anyway, one day he stopped me in the hallway of the art building and asked if I would come out to his studio and model. I was a little concerned because I didn't know him at the time and he's a very ...intense guy (if you've met him you know what I mean), and I thought there was a good change he might kill me and drink my blood or something if I drove all the way out to his studio on the hand drawn map in the section of town I didn't even know existed. Either way it seemed like it would be an adventure, so I agreed.

I ended up posing for a number of drawings and 3 paintings. The first was a very simple painting of me with my ferret- although I brought her in a number of times (scratching my car with the cage in the process- grr), he never got around to painting her because she just slept or went crazy... she wasn't exactly the picturesque, cooperative ermine in that da Vinci painting. He said it was going to get a stuffed weasel to work from, but I don't think he ever finished it- or if he did, he didn't show me. I think it's probably in the back of his garage or has been re-gessoed and painted over by now.

Next up was the one in the chair- Jerome lent me this really swanky shirt to pose in this elaborate antique embroidered chair, but I was still wearing my jeans and birkenstocks. Also, that's not my purse, and I never met the guy in the background. He looks like a nice guy though, so I guess I don't mind listening to his music for all eternity. I hope it was good. I think there was a show in LA for this, which is exciting- he mailed me official invitations and prints of the painting and everything. Not that I was able to drop by LA, being in central New York, but the thought was nice.

The third was the most eventful, or at least the one I remember the most. I must have come in 15 times (45-ish hours) for that. The whole theme was the old Cupid and Psyche myth, which is interesting with how the painting came out.... Jerome asked if I knew any guys to stand for a Cupid ;) and I suggested my fiancee-at-the-time. He must have posed 3 times, and that was it. I don't know if he was just a lot easier to paint or what. In any case, I always think this painting was a little spooky because we were engaged and doing fine when it was painted, but then everything started getting really crazy and uncool and we broke up shortly after it was finished and exhibited.
My fine ancient grecian garb is a strawberry bikini I got from the Jersey shore a few years ago. We went with like 4 different outfits trying to nail it- the most memorable was that I would have gauzy see-though loose harem pants, and we managed to make an approximation with some taffeta, a belt, and complete lack of movement on my part. It was also very chilly, all of this taking place in an outside studio in a Syracuse winter, so I had a huge heater in front of me, and for my breaks I had a robe he had left over for a Jesus character reference study. It was very huge, and I can't say I didn't feel a little silly walking around a studio in the middle of winter wearing a bikini and a Jesus robe with 6 yards of gauze strapped on.

Overall it was a really fantastic experience. I loved being able to (sort-of) watch him paint (that's where I'm looking on the Cupid/Pysche painting- his easel was just over there and I could barely see it at like an 80* angle). I'm generally more timid with drawings and paintings, but he was very into it, and it was really interesting seeing the paintings evolve (I remember time and time again thinking "what was wrong with that? it looked fine!" but he'd keep working on it for weeks on end.
He listened to a lot of NPR and books on tape, and sometimes we'd chat, but mostly we'd just paint and sit.
One last side note, It took him months and months to complete paintings- I don't know how he could be so patient about things, but then just one of his paintings would sell and he would get to remodel his kitchen. I'm not putting one art world above the other, it's just crazy how different the range is for different types of timelines and pay depending on what circles you travel in.
Plus, I got to be in some paintings :)

freaking mice!!

2006-11-05T21:18:23+00:00

I woke up this morning to a crunching and scratching, and i looked at my guinea pig cage... she was sleeping safe and sound. turns out there was a MOUSE on my DRESSER.

backing up to the night before yesterday... my boyfriend is away for the weekend so i'm staying in to get some work done that i'm way behind on. i worked all night, then went to bed, and i heard a little skittering around my guinea pig cage... but my guinea pig doesn't skitter like that. i flick the light on, and there's a freaking MOUSE in my guinea pig's FOOD DISH stealing her food. i throw some laundry at it, and it skitters away, the right back to the food. i throw some more laundry, clean out the food dish, and go back to bed. the next morning, i wake up to a mouse running aross my bedroom floor, and decide enough is enough. i cleaned my whole room in my standard-issue new york high heel black leather boots, and set out some traps. even my guinea pig seems happy.

so i'm working away happily, and around midnight, i hear the familiar SNAP skitter skitter, and i freeze. the snap trap caught something. it fell behind the stove, and i had to call everyone in my phone book before my mom managed to work up the guts in me to dispose of this critter. it took me a half hour to move the stove and sweep the mouse into an old ice cream box, then clean up the blood and guts all over the floor. HOORAY. then i get to take it down to my ghetto ass street filled with gangstas at 12:30 on a saturday... by my little white lonesome.

i came back up to my apartment and lo and behold, the freaking glue trap caught another little fucker. i manage to convince my mom to stay on the phone with me as i dispose of this critter in a pizza box... it's a shame it'll probly chew its limbs off but at least i'm not 409ing mouse brains off of my stove. this is around 1, and my mom and i decide not to set any more traps, lest i have to dispose of them at 2-3-4am (yes i live in the ghetto and am scared to go out after dark).

so i put the glue trap i got out on top of my dresser, figuring i'd set it on the floor for the mice in the morning.

flash to this morning: what the crap, there's A MOUSE ON MY freaking DRESSER. it was hanging by its tail, and i rustled my blankets to make sure i'm not imagining things. i've been up very very late drinking coffee and working and hallucinations are entirely possibe at this point... but the rustling just makes it flip over itself somehow and get stuck on all four paws. i'm terrified and pissed off, because a mouse woke me up yesterday morning too, and well, i'm just terrified of mice. i'm a girl without a boyfriend in town. so i stared it down for a while, while it ate the guinea pig food i left out as bait. i was working up the guts to make my move, when i heard the trap slide.

now, when i put the trap on my dresser, i just set it on top of a bunch of shit. i wasn't planning on trapping anything, so it wasn't very stable. the mouse started sliding off, and i looked down to where the whole thing could fall.
1) straight into my dresser drawer with all of my freshly cleaned clothes
2) my rug i just cleaned off
3) some antique fabrics my mom gave me that her mother hand-made
4) my suede beanbag chair

and then, as if this were all some kind of horrible comedy show without an audience, my alarm clock went off. the mouse flipped his little shit and started struggling a LOT, which unfortunately made him slide right off my dresser.

he screamed as he went down. a little mousey shriek of DEATH. EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! i was kind of joyful that at least we were both flipping our shits, until the glue trap glued itself to my suede beanbag chair.

BASTARD!!!!!!

this is the last way i wanted to wake up. i was up until 5am working, i wanted to sleep in! but alas, there is a mouse glued to my beanbag chair. so i get out of bed, get my shoes on and go buy some huge ass industrial gloves downstairs at the hardware store. i came back up, and thank GOD the way the trap fell it pinned the mouse's evil booty to the glue pretty well... so it couldn't struggle and leap into my face and chew my eyes off. it also didn't leave any crap on my beanbag chair, but that doesn't mean it's not haunted now.

so he's downstairs on the street chewing his legs off in the trash can, and i set another trap. please, mice, stay the hell away from it! and my guinea pig! and my freaking DRESSER!!!!

kittens!

2006-10-30T23:08:30+00:00

Anyone who doesn't like kittens or the 60's needs to get off this train, because we are charging right into Obscenely-cute-kittens-from-the-60's-ville. I found this little gem at a small thift shop on my street under a big pile of kids books on the floor (they also had an original Nintendo for $5 :)). Now I'm a sucker for both 60's blobbly line illustrations with their awesome colors AND kittens, so this was a double whammy. It's in fairly good shape, but I still wish I could just tear it apart and tack it on my wall.

Desk drawing

2006-10-26T17:43:48+00:00

My desk at work... I have a lot of downtime when I'm scanning a lot of books or art, when the computer's locked up and all I can do is stare at it. I love drawing computers though.
Nothing too thrilling to note, although there would be some cool stuff if I finished the top of it (I've got some little wooden ghosts and toys up there)

Not pictured: Office hairball, Paris (although she does jump up on my desk if I'm not looking, sweeping her beautiful majestic tail through my lunch and getting mustard all over everything. That was a fun one to explain, why I was chasing down the boss's mustard-covered cat with a tissue.)

figure drawings

2006-10-25T15:37:59+00:00

i decided to take a figure drawing class at sva this semester- i already have my 4 years all signed for and everything, but i like figure drawing. i brought back my huge sketchbooks last night to take a few pictures...

Flaming Lips Book

2006-10-22T17:18:48+00:00

I love books, not just like novels and stuff, but I really love well-made, awesome books. I found this little gem on the Flaming Lips site (if anyone isn't familiar with them, them you should check them out... very theatrical, great music)- it's a limited edition of 1500, full color photo coffee table book. It was a little out of my price range for a while, but I decided that if I got that book job, I'd pick it up as an early Christmas present (and if I didn't, it was gonna be my consolation prize :))... I was a little nervous about dropping over a hundred clams on a book that I hadn't even seen, but it was very worth it. I love it when you're not sure if something is going to suck or rock, and then it rocks. I figured there are some other book lovers out there, so I've included some photos...

The box it came in (I thought this was going to be crummy... it came from WB after all)... according to the site it's a hand-made box. Excellent... I want real blood, sweat and tears on what I buy :) The cover of the book (see above)- I had only seen it as a small jpg on the web, and it's surprisingly well printed (a little more graphic than I expected too).

This is what I love about this... attention to detail. I scan a lot of children's books at work, and I have to take the dust jackets off to do it the easily- and the cool books always have cool real covers. I hate cop-out books with nice dust jackets and like blank covers with the name of the book stamped on the spine. Lazy jerk designers.

Ooh, I forgot to mention. I'm a total fangirl about autographs... I thought of it as a silly thing until I sold a lmtd edition signed poster of Sailor Moon of all things for over a grand on ebay. Since then I've been telling myself "it doesn't matter if it's expensive, its an investment!!" Not that I'd ever sell this stuff, but it's nice to know that if I ever went completely broke I'd have some nice stuff to hock for rent. Oh, the signatures are the 2 photographers and 3 members of the band (where's the drummer? who knows).

The lead singer Wayne and Beck (I missed this tour, it came through my college but I sat it out. My boyfriend saw it (we didn't know either other at the time) and says it was awesome. I hate him sometimes. The only thing that made me feel better about missing that show was the fact that Beck got food poisoning halfway through the show and had to end early. Take that. (poor Beck)

Ooh, this is the balloon thing they do at every show. They blow up this huge clear bubble, and the lead singer gets in and walks around on the audience. Very cool. I feel like a PBS special.. but if you think this is cool, check out their documentary called "Fearless Freaks"- normally I'm not one for documentaries but it's definitely one of the better ones I've seen, and it was great to listen to them talk about all the stuff they've done and flip through the book at the same time.

karma day

2006-10-20T20:58:18+00:00

Hey everyone, remember my post a week back about that huge book deal? I was talking about it with the b/f and he was commenting that I get a lot of work (he's working on getting his stuff off the ground)... I told him not to feel bad though, because when I'm 30 I won't be able to make a dime on anything (that's the way karma works with me). OR SO I THOUGHT!!! Karma is speedier than I thought these days, what with technology and all. The deadline for both the CQ student competition and the SoI annual was today, and my computer at work completely stopped printing. No reasonable explaination, just "I'm going to make your life terrible!" Of course I had lots of prints to make still, so I offered to make them on my home printer. Which worked fine, until my b/f went to print his entries (his printer is perpetually broken), and mine ran out of ink... and it's too late to buy more ink (it was like 11pm), so we gave up, went to bed, slept, and got back up again. Thinking back, I think this is where I erred. I never should have left my bed. I get into work with the prints (beautiful), but it turns out we didn't actually need most of them. Then we had some last minute forms to print out and send.... so the backup printer at work decided not to work. It was working yesterday, even that morning BEFORE I came in, but I came in, and it broke. I spent an hour trying to get it online, but no dice... so I use a trusty pen and copier (the copier jammed, but fixed itself, or else I would have broken down and cried at this point). So I finish all the entries by some grace of god, and they get picked up and whisked off uptown to kick ass at the SoI. My major hassle done, I decide to send off my CQ entry, which merely has to be postmarked by today. However, by the time I made it to the mailbox, the last pickup of the day was already over, and the nearest mailbox that I could still make was blocks and blocks and blocks away. It was sprinkling lightly but it was nice, so I tried to walk fast so it wouldn't seem like I was running around NYC looking for a stupid mailbox. Sprinkling turned to heavier sprinkling, and then a DOWNPOUR. Only for like 5 minutes though, enough to completely soak me, make the people carrying umbrellas look smug, and STOP COMPLETELY by the time I get back to the office. The sun even came out a little, just to spite me, so when I came back soaked to the bone and my boss asked me what happened, I got to point outside to the sunshine and look like a lying fool. Anywho, I went to dry my pants in the bathroom with the hair-dryer (wet wool is the worst), which worked well, until I stepped in the cat vomit left there thoughfully by the office cat (I was in socks mind you). It was getting pretty close to quittin' time by this point, so I just tried to sit at my computer and get one last piece of work done. I went to save, and the hard drive was full... the brand new one. At this point I gritted my teeth and deleted a bunch of stuff, then emptied the trash.... which I apparently haven't done since I started working there, because it was still gathering up 50,000+ files to delete when I left. I hope it doesn't empty the trash then reformat itself or something. So let's all pray that's the end of the story. I didn't get hit by the subway on the way home, or robbed, or killed somehow. I am, however, going to stay and hide in my apartment for the rest of the year, barring any house fires, explosions, earthquakes, plane crashes, or terrorist attacks. Wish me luck!

sketch process

2006-10-19T02:03:48+00:00

I was recently picked up by Morgan Gaynin, and they asked me to give their consultation service ad a fresh face. I was quite honored to do so, and thought I'd share the process...

:

mgi requested that she be very spirted and business oriented- they liked the way that Ward's image was looking towards the future.

o m g books

2006-10-17T20:02:42+00:00

Whoever said agents didn't rock is crazy! My first job through my awesome agency Morgan Gaynin Inc is an incredible book deal- I just got word at midnight last night I'm illustrating a series of 29 books to be re-released (the covers needed freshening up)! They were working with this company with another artist, and sent the above picture incase they had any tween work lying around that needed art... which apparently there was! :D

It's just amazing to me that one illustration can get such a good response, and now it's basically paid the rent for the rest of the year :) And the part everyone loves about it- the squiggly lines in the back- was totally a blooper. My tablet fell out of my lap, and I thought it looked cool (translation: was too tired & rushed to take it out).

Anyway, just thought I'd share the good news :)

Paper Dolls!

2006-10-13T02:34:06+00:00

I did my first set of these up to promote my first comic book (copykatcomic.com ;))- the girl doing the writing (MK Reed) and I thought up the idea over coffee a few months ago, and I couldn't believe I hadn't done 'em before. This is my first venture into paper toys- my boyfriend got me into them with his puppets and crazy animations (dfbirch.com). So they're not as complex as his, but I get to make my own clothes into little doll clothes without learning how to sew which is awesome <3 Anywho, I've zipped them up if anyone has little ones at home that might enjoy printing and playing with them :) http://www.lauratallardy.com/dolls72.zip (384k - ok quality, small file) http://www.lauratallardy.com/dolls300.zip (7.2mb - nice quality, big file) (you might want to print the dolls on cardstock)
the prototypes...

emotional involvement

2006-10-03T02:42:41+00:00

Does anyone ever get all emotional when they have to do a certain topic? I don't normally think too much about the teen and tween stuff I do, but the most recent school shooting (in my hometown even) has left me feeling a little icky. I'm currently working on a project with elementary school girls being all cute and shy and, well, elementary school girls. But twice in the past week, some psycho has marched into a school, sent the boys out, and killed the girls. Once is awful enough to think about, but twice?? My deadline is starting to loom ahead and I can't find the heart to delve too deeply into the world of little girls to do all these sketches... has anyone else encountered a similar problem? :(

moo cards!

2006-10-01T20:43:56+00:00

has anyone else seen these way cool cards? they're called moo cards, they're like half the size of a biz card, they're inexpensive and very cool to make. check out moo.com- you take photos from your flickr albums (very easy to set up, and you can upload art instead of photos if you want), and you can print as many different images as you like, $20 for 100 cards. the print quality is also very nice- smooth and velvety (if a little dark- when i get more i'll be tweaking the colors to a little brighter than normal). you can only put a few lines of text on the back, and the cropping is a little weird, but for this price (no shipping either) you can't complain too much. and is it just me, or are these begging to made into illustrator trading cards? ;)

everybody dance!

2006-09-30T06:50:47+00:00

bringing in my first post with my excellent friend the piano playing sock puppet horse... glad to be here :) now everybody dance!