Favorite Stuff Friday No.3

All I can say is these hand made dolls make me speechless. AMAZING!

http://www.enchanteddoll.com/index.html

What's bigger than a stalking stuffer and hangs on your wall?

Lil Red canvas prints! Available now!

Limited Edition of 100
11x17 Giclee on Canvas,
UNFRAMED $150.00
FRAMED $350.00

Please contact me via e-mail in the contact section of my website if you are interested.

These prints are not yet available on my website. I'm still working on the redesign of the site and it will be up after the New Year.

Favorite Stuff Fridays! No.2

LOVE her paintings!!!!!

http://www.loriearley.com/gallery/

Mucus Dreams and Robitussin Wishes

My newest sketch... it's gonna be a cool painting.

Sorry everyone for being MIA on my blogging responsibilities... I've been sick and have had a hard time focusing through my mucus induced coma. I even missed my second installment of Favorite stuff Fridays!

I'm still recovering, but I felt compelled to connect with my fellow Deannavillians... or is it Deannavillites... maybe Deannavillists?

Soon I will have my new and improved website up... and just in time for Christmas.... Lil Red prints will be available. So keep a look out for an announcement in the next week or two.

I've been painting away to get a bunch of paintings done before January.  I will be in The Hive's tarot show in January AND I will be a feature artist at The Hive in June! How cool is that?

Wow...all that good news has made my nose runny.

Favorite Stuff Fridays!

I love this guys work. I think he paints mostly digital in Painter. Beautiful!

tom bagshaw blog: A little Halloween cheer...: "Edit: I have released 'Frankie' as a limited run of 10 prints, now available in the Mostlywanted shop. 9x12' plus border for framing, signed..."

Oh it's on...

It was canceled.... then it was uncanceled... there were (and still are) rumors that it could go either way... but I assure you people the LA Art Walk is going strong. You know I think people would have been there if it was canceled or not, cause that's how much the City of Angels loves their art. Ok, that statement may have been a bit cheesy, but I do think everyone would have shown up for all the booze and possibly the food trucks.

It was fun and I had a bunch of friends come to hang with me and check out my painting.

There's impromptu galleries and small market places in a bunch of the old buildings downtown. Going through all the old buildings in LA is amazing...beautiful ballrooms in old hotels and art installations in the vault of the old bank building.

Most of the pics were taken by my good friend Ulises: designer, pilot and professional iphone photographer.

We started off the night at the Grilled Cheese food truck,
all I can say is... OMG YUM!!!!! Mac N Cheese grilled cheese
w/BBQ pulled pork and caramelized onions.... SERIOUSLY!
I say it again.... YUM!

Stained glass on the ceiling of an old ballroom. A marketplace
was set-up with some artists selling their work.

Me with my painting.

Super cool light up bottle I bought at the Art Walk.
I put it in my art room. Makes me happy. :-)

ArtZ art stuff in the SCV

The weekend before last we went to the Santa Clarita Art Festival. There were many talented artists there and some amazing street paintings.

Amazing street chalk (pastel) art... Frankie was my favorite.

I truly admire the artists creating these pieces of art,
It's so hot outside and they get completely covered in chalk...

This was soooo cool! He puts mud on the car, lets it dry
then he wipes off the dry dirt with a brush creating an
amazing piece of art. Hey... my car is a little dirty right now...

I loved that they had all different kinds of art at the fair...
this is post-it art.

One of their finished pieces of Post-it art.

Pretty umbrellas decorating the street.

Happy Times at The Hive

Hey Everyone! I wanted to share some photos with you from last nights show at The Hive Gallery.

I would also like to give a big THANK YOU to all of my peeps that attended!

We started off the evening at a friends house for lobster! Yumm!
Seriously, how cute is that lobster bread?

See that iddy bitty painting on the left... that's mine. :-)

Here it is, my painting in all it's glory!

Sing for us music lady! Sing!

The upper walls at The Hive... just thought it looked cool.

Ooohhh... scary people in costume...

Are thunder and lightening storms signs from above?

Last night I had a looonnnggg evening of learning that my one class in HTML didn't get me very far.  I was getting super frustrated that my "simple" website design was a little beyond my HTML skills. So after cussing myself out for not practicing my website building skills... I decided it was time to go to bed and lay down my sleepy head. Then just as I was falling asleep... BAM! the loudest thunder I've ever heard. It kinda scared the crap out of me. Then I started thinking, what if this is a sign? What if the "powers that be" are trying to tell me something? Like, maybe instead of staying up all night trying to figure out HTML I should be painting!


Who am I to ignore a sign like that?

So I've decided I need to hire someone to build the wonderful website I really want. I just wanted to get something up and running for tonight (speaking of tonight don't forget to come on out and see me at The Hive) so keep that in mind when you take a look at my website.

Shout out!

This last weekend I had a major dilema. A frame I ordered for my painting hadn't come in and I had to deliver my painting on Sunday. A friend recommended a place called Sherman Gallery... they were awesome! They took care of my "framergency" and I delivered my painting on time. Yay! So if you have any framing needs keep these guys in mind. They made my weekend!

Here I am, oh so happy my painting is framed.

All Ready for the Show!

Whew! It's been a crazy week but I managed to get the painting for The Hive finished and framed.

Ezmerelda the Ventriloquist

The theme for The Hive show is Hell vs. The Monster Mash... I was a little more inspired by the Hell part.

Oohh... is that what Hell is like?

While I'm at it I thought I would give everyone a peak at my work in progress. Hansel and Gretel, this is a BIG painting so it's taking a while to finish.

Hansel and Gretel eats the witch...
personally if it was me I would eat all that candy.

Gett'n ready for October!

New show coming up in October at The Hive Gallery . Couldn't resist painting something a little sinister....

postcard for the show

postcard for the show

Sneak peek of my painting for the show...

Once upon a time....

The first painting in my series.

Remember when you were young and your imagination was so vivid? I remember swearing up and down that Santa Claus snuck in my room to kiss me goodnight... that my cat was a REAL baby and NEEDED to wear the baby clothes. And yes, I really did have a twin sister named Patty...REALLY! OK, so maybe we were never in the room at the same time and my Mom couldn't remember being pregnant with twins... I wanted a twin sister so bad, I guess I thought if I willed her to exist, she would. 

As I got older I realized you couldn't will people to exist, but you could bring them to life in a story.  I would draw funny portraits, each person with their own story. Henrietta Peachbottom lived on the lake, had 50 cats and loved to practice her high wire act in the backyard. Jacques VanTankersnitch would race cars and collect umbrellas until he was killed by an elevator falling on his head. Hey, I didn't say they were all happy tales.

Luckily I had a best friend who had her own stories to tell. So we would spend hours drawing and creating new people in magical places. And we never stopped.

When I started painting again I wanted each painting to tell a story.  For my first series I chose to paint existing fairy tale characters while putting my own twist on they're story. Haven't you ever wondered what it would have been like if Little Red Riding Hood garnished a whip and tamed the big bad wolf? Or if Hansel and Gretel were actually two headed siamese twins that ate the evil witch? It's a series I decided to call Fairy Tale Circus.

So maybe I can will someone to exist after all. If I paint them does it not make them real? After I'm done with my Fairy Tales, maybe I'll make my evil twin! Watch out world, here comes Patty!

The Adventure Begins!

A painting by my greatest artistic inspiration.. my dad.

Hello, My name is Deanna and I'm an artist.  My creative addiction started at birth and flourished into adolescence while watching my Dad paint really cool paintings of cars, candy apples and a few paint cans. On the verge of adulthood (otherwise known as 16), I discovered I LOVE to paint people. Mostly portraits of cute guys... Hey, I was 16! I went on to study graphic design in college. I didn't really think there was any other option if I wanted to make money being an artist. After working as a designer and art director in the entertainment industry for about a billion years... I hit "rock bottom".  I discovered I want to create what I want to create. No more rules, no more critiques!!!!! I want to be a creative rebel! So this is why I stand before you today....

OK, so I realize this isn't AA or anything but it's hard to start your first blog!

As I mentioned, I'm an art director in the entertainment industry.  Truthfully, I love my job, so I guess there really never was a "rock bottom", I added that for dramatic effect. But after many years of creating art for clients, I decided I wanted to create art for myself.  It took me awhile to figure out what I wanted to paint and what is to be my own artistic voice.

I will be sharing my new creative adventure with you, my faithful blog reader. Future posts will include but not be limited to: my creative process from research to sketch, finished paintings and stuff I find just plain inspiring. And since this is my creative rebellion... I might just break the rules from time to time and post whatever in the heck I want. I'm crazy like that.

I would love to hear from you, so please feel free to share any thoughts or feelings. Just please try and make it nice.

Till next time!