ShoeboxBlog Halloween Posts

I recently joined the Alternative Humor studio at work. This is a series of Halloween themed "quotes of the day" I contributed to the ShoeboxBlog. -C

Cake decorating

After designing my own Wedding Cake (which is really not that involved, so I'm not posting it), my friend Tobe asked me to collaborate with another artist friend (Amy Kligman) to design her Wedding Cake. Amy and I wanted to do a test cake, so we decided to make Tobe's Bridal Shower Cake. Tobe picked the colors and we just went with it! It was a lot of fun. I could see myself doing more of this in the future ;) -m

New Book!

Hello everyone!
Long time since posting.
Well it's been a busy year and many things have distracted us from making lots of art. However, that will change soon. We will try and focus more on personal work starting late October. Until then, here's a little collaborative book I worked on with my dear friend Maura Cluthe. "It's Not Easy Being Brave" was written by Megan Haave. Making the book was really a great process. Maura and I did everything together! First we created all background textures with acrylic paint. Next we drew out the outline on acetate and scanned everything in. We added some color and detail in Photoshop. Lastly, while I was in Florida getting married Maura finished the layout of the book - lettering and all! The stuffed monster comes with the book. We really appreciated the freedom we had in designing it. It pretty much turned out like the mock up we made!
Another, very cool addition to this book was that my 8 year old step son Alex got to participate in the making of this book. The part where the boy in the book writes a note to Pip (his monster pet), as well as the "This book belongs to" page was Alex' handwriting and drawing. I'm very proud to have officially collaborated with him on his first nationally published piece of art. He also gets mentioned in the credits. Now, how many 8 year olds do you know that can say that???
Hope you like it! If you'd like to own it, "It's Not Easy Being Brave" is out in the Hallmark stores right now. -m

Here's just a quick drawing I did a couple of nights ago. It's about those moments when we wish we had a "mute" button for certain people... -m

Fuzzy Bunny?

I recently got moved to a talented team of illustrators called Pink Sky, who specialize in sophisticated cute. I questioned, why me? This is not what I do. Apparently they wanted a masculine/designer's perspective brought to the team. I put up this installation piece outside my new booth as a statement. A spokes that represents me in an abstract way. I found this image of a rabbit's head on a cabaret dancer smoking. It asks, "You were expecting a fuzzy bunny?" Pink paint drips throughout. -C

Play

I participated in a new project led by my old school, Ringling. 100 images done by 100 artists all interpreting a common concept. This year’s concept... WAKING THE GIANTS.

This was created by two students who have set it up so that every penny of profit will go towards creating new scholarships for students to help them achieve what we have all benefited from already.

So, this piece is an ode to how music fuels my creativity when I work. Music is the vehicle to waking my giants. When played, I'm working hard. When paused, I'm hardly working. -C

Chris' surprise wedding video

Finally I can stop sneaking around! For about 2 months I spent most every weekend at work creating this surprise video for Chris. He thought I was just really busy, and completely supported my overachieving attitude toward Hallmark.
I really wanted him to have absolutely no clue that I’m doing anything at all for him at our wedding. I didn’t want him to sense that there might be a surprise coming. I think I succeeded. The hardest thing was not being able to tell him when I learned something new in After Effects- which happened every day… We talk about work and our creative process all the time, and I was dying to share this new passion of mine with him.
However, it was worth it. I hope someone captured his face at our wedding when the movie started rolling. Our friend Sergio Moreno-Denton (who also performed our ceremony with his lovely wife Emily Akins) did an amazing job of finding the perfect equipment for the showing, setting everything up without me having to worry about anything, and all that while he kept it secret. Thank you Sergio!!!
My main goal was to show Chris in a creative and visual way what he means to me. He did such a lovely job surprising me when we got engaged, I really felt an urge to do something very special for him in return.
So, technically and creatively speaking, this may not be the best movie you’ve ever seen. But it just might be the most honest, raw, and genuine outpour of my emotions. It's also very small online compared to being projected on screen. Some details are lost. The writing on the bottom is the translation in Bosnian.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to applying some of what I learned in the process to future projects at Hallmark and in our freelance work. I think Chris and I could create some really fun movies together!
Enjoy! -m

Wedding Gift/ Poster

And so it begins. Families merge. Two become one. This was our favorite collaboration to date. Credit Mirna for the concept. She drew out the line work for the trees and hand lettered the names of invited attendees and family. She also added a nice secondary element with the organic leaf shapes. Then I took over and lettered the heading, added the textures/colors, and integrated the faces into the trees using some vector faces of ours I'd experimented with a while back. Then I used some pages of an old book I'd gotten as a gift from Mirna to create the grassy earth textures in the ground. I then pulled out some words to form subtle phrases that signified our unity. We were both really happy with the outcome and excited to give them to our guests. -C

Wedding Gift/ CD Art

It's official. We're married. We're really looking forward to creating art other than for ourselves. This is one of two gifts we gave to our friends and family who attended the wedding. Seeing as our DJ was an iPod mix I compiled, I knew I wanted to burn a sampling of what music was played that night. Here's what I came up with. -C

Our Wedding Invite/ Map

Taking on your own wedding invite has proven to be more of a daunting task than earlier forecasted, but it's done! done! done! Worth mentioning: Pictured for this posting are the front and reverse on one file. The finished piece was printed duplex (on both sides), and die cut by hand. A long sheer white ribbon was then thread through a grommet at the top framed in by the embellishments above "Love" and "Ljubav" (love in Bosnian). We're both really happy with how they turned out. On to bigger and better things. -C

CD Package Design

This is a CD package that Chris and I were commissioned to do for a kid's band called "Jetta and the Jellybeans." It was a lot of fun. -m

Balancing Act

We created this piece for the Hallmarkers Give Back fundraising event, which is raising awareness and money for the Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation, american heart association's go red for women campaign, and children's mercy cancer center. -C

emily's b-day present

i did this watercolor for my friend emily's b-day. she's very much a "green thinker" and she loves owls. i support both of those habits. -m

weekly sketches

i've been enjoying my luma ink sketches lately.

IMAGO gallery: EUREKA! show

Here are pics from the EUREKA! show this past Friday. It was all great fun, and the group we did this with has a range of diverse styles. This piece explores my views on evolution. -C

weekly sketch(es)

last week instead of doing my daily sketches, i made a postcard series that i sent to chris. why did i send it since we live together you ask? because it was our 1.5 yr anniversary and i wanted him to get something special in the mail.
they all have something to do with what we enjoy doing together or what we are grateful for, or look forward to. gardening, tennis, exploring nature, talking to each other, protecting each other and spending the rest of our lives together ( you figure out which theme goes with each card) - m

EUREKA show

join us during the next first friday on august 1st, 2008 for this one night show! 

Reception/Exhibit pics

Here are some pics of the space I created to host the exhibit here in hallmark's archives on the 7th floor.  From a life sized magician, who had in his hat a sources used/poster takeaway, a man-bat, a sea serpent, to a giant elephant creature with twins that took the "L" in the show's title "Welcome to this Crazy World" to reveal "We come to this Crazy World" (get it), I wanted viewers to transcend into this space for a moment and feel caught up in a strange dream.  Everyone who enters this space have been in relationships before, and can hopefully find humor in a few of the pieces. For the reception itself, I wanted everything to have symbolism.  A bouquet of dead roses breaks up the space between walls.  Strawberries and blocks of shattered chocolate were served. It was all great fun. -c

Welcome To This Crazy World Exhibit

When first asked to do an exhibit using hallmark's archives, my first thoughts were to create some funky rock posters sourcing some of the bizarre postcards I remember from past visits.  I had recently met a former co-worker, Jesse Atwell, and knew he fronted his band Calvin Yordy.  He gave me a copy of his EP to check out.  After giving it a listen and getting a taste of the content, I thought it would be great to channel his lyrics through this show.  He graciously agreed.  All the songs deal with the highs and lows of relationships.  Hallmark also deals with relationships, usually.  So there's my tie-in.  After going down and gathering a slew of sources that inspired me, I started creating visuals for the song titles and lyrics that interested me.  I chose some wonderfully quirky sources that seemed to take on a life of their own.  My goal was to get people to look at the archives differently and explore a point of view previously unexplored. -c

weekly sketch

...gotta love those vibrant markers... -m

Mom's Bday Gift

This year I wanted to make my mom's bday present using old pics from her younger years.
Stir up some nostalgia. So I washed them out to give it a dreamy, reflective quality. Mirna then went in and illustrated the
decorative elements to give them new life. My mom loved it. But then again, stick figures from us get the same reaction.

we're engaged!

last weekend chris proposed to me with this lovely "ring hand" sculpture that he made for me. i'm the happiest girl alive! -m

sketch of the week

i've committed myself to doing at least a sketch a day. i'll post my favorite of the week at every end of the week. here's the first one. enjoy. -m

ljubavi (= my love in bosnian)

while i was on a 4 day trip, chris made this beautiful portrait of me. i love it! -m