Hearts and Laserbeams

Yesterday Josh walks into our office and says what no chicken owner wants to hear:

“We’re missing a chicken.”

Ummmm WHAT?!?! How are we missing a chicken?! I mean, last fall I saw a hawk hanging around our backyard cuz he was looking for a chicken dinner, but that was because our dog was in the other room and couldn’t tell us something was up. And none of the neighborhood cats messes with our chickens! Where could Judy Plume have gone?!?!

Josh went back out to the yard and searched for another 20 minutes. And then he noticed the box under our lemon tree.

The sturdy one that sits on its side as an option for places for our chickens to lay their eggs.

The one that was now sitting overturned.

“Nooooo….,” he thought, “she’s not under there.”

But oh yes. Yes she was. With 2 eggs, which leads us to believe she’d been stuck under there for 2 days. Josh let her out and she hightailed it for the water bowls, where she spent the next 10 minutes drinking, poor girl!

Moral of the story? A chicken in the hand is worth 2 eggs in the cardboard box you find her in 2 days after she’s gone missing.

Or it feels like it, anyways! Between getting to baby classes and finishing up projects before going on maternity leave, it seems I’ve fallen a little behind in my updates for you fine folks.

Last night I finished one of my last projects that needs to be done before leave happens! I was commissioned to create a custom 3D wedding cake topper featuring my robots done up with details to reflect the bride and groom, and it turned out really cute! I got to bust open my stash of vintage 50s plastic flower beads for the headpiece on the bride, and all of the 3D elements came together better than I could have imagined. Click on the pic to see more images of this cake topper, and make sure to like the Hearts and Laserbeams Facebook page while you’re there!

Did y’all see the Etsy Storque Blog today? Amy Zurcher from ShopScad, a boutique with locations in Savannah, Atlanta, France and online was a guest curator for a post. In her piece, she featured some of the great work by Scad students, alumni and faculty that are carried in the shop that are also available on Etsy. Click here to read the piece, and as you get near the end… You may recognize our panties!

I went to Savannah College of Art and Design from 1995 – 1999, graduating with a BFA in Computer Art (with a concentration in 2d hand-drawn animation – something that is probably pretty easy to see in a lot of my cartoony looking artwork!). If you happen to visit ShopScad at one of their shops or online, don’t forget to look for Hearts and Laserbeams goodies while you’re there!

I got some really exciting news this weekend! Hearts and Laserbeams has been working with a licensing agent for the last few months to try and get some deals going, and get our characters out there in stores. It looks like we may have a deal with a tee company in the near future! If all goes well there may be shirts with Hearts and Laserbeams  characters on them in actual major stores by the end of this year! If all goes not well, there may be a Hearts and Laserbeams employee (me) crying in the dark with a bottle of wine… er… apple juice (until our little boy is born. then bring on the vino!).

I’ve been taking a break working on the licensing stuff for the past couple of weeks because it’s been ungodly long work days for the last few months, but now that a deal is pending I gotta make like Devo and crack that whip and finish up what this company’s gonna need art-wise so all goes smoothly when/if a deal gets signed… I just wanted to share the excitement – keep them fingers crossed that this thing goes through! Hooray!

About a year ago when I was commuting 40 miles south to Mission Viejo every day to a job that was in a less than positive environment, I started doing Fancy Coffee Friday. Instead of drinking the free coffee at work, I’d detour to the Starbucks on the way to the office, get a medium mocha with no whip cream on top, sigh, and pat myself on the back for making it through another week.

Now, a year later, I’ve kept that little ritual going. Except now I’m doing a job I love with zero commute (except for the occasional drive to L.A. for a meeting), and with the prego-ness I’ve made the temporary switch to Fancy Hot Chocolate Friday. It’s nice that the ritual has a happier tone to it now, a more “YAY it’s the weekend!!!” and less “Good god how am I going to do this again next week” feeling.

Do you have little weekly rituals like that, and what are they? Happy weekending everyone!

Here’s a little sneak peek of style guide stuff I’m working on this week – check out some fun apple characters!

Ok so last night was a blasty at the Long Beach Museum of Art! They were having their After Dark event, and invited Long Beach Craft Mafia to set up shop to show off and sell our wares and do some demos throughout the night. I set up my merch (which Tamara of Crayon Fawn was awesome enough to sell for me!) and then sat down to an evening of caricaturing.

It’s funny how self-conscious I get about my drawing sometimes, and caricatures is even worse because someone is right there watching you do it… What if you screw it up? What if it doesn’t look enough like them? Good lord what if they hate your drawing?!?

What was different last night, as opposed to other caricature events I’ve done, is this one was mostly adults. And they were just as enthusiastic about my drawing as kids at 8th grade grad nights. So it’s time to stop worrying about whether or not my drawings are good enough. They’re fun, and they’re funky, and that’s all you need to know! I know I’ve mentioned this before, but if you’re in the LA or Orange Counties I am definitely available to draw at your party just email me and we’ll make it happen!

Also awesome about last night – I changed one small technique in my caricature drawing towards the end of the night, and it solved something that’s always been a little bit of a problem for me! Thumbs up for progress and change and practice and drawing! Here’s a few warm-up sketches from last night – I’m hoping my buddies Steph and Ellen will scan in their caricatures so I can show ya a couple of finished drawings!

In closing, I want to go back through all my almost 8 years of blog posts and find out just how many of them start with “ok so”. The end!

(Also, when I research the “Ok so” thing, I will count how many posts end with “the end!”)