Shades of Perry

Here are two more 8″x10″ acrylic paintings of Perry. The first was a thank-you gift for a coworker, and it’s Perry as his number one fan. This painting was unique in that it’s one of the few where the design wraps around the edges of the painting as well. (As opposed to a solid colored background.) Unfortunately, those pictures were blurry, so I’ll have to sneak into his office to take more. Yes, it’s hanging in his office!

The second is Perry the Practicepus, a gift for another coworker who is endlessly entertained by Dr. Doofenshmirtz having a practice dummy of Perry made from a painted log, tennis racket and tennis balls, rubber gloves, twigs, and an orange cone tied around its head with a piece of string. This, too, is hanging up in the office. Makes me proud

Birthday Paintings

Below are two paintings I made for birthdays. The first was for a dear friend of mine, and the second was commissioned by another friend for his husband. He actually did the design, I just transcribed it in paint.

Both are acrylics on 8×10″ canvas. (And I’ve included the evolution photos of Donald. And please pardon the glare on Mickey.)

So, I’ve been painting…

I’ve been painting a lot lately, but it’s left me with little time to talk about the painting I’m doing. I’ve done some more Phineas and Ferb characters, and even a few commissioned pieces. (Thanks to those of you who saw my autographed paintings and inquired about getting one of your own. It was quite touching, and humbling!)

Below are my latest pieces. I know I promised crafting diversity on this blog, and more of it will come, but when I’m in a phase, there’s no telling how long it’ll last. Don’t even get me started on all the Pinterest projects I’ve logged away and have been waiting to make. Acrylics are just ruling these days!

Below is “Something that doesn’t exist” and Bobblehead Perry from Phineas and Ferb. They’re both 8×10″ canvases.

I have been taking more progress pictures though. You can see how many tries it takes for me to settle on a shade of green for Swampy Me, a perfectionist? Nonsense.

Swampy, if you don’t recognize him, is the star of the highly addictive game “Where’s My Water?” Don’t say I didn’t warn you. He was commissioned by someone who saw my other paintings and wanted one of his own. I was thrilled to make it! (He, too, is on an 8×10″ canvas.)

I’ll post some more later on!

Painting Update

So I’ve done some new paintings recently of Phineas and Ferb characters, but haven’t posted any of them… Yesterday, however, I had the thrill of a lifetime.

Backstory (which is appropriate if you’ve ever seen the show):

The two most recent paintings I did were of Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz wearing Steak Specs, and Peter the Panda rocking out to some PFT. Both are done with Acrylic on 8×10″ canvas. For some reason, I can’t find a picture of Doof. (I’ll work on it, and post it later.)

I went to Starbucks with a coworker for an afternoon pick-me-up, as per usual, and when I got back to my desk, two of my paintings were gone. I was a bit freaked out, as paintings don’t sprout legs when they feel like running off, and no one had left a note saying they were taking them. No one had seen anything, of course, so I sort of felt like a crazy person.

A bit later, I was heading back to my cubicle from my boss’ office, and there they were, miraculously replaced on their appropriate pegs. Only, there was something different…

My coworkers heard me exclaim something along the lines of, “NO WAY! HOLY CRAP!” and came running to see what was going on, with big smiles on their faces. Apparently everyone was in on it, this elaborate ruse.

A coworker in another department, who had often stopped by to see if I’d updated my painting collection, had taken them with him to a meeting with Dan and Swampy – the creators of Phineas and Ferb. Not only that, but he told me that were “blown away” by my paintings. He had asked them to sign these, and said they were hesitant because they didn’t want to ruin my artwork, or to have people think someone else painted them. (Which I understand.)

I couldn’t get over it. He and my boss asked me, afterwards, if I was happy with the surprise. AB-SO-LUTE-LY! I think it’s awesome to have someone, whose work you idolize, comment that your work is Dooftastic. And I thought it was pretty funny that it was on my artwork. If they weren’t one of a kind before…

Let’s just hope these don’t up and run away!

Perry and Meap

I’ve actually done a bit of painting lately, and it seems I found my newest inspiration in the Disney Channel show Phineas & Ferb. It’s a great cartoon, if you’re into wacky adventures, awesome musical numbers, and humor that’s silly for kids but with enough layers for an adult to enjoy as well. I am, on all counts.

Recently, I made these paintings for my cubicle. The first is of Perry, the boys’ pet platypus, after he’s been dressed up by the boys (Phineas and Ferb) to be in their Cirque (circus) act. Perry is also leading a double life as a secret agent, and the boys don’t know about it. He’s been painted in acrylic on an 8×10″ canvas.

The second photo is of the boys’ alien friend Meap. Meap is an intergalactic security agent, and his mustache is actually a translator to help him speak different languages. Without it, he merely says, “meap.” He is precious, barfs rainbows of death, and is also painted with acrylics on an 8×10″ canvas.

And here are the two paintings together, as they hang in my cubicle.

If you aren’t familiar with this show, you should definitely check it out. It’s one of the most popular children’s shows on Disney Channel, if not across networks. It’s not so juvenile that adults can’t enjoy it and, quite frankly, grown-ups will laugh just as hard at the incorporated references and throwbacks between episodes. A friend turned me onto it, and I’ve become somewhat of a fanatic in the past couple of months. I anticipate many more paintings of these fun characters. (At the moment, they’ve even replaced Stitch as my muse… Never thought I’d see the day!)

What characters do you find inspiring?

Glittery Nails Make Everything Better

Fact.

It’s been pretty dreary here in LA for the past few days, and the chill and drizzle are quite an odd converse to the 90ºF we hit on Friday. But as gloomy as it may be outside, I’ve been livening things up with my new nail polish!

I’ve considered myself an experienced nail painter since at least the 7th grade. In fact, I remember challenging myself at one point and painting my nails a different color and/or pattern every day for 2 months straight. These days I just hope that my polish makes it through more than a day without chipping so I don’t have to redo them. Don’t get me wrong, I love painting my nails, but all my free time lately is just before bed, and fresh polish + sheets + I swim in my sleep = disaster.

Anyways, this green is not being properly represented in these pictures, and I don’t have the wherewithal to color correct them now that Picnik no longer exists, but they are a brilliant shade of emerald. Think Wizard of Oz, or a box of Thin Mints. The color in the pictures is pretty, but not nearly as vibrant as it looks in person. Boo to that.

So I picked these new colors at Forever 21 over the weekend. (It was weird for me too, those bins by the checkout stands are so dangerous.) When I was a polish novice, I used to think that a couple of coats of glitter shellac were enough to convey a color on their own. Then at some point, when I was older and wiser, I realized that by pairing a glitter polish top coat with a base coat of a solid in a similar hue, the sparkle and color impact would be tenfold. Take my toes for example, in real life they look like the finish on a bowling ball. Epic. (I purchased those colors at Forever 21 as well. They have a solid summer palette! You’ll notice that the teal glitter is finer than the green, and I actually prefer that aesthetically – even though my nails are totally kickass!)

According to the Forever 21 website, the base coat on my fingers is Go Go Green, and the glitter is, cleverly enough, called Green Glitter. For my toes, I used a base of Cobalt Blue, and topped it off with Blue Glitter. (In real life, the labels on both the blue bottles say “blue,” and the green say “green.”)

Having never used it before, here is my review of the polish. The one downfall of this particular brand seems to be that is that it’s super matted, including the glitter, so to get a any shine you’ll need to use a clear top coat. Besides that, I did 2 coats of the solid green, and 2 coats of the glitter. The opaque color coated just fine in one, but I wasn’t sure how the glitter would distribute since it’s not fine, so I wanted to make sure everything was covered. You don’t have to do as many, I get carried away. On the major plus side – surprising with what I thought would be a very cheap polish, and despite the fact that there are so many layers – they still haven’t chipped, and it’s been over 3 days! (knock on wood.)

So there you have it. If the gloom has got you down, shake up your regular nail routine and pair your matte colors with a cop coat of matching glitter. Now you too can spend your dreary days like I do – grinning stupidly at my nails every time they catch my eye.

Stitch – A Portrait in Paintings

One of my favorite Disney movies is Lilo & Stitch. Considering they don’t sell much paraphernalia for this movie, you might think it wasn’t particularly memorable. Well, that’s just not true! It’s a hand-drawn, animated film that has aliens in it, and it takes place in Hawaii, what’s not to love? I fell in love with it when it came out, and Stitch immediately became an inspiration for the majority of my paintings from that point on. I apologize for any infringement, but these are, in fact, my own original artwork. You can tell by the differing hues of blue in each picture

Stitch has a devilish smile, and his mischievous nature is infectious, but he’s also cute and fluffy. All these paintings are acrylic. The first two are from 2003/04, and are on 16×20″ canvases, but based on the pictures, you can’t really tell the scale of the painting. If I had the originals with me, I’d take new ones!

The following painting is dated 2003, and is on an 8×10″ canvas. A rare occasion where I signed the front of the painting.

This one, dated 2007, is 5×7″ and actually hanging on a wall in my bedroom.

There are more paintings of him out there. I had this habit, back in the day, of giving away artwork and not taking pictures first. Not just of Stitch, either! So if you’re reading this, and you happen to have one of my pieces, please send me a snap

Do you have a favorite character to paint or draw?

Oh, hello there!

Some of you may already know me as that girl who putters around the kitchen, but my first love will always be arts and crafts. In the spirit of my recent, burgeoning creativity (thank you, Pinterest), I have decided to start a separate blog to highlight some of my non-baking creations. Basically, I wanted a forum to show off all the fun stuff I can make with other mediums.

My love of arts and crafts has been around since as long as I can remember. I’m pretty sure that in every home I’ve lived in since childhood, there is a blue stain on the carpet (or couch…) from some rogue acrylic paint. (My current apartment is no exception.) On this blog, I will showcase all different kinds of artwork, from painted nails to painted canvases, my extensive collection of stickers and glitter, and anything else I find pretty. While some entries will be pictures of pieces I’ve made in the past, I also anticipate posting some how-tos of all the projects I’ve tucked away and have yet to make.

For my first ever post on They Call Me Crafty, I have chosen to display the two paintings below – the oldest paintings of mine that I have in my home. I kind of thought the first was likely painted with tempera or acrylic on a 9 x 12″ canvas board, but it actually looks a lot like water color. I can’t remember, and can’t really tell. Anyway, it’s a painting of a house I grew up in, painted in an art class I took at a local community college probably when I was 8 or 9. We moved in 1993, so all I know is that the painting has to be from before then, but isn’t dated.

The second painting is acrylic on a 9 x 12″ canvas board, and was created while I was at summer camp, and is dated 1995. I was, and still am, pretty proud of the job I did with shading.

I look forward to sharing more of my artistic endeavors with you, both past and present. Thanks for joining me on what promises to be a sometimes sparkly, but always colorful adventure.