Cobwebs and Exploding Pies

Well folks it’s been an eventful January with the great remodeling of CRG Studios! Every piece of furniture has been unmoored and rearranged, spiders and centipedes evicted, and flat files given a delightfully thorough spring cleaning in winter.

This means I have unburied some gems from the archives, and this Friday, February 1st at 12 noon (pacific time) I will be releasing a few select prints from the vaults. in the CRG Store I will have a few available of:

“Who’s Afraid of the Peppermint Man?” 

“Becoming Animal” 

and “The Suffocating Corset”

Come early, to the CRG Store,  as I only have a few of each one!!

Watch Me Paint Exploding Pies

I am currently  working on a delicious illustrated cover for some my pals over at McSweeneys Publishing. Here are some sneak peeks of my process.

For this project I'm using watercolors on handmade watercolor paper. I have a few different watercolor sets, The bottom one is Japanese and the top one is German made.  I've had the lil' one on top since high school! I can't bear to part with it, plus the quality is unparralelled. Vintage rules.

Dr. Ph Martin's inks can be very intense, so I water them down a bit. Yes, I love Philippes. I'm very sad this mustard jar is empty.

I do some rough sketches first on vellum paper, then finalize and transfer my sketch to the watercolor paper. I think this guy looks pretty good, real rubbery.

When I have my drawing transferred, I do the black areas in a waterproof ink first. 

Then I lay in some watercolors in many thin layers, letting it dry in between. What's he baking?

I'm still working on this one, but when it's all done I'll post a little film of me working on it.

This year is shaping up to be an exciting one, many fun and varied projects taking me to San Francisco,   New York, Los Angeles and beyond! Come back and visit me soon, kay?

How to Make A Hoot

What actually goes into the making of these nocturnal vermin snackers? These puffy hoots have been flapping around in my mind belfry for some time now, and I thought it was time to bring them out of the dusty mental recesses and into the world of real things.

I always try to start simple, but I don’t usually end up there after it is all said and done.
I start with a story:

Then I do some design. That part takes forever, as there are endless variations of colors, of sizes, of materials, but I try to lock down my ideas at some point. 

Then we have the many headed hydra known as production! I personally, don’t really like to make over 100 thingies, but this time i thought I’d bamboozle some folks into working at my lilliputian doll factory and see what we could do collectively. 

It turns out, a lot! Here are some picts of the fabrication process. These are all made in the USA, because I am a bit of a control freak and also I am very into supporting local, independent businesses and paying a living wage. 

My sister came up with a rad bow design: 

Lo and behold, straw into gold, we have a product. 

Then what, you may be asking? 

Well, a nice photo shoot has to happen, and images need to be created of the things, so I wandered out into my yard and snapped a few. They were ok, but I thought maybe they could be better. Perfect is the enemy of the good, I am guilty. 

The next day it was torrentially raining, so me and the Hoots had to set up inside. They proved to be excellent models.  

 Who wants a peanut? 

Finally the hoots were ready for the world, and I felt comfortable releasing them. You may be asking yourself, who would do all of this? Why create all of this extra work for myself when I could just be watching the Walking Dead and baking bread? Mostly because they are so cute, but mainly because I am insane.

Available at the CRG Store! Enjoy!!!