Spoiled.

I’m very fond of this little guy.  He’s adorned bags, keychains, cards, pins and, my favorite, baby onesies. He’s part of a series of rude food. But he’s really one of a kind.

Mmm...cupcakes.

It's a cupcake, do I really need to say more?

Mommy X-ing.

I went to a baby shower over the weekend. Baby showers are not really my thing, but I've been to a lot  of them. Luckily I have a card all ready for any emergency showering...

Ahoy There!

This particular pirate is part of a set of four. She's kinda feisty, this one. And she was created for a friend who gave me the basic description of a “red-headed pirate girl.” So...she's got red hair...and she’s a pirate. How’s that for following directions?

Two types of flowers.

It’s twofer Friday! Two flowers for the price of one post. Actually, there are three flowers...two types...but...that’s really not the point.

Here’s a buttercup I did a long time ago that I am thinkning about reworking into a card...

The buttercup originally appeared in a little greeting card/book I made for San Diego Comic Con several years ago. It was called “Sweet Talk” and it was an picture book of pet names. 

And this...

is a project I worked on with my mom for her philanthropic organization. Mom designed the layout, I executed the final art from her design. It’s all about the teamwork, people!

There you go, two types of flowers for your Friday.

The disappointed lemon.

Angry Koalas Dream of Guns.

Here's another creepy little bundle of fluff from the “dreamers” series. People often tell me that they find this one disturbing. Koalas are pretty angry critters, you know...it's all that eucalyptus, I think.

I am not a big fan of the gun used as “design” in general, it seems too easy somehow. But the idea for this particular image came to me as that full sentence "Angry Koalas Dream of Guns" and if you dream it, well...

For the record, my brother is a gun collector and he said that I did a pretty good job with this one.

Django Reinhardt.

Thought I’d mix it up a bit for you here. Until now, I’ve posted has been pretty polished (well...polished for me). But that's the thing with digital art, you can keep polishing that...thing. This image of one of my very favorite musicians, Django Reinhardt, is more like a sketch. I set a time limit and tried to keep it simple.

If you don’t know Django, go get yourself some Gypsy Jazz and enjoy. It’s good stuff. And consider this, at the age of 18, Django’s third and fourth fingers of his left hand were badly burnt and partially paralyzed. He taught himself a new way to play the guitar, playing all his solos using his two good fingers and using his two injured fingers for chords.

Pretty impressive, eh?

Angel Food for Andrea.

My friend Andrea expressed concern that there may not be enough cupcakes on this blog. Don't worry, Andrea, my obsession with cupcakes is of both the edible and illustrated variety. Here's a little cupcake for you that will eventually show up in a book. A book about cupcakes. What a lovely thing.

And if you wonder, as people often do, why I am so obsessed with these petite confections...well...I think it's because no one ever expects you to share a cupcake. You get to have one all to yourself. Yay!

Seduction of the Innocent.

So, I don't know how big of a geek you are. You may not be as dorky as I am and if you are not, I guess what you see here is a naked lady covering her bits with comic books. So...yay! Naked lady! Nothing wrong with that. If you are a bit of a comic geek, you may recognize the title of this "pin-up" girl (and yeah, I use that term loosely. I call them (Oh, there are more naked ladies!) my "Nerdy Girls" and I love drawing them...but we'll talk about that some other time.)...where was I? Oh right, the title...see in 1954 there was a book published by one Frederick Wertham. It was called "Seduction of the Innocent" and basically, it said that comics were bad and would cause all manners of juvenile delinquency. That, naturally, alarmed people. There were hearings and a Congressional investigation and some hub-bub and the next thing you know, there's the Comic-Code, which was basically like a movie rating that told people, "Hey, this book is not appropriate for you! It will make you a bad person!" 

So, see, the title is a play on words. Get it? There's a lot more to the Frederick Wertham story. And it's odd, because the book and the hearings seem to have been pretty sensationalized, and...well...ok, remember the PMRC? Kind of like that.  Maybe worse. Which would make this naked lady a little inappropriate. So there.

Number 9 Girl/Bad Wolf.

Do you Who? I do. I'm a big fan of Doctor Who, although, not as big as fan as my BFF. And I hear that she's gonna have a Doctor Who viewing party with and old pal and a new pal. So, in honor of Whovians everywhere, I thought I'd post a Nerdy Girl and her...TARDIS. (Yeah, there are a lot of rude jokes to be made about this...).

Please, if you will, notice the tattoo on her back and have a nice day.

(For the record, I was a Number 5 girl...until Number 9 came along. *sigh* He's dreamy.)

Long Time...No Sea.

This was originally an "Illustration Friday" for the subject of "depth." I liked it enough to make a card of it. I have a habit of drawing disgruntled little girls. I have been told that they resemble me. Go figure.

Monkey Mandala.

Hey, there's only one thing better than a monkey. And that one thing is a  monkey with a martini. Be careful though, they can be mean drunks.

Happy Bunnies Dream of Meat.

Hi.

I guess since this is my inaugural post, I should explain who I am and what I'm doing here. I'm Karen. I'm posting pictures. It's pretty simple. This is my art and this is my art blog.  Perhaps, in time, I'll have something more profound to say about it. But until then...well...I'm afraid this is about as profound as it gets.

This (up there) is really the first image I made for a greeting card. I call it "Happy Bunnies Dream of Meat." And if you think that's disturbing...it's part of a series. It gets stranger. Please do come back and see how much stranger it gets.