HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO jenelycam

Happy Birthday Dawn!

HAI GUYS!

I know, I've been totally remiss in updating people with what's going on on this trip. The Comic-con pics are still being sorted through, so I'm going to be making out-of-order photo posts. :)

And so, today we have...me and Mickey lazily strolling around Chinatown and Little Tokyo, looking at cute stuff and half nekked anime chicks, because that is how we roll.



( Pretty pictures <s>surprisingly free of nekked chicks no wait come baaaack</s>! )

Woo, I woke up at 1pm today :) Guess I was tired, and it's no surprise. Florida SuperCon was a success I didn't expect, and a wonderful experience all around. I got to sell things, network, run around being a weirdo as well as making new friends (*waving at silvertales*). It was also the first con that my parents attended, and I'm glad they saw me, er..thriving in my natural element. XD



( You know the drill: three million pictures under the cut! )

My neighbors' constant doodling inspired me to do the same, so I spent some time sketching what I believe will be my next color piece.



( Cut due to potential N-completely-SFW, depending on your sensibilities. )

Bed now, as I've got work tomorrow. ^^

A quick look at my calendar tells me I last updated about a month ago. Let me assure you that I'm very much alive and more or less well (if you don't count that one time where I thought my teeth were in danger of falling off in mid may--long story, my teeth are actually okay) and getting ready for the insanity I know my life is going to become in the next few months.

On the work front:

1. Con time is upon me again and I'm going to be at Florida Supercon's artist alley this upcoming Friday and weekend! Is anybody else going? I hear Bruce Campbell and that dude who plays Viktor Krum will be there :)

2. Time to get this train under control again. Commissions are closed until August 2009, so I can finish all previous projects, make people happy and move on to the next thing.

The last commission I finished was a rush order completed in March, for koudelka's wedding. Her fiance made the super sikrit order, plied me with pictures and I prayed I wouldn't screw it up. Thus:



A watercolor commish this time.

( Detail and wedding ceremony pic under the cut )

teilea, I have absolutely not forgotten about you.

3. On a sadder note...Lipstick Lingerie had to close its doors on May 24th. I know--I'm sure the store would have made it through the recession if it hadn't been so young--it certainly had the necessary appeal and a growing clientele. However, the decision was made. While it left a little hole in my heart, I'm better for the experience, since I got to meet, play and work with Naydi.



ILU, Naydi Santana. This is far from the end.

Life and other things:

1. I'm about to do something a little nuts. More on that later.

2. In anticipation of said nutty something, Jeff had me over for a couple of days at his place in Miami, so I could regroup, breathe a little, and draw on top of a building listening to awesome DJs while gazing at the South Beach night skyline. If I hadn't made this fact obvious before, I must say it again: I have, like, the best coworkers in the history of ever.



The streets don't look too mean here but as always...



..we fight crime.

( More crime fighting under the cut. Sort of. )

3. I saw the new Star Trek movie twice. Yeah. It was that good. I hadn't seen such a concentration of hot and badass in a movie in a long time, and I might as well come out and say that I've become a Spock/Uhura shipper overnight. OH NOES, like I even have time to draw fanart about cool aliens and their headstrong human women these days. Not fair. Stop being hot and chemistry laden, you GQ mofos. That goes for you too, Captain Kirk. Argh.

4. This. On repeat, in my ipod. I bought the studio version, and it's a piece of art.

And I think we've more or less covered the past month. I gotta get my show ready now. :D Aaah, the days where I'd freak over a three hour art walk gig are long gone.

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO isako

Day 2 of MegaCon. I hear hordes of rabid fanboys and girls are heading this way. Good thing I managed to sleep enough last night <3

ALSO. Everything is BUY 2 GET 1 FREE at mah table. And a free notecard with every $20. [ /marketing]

*hugs all* *runs to breakfast*

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO queen_lily_rose

I can't give you a real castle, but this is a fair try!



Original photo from http://earthworm.online.fr

Happy Birthday sweetie!

Okay, so this one happened on Friday, but it was funny.



Haha, yes, as usual Jeff is to be blamed for everything. Hey, $2000 is only 200 bars of the finest shea butter soap you can find.

Anyway! I finally got together with queen_lily_rose and poelaramont after a long time of not being able to hang out (hospitals really don't count as hang out places...). ( Blah blah blah )



( Yes, we were all very cute )

I'm also compelled to post this video, although I recommend that you sit down and let go of any hot drinks before viewing it. Oh, RDJ. Oh, Tobey Maguire. Never stop making fun of yourselves, it is the hallmark of great men and women.



*off to work*

Just quickly pondering the strangeness that is my life.

Hi, I'm Celine. I'm an artist and I turn daydreams into drawn and painted goods. I'm a squicky clean salesperson 4 days a week, and I love my retail job. I draw during breaks. I cook my own lunches for the week so I can avoid buying stuff at the food court. One of my favorite hang outs happens to be a lingerie and sex shop where my stuff sells like water (or something like it). I ship orders to Hollywood, CA stores.

I wonder what I'll have to say in 5 years. Speaking of years....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO poelaramont

I hope you're enjoying the cookehs! You better have shared with Rose, you cookie monger

And Happy Diwali to those who celebrated it. :D

doortoriver? I never say it enough, but your work continues to surprise and thrill me.

I don't think I'll have time to paint her this week, but here's Anna, my sweet Italian vamp.



Oh, and I'm now on facebook! Took me a while to figure the thing out, but you can now facebook me if you want. :D

Et bien oui, je sais que la majorité de ma flist ne parle pas français, mais une peinture inspirée par un poème de Charles Baudelaire, ça se fête :D

Presenting The Dancing Serpent, a watercolor painting. Cold pressed Arches paper, 9x12. Inspired by my favorite Charles Baudelaire poem, as well as my favorite flowers, bougainvillea.



Et ton corps se penche et s'allonge
And your body leans and stretches
Comme un fin vaisseau
Like a delicate ship
Qui roule bord sur bord et plonge
Rolling from side to side and dipping
Ses vergues dans l'eau.
Its yards in the water.

Full poem and various translations here.

And before you ask, no, this is not me, this will never be me, unlike one or two other pieces I've done in the past. :D

( Detailed shots )

Prints available very soon on purpletophat.com!

Oh man, this week has been insaaane. I'm manning the store 4 days a week until team member #4 returns from her much deserved vacation, and Wednesday found me working a double shift by myself from opening at 10 am to closing at 9pm, but we got awesome new stuff in and I'm not complaining.

I picked up poelaramont at work on Thursday evening and we went to see queen_lily_rose at the hospital--no worries, it was a scare, but now she's better and most importantly, she's back home and resting. Sweetie, I'm so glad I got to see you in spite of everything. *hugs*

Now:

draw moar of commission<--working on this at last

finish watercolor painting YAY.

order new business cards (must do this)

start making embellished prints for the Fun Fair

check all props for show on Nov 8th

try and start new painting

sleep, as always

In other news, Supernatural continues to be awesome in its fourth season. isako deserves props for introducing me to the show. :)

Huzzah. And now my house is clean and the air is breathable and I am doing much, much better. Being able to sleep a whole night through again is a wonderful experience, I tell you. Never take it for granted!

So what's new? I finally started on teilea's commission. We're currently at the sketching stage, and it's quite exciting because I'm getting to play with concepts.



I'm actually just back from having spent the evening at Lipstick Lingerie, where I hung out with Naydi and finally got to meet Mason and Kami.



Say hello to Buddha!Head. From left to right we have Naydi, Mason, that girl who likes purple and Kami.

( Blah blah blah and some pics )

Boooy, am I sleepy right now. Let's wrap this up with the meme everyone's been doing today because and call it a night.

Take a picture of yourself right now.
Don’t change your clothes, don’t fix your hair…just take a picture.
Post that picture with NO editing.
Post these instructions with your picture.

Okay, right as I finish typing this entry:



*promptly passes out*

AWWWWWW. Lipstick Lingerie is so good to me. I went to see them on Friday to catch up (*sends internet energy drinks to Naydi who looked way too tired for her own good*)for a few hours and refresh the inventory. This is what my display looks like now:



And LOOK. Yes, there are 2 typos. No, I don't care. I feel loved. *feels loved*



Speaking of sexy places, my special ordered prints for Bizzy B of Hollywood are now finished and ready to ship!





I cannot wait to see pictures of these hanging in the fitting rooms. *_*

Bye bye LA....





...hello New Hampshire!

So isako (waah, noo, I should have taken you with meeeheeeee) dropped me off at LAX on Monday morning and, after two stops and a few minor delays, I finally made it to Manchester, New Hampshire. doortoriver and her husband mtnduey picked me up and promptly shuttled me back to their beautiful house.

( Movie! Sleep! Happiness! )

It must be one of those subjective experience things, but Friday night was probably the most fun I've ever had at any club. Like, ever. It combined several things I feel are completely indispensable to good time having in my book, which are good friends, hugs, seeing good art, selling my art and lounging around the Red Room in a slinky black dress and top hat (yep, I have the things, might as well make full use of them during this trip :3).



( Big photo post under cut :D )

It's Sunday night now and I'm lounging around with isako re-packing my suitcase. I don't particularly want to leave yet and I'll miss her lots T_T but at least I'm going to see doortoriver and her hubby, and we'll all be missing isako together.

I've had the most awesome time in LA. Nothing went like I expected it would--it just went better. I'll post more about last week when I'm in New Hampshire.

So Wednesday was yet another errand filled day, at the end of which I went around Hollywood blvd and, lo, surprise, took pictures. And got some bizness done.



Okay, so I lied. I also went on the Sunset strip for a bit. Hmm. Movie. Cannot wait.



( Bits and pieces under the cut )

Aaaand.... I has a new customer! This store:



( Bizzy beeeeee. )

Yesterday saw me heading up to the Valley, where I visited my favorite pirate captain.



Yeah, we totally practiced our myspace shots in the backyard while waiting for her beau to come pick us up for lunch. :D

( Let me guess, more pictures! )

Moving forward now. Today and tomorrow are going to be massive insanity.

--This morning: gotta finish packing and reviewing all materials and props for the Art Walk tomorrow and load the car.
--This afternoon: go buy extra lamp at Home Depot and clips at Office depot. Drive up to the Valley yet again to spend the weekend at Kit's house so I can look at her pretty, pretty glass work.
--Tonight: drive not too far back down to Hollywood to ojouchan's place, get dressed, glue sparklies on isako and walk down the street to the Labyrinth of Jareth masquerade.
--Sometime between today and tomorrow: make sure the extra prints Mom fedexed me made it to isako's place.
--Tomorrow at noon: drive to Long Beach.
--Tomorrow 2 pm: set up.
--Tomorrow 4 pm: showtime.
--Sunday: SLEEP.

And with this, my friends, I leave you to start the day. I hope I can see some of you on Saturday. :D *hugs all*

OH HAI GUYS, you really need to go watch Ironman now if you haven't already done so. I went to see it yesterday with queen_lily_rose and poelaramont and we all agreed that it's kind of awesome, in every possible way. While I wouldn't go as far as to say that Tony Stark is to Robert Downey Jr what Captain Jack Sparrow is to Johnny Depp, I couldn't help but think it a little. I can at least say that it's a great thing to see, a role fitting an actor or actress to a T.

And because no movie outing is complete without a showdown in the toy section at K-mart, ( ..................you read me right )

To backtrack--last time I posted here, my poor baby bird had been rushed to animal ER with a once again bleeding toe. At 1 am, of course, because that's how these things invariably happen. The ER vet put Moka's whole foot in this huge goofy looking ball bandage that gave pirate parrot a new meaning,



and directed us to an avian specialist to see ASAP. So we went to see our new vet first thing in the morning on Saturday and boy, am I ever so glad we did. She's quite good and knows what she's doing: in ten minutes, she had Moka under general anesthesia, had undone the ball bandage, examined the toe and put two stitches on it.

( Unbearably cute pics under cut and some bird owner angst )

And because of all this craziness, little artwork was done over the weekend. Blah. Will remedy to this now. I'm just bummed to be off schedule this month, but what can I do?

Speaking of art...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO urdsama

Saturday was spent drawing furiously, so that's that, but on Sunday, I drove out to go and meet with queen_lily_rose and poelaramont. We grabbed some lunch and took some time to catch up and then we were off to the movies.

I'm a little ambivalent about "The Dark is Rising". I thought the movie had a nice premise and build up (and some beautiful imagery). However, it lacked the scope of other better modern world/magical world fantasy flicks (Order of the Phoenix anyone?), slumped in the middle and never quite gained the momentum to carry its hefty concept through. Still had fun though, and I did miss my friends.

We went back to Rose and Tristan's place afterwards, and there I got to meet their new puppy Jack (remember, Tris, you stated ownership first, I didn't come up with it. >:D) Jack promptly proceeded to try and maul everyone with affection and was all around adorable.



Thanks for taking this cute pic, Rose. I only hope my shiny gums and forehead didn't blind you. XD



Jack playing in his mama's red curls.

And while we're on the subject of cute pets, here are some pics of Moka I took earlier this week. He is doing so much better now, it's quite a relief. Of course, he's lot needier now that he's all alone, but he's no longer falling off his perch screaming after waking up from scary birdy nightmares.



Moka actually *poses* for the camera. He'll get close, stand still and look at the freaking camera. If all birds did this, taking good pictures of them would be so much easier. ^^;

( Two more Moka pics under cut )

EDIT: Because it cannot be said once, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO josav!!!!

I think I may be running out of subject lines that are a variation upon the "I live!" theme. At any rate, I *do* live, and even though the past few weeks have been exhausting and far too busy with things having nothing to do with art for my liking, I'm now getting back on track and looking forward to making one or two new pieces in time for Halloween.

My neck is slowly starting to get better (you never realize how important your spine is until some yahoo hits your car on a highway, I tell you) and it's made work easier. Speaking of bad drivers, yesterday provided me with yet another shining example of why many Florida drivers should be put down for blatant lack of intelligent thought and public endangerment.( RAAAAAH )

I miss all my CA friends like whoa. I think we're doomed to live in different states for an indefinite period of time, but at least visits are helping. My recent LA trip (and yes, I know I still haven't said much about the April one XD) was wonderful and way too short, and I should be posting pictures soon. Here's a small preview, at least:



Long Beach art walk! Tent, lights and many other things provided by the incomparable krystalemerges.



Got my stuff in a new lovely store in Los Angeles (Silver Lake area)! It's called "Cauldron" and it should be of interest to all Witchcraft practitioners and Pagan minded people on my flist (and whoever else lurks around here *pooookes ze lurkers*). If you're ever in California, go see it, if only for the beautiful, neat decor. The purple, of course, is wholly coincidental.

Cauldron
2818 Rowena Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90039
(323) 644-0268



AX with mah sweet, sweet friends isako (I will be posting pictures of her gorgeous Utena costume, yes I will) and doortoriver who took me to see OOtP not once but twice. :3 petkamui and cc_lemon (Happy Belated Birthday, btw, I did remember it ^^;), you were not here long enough! *poooouts*

What else, what else--my parents just celebrated their 30th anniversary last night. Their love is just a little bit awesome. The sis and I gave them romantic DVDs for the occasion. I included the first season set of "Beauty & the Beast" because I just loved that series and I know Mom had a soft spot for it back then.

Aaaand now I'm running to meet Rose whom I haven't seen in months, but I'll leave you with these new-ish companion doodles. Anybody wants to see these in full size technicolor on their walls someday?

( Doodles featuring near nakedness and manflesh! Hey, have to be fair. Have drawn lots of womanflesh so far. )

To everyone who cares and wanted to know--

I just got off the phone with queen_lily_rose and while her mom is still not completely out of the woods, they're going to try and take her off life support now and see if she can breathe on her own. I'm not going to go into the details of what happened myself, but let's just say that Rose's mom is one very tough woman.

Rose sends her love and thanks to all of her friends. Keep the prayers and wishes coming. Thank you.

Oooh, my neck does feel better today. It hurt like a bitch all weekend, and it got a little debilitating. O_o Anyway, here's what I've been up to lately...

Saturday

Art show at the Goddess Store. This one's getting familiar, isn't it? The good news is that I'm definitely doing well during these shows, and they're easy for me to prepare, now that I have all my merch and props ready. The better news is I might get a solo show there come late fall, and that would be all kinds of awesome. That means I'll have to work like mad to produce new pieces, but I have to do that anyway.



Since a post of mine can't seem to do without at least a little picture these days, here are the morenas: me, Goddess Store owner Carmen and fellow artist Stabrula.

( More here )

Tuesday

I felt a little better physically, so, with doortoriver's help (invaluable help that it is *_*), I worked on updating purpletophat.com.



The Heart Suite is now officially available for purchase on my site!

*waves at josav* There ya go, sweets. ^_^

My, how fast time flies. I feel like I'm not doing enough, and perhaps today, I'm not. I've come down with a bit of cold, and it's making me a bit sluggish and woozy. But never fear, am taking plenty of vitamin C, acidophilus and cough drops. Hopefully, this will all get sorted out by the time my next show rolls around...

...which happens to be this very Sunday. Why yes, I'll be showing and (hopefully) selling my artwork for the first time in an outdoors festival on Saint Paddy's day. Should I perhaps wear green to increases my chances of success? :D EDIT: 03-15-07: I must have been sicker than I thought. Saint Paddy's on the 17th. Never miiind. ^^;

Here are the stats for the show, in case anyone's interested (and mostly, close enough) in visiting:

"Art & Jazz in Victoria Park"
Sunday, March 18th, 12:00pm-4:00pm
100 N. Victoria Park Road, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301

Also, I will be sharing a tent with Stabrula, who's a lovely and talented fine artist. For those who are curious, here's her new website, as well as her myspace.

We spent friday afternoon figuring out the layout of our display. So far, we've decided that a) Our stuff meshes nicely. b) We have the right table cloths for the occasion.





Oh, and this was done over at the house Staby shares with her husband Claudio. With their permission, I took a few snapshots because...

( Pictures under cut! )