IF: Crooked

This week's theme was "Crooked" so I'm posting my favorite pairs of crooked furry ears! (I promise to post new stuff once I'm done printing these new woodblocks for ZaPow!'s Dia de los Muertos show coming up in October - more details on that soon too!)

Shop Update: RedBubble

Although I'm working on getting more designs out on the Shirt-A-Day sites, I've gone ahead and set up a RedBubble site for tees and stickers, and soon there will also be art prints! This is a nice option since the buyer can pick more colors and tee styles, like my favorite, baseball tees!

Illustration Friday: "Identical"

Illustration Friday: "Tall"

An old print, but an appropriate submissions for this week's theme, "Tall." This is a linocut where I cut two puzzle style cuts into the linoleum to fit together the background, and then printed the robot individually on top.

It's going to take a while to finish designing and assembling, but I'm working on a book of robot illustrations that I'll be self publishing. : ) More updates on that soon!

Velociraptor Oil Painting

After the insanity that is doing a solo exhibition, I wanted to do a fun project so I decided to make a present for my boyfriend's birthday. I have been wanting to do something like this for a while, especially since we share a love for Jurassic Park and dinosaurs and all that kind of stuff. This is a 30" x 30" oil painting on canvas. I don't like to use oils much because they smell pretty offensive and can create a terrible stainy mess, but I made an exception for this one. I'll admit, they are drastically easier to mix and layer than acrylics since they don't dry a fraction as fast.

I won't be satisfied til my walls are smothered in creatures and robots!

Broken World: Exhibition Dates!

 My senior thesis exhibition, Broken World: The Uprising of the Condemned, will be on exhibit in Gallery Two on the second floor of the Humanities Building at the University of West Georgia. The exhibition features a series of 11 large scale pastel illustrations that sequentially show the unfolding of an action adventure story inspired visually and narratively by comic books, video games, and movies.

Exhibition Dates: July 30th - August 3rd
Artist Talk and Closing Reception: August 3rd, 5:00 pm -7:30 pm
(There will be food at the reception! : D)

For directions go to the University of West Georgia website here:
http://www.westga.edu/

They have PDF maps and other directions there!

The galleries at UWG are free and open to the public Monday through Friday, from 9 am to 5pm. There is parking available in the staff lot at Humanities after 5:30pm and guest parking anytime in the adjacent lot.

Prints of the exhibition works are available here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/MertsPrints?section_id=11778244

For purchase of originals or other questions, please contact me: mertsprints@gmail.com

Reproductions now available!

Lately I've started doing more original illustrations and less (printmaking) prints these days mostly due to time constraints, so I've begun to make those available on Etsy by printing reproductions! One of my latest straight up illustrations is this watercolor of a calaca mariachi band:

Available here ---> https://www.etsy.com/listing/103457580/mariachi-calacas-print

The random side projects are helping me blow off some steam from the pastel drawing series I've been working on. On that note, prints of those will soon be available as well! 

I'll probably do some idea crossovers for relief prints from these eventually, but for now, it's all about the Senior Show and getting that thesis wrapped up!