Pretty Pretty

People ask me all the time, where do you get your models?

It just so happens that I am particularly blessed with having an abundance of gorgeous ladyfriends who are all on my list of people-I-absolutely-must-paint.  (I have some pretty man-candy too, but they're shy about getting painted because I insist on silly poses and headdresses...)

A couple of weeks ago I invited my friend Jorgi to come visit me in Williamsburg for a fun, girly photoshoot in my loft. Jorgi is a doll. She looks like a supermodel, but acts like a small-town girl who doesn't know it.  Sweet, loyal, generous of heart...and yeah, sometimes a little dorky, which is adorable. Jorgi is always up for fun.  Doesn't matter if it's Basement Bhangra or a bouncy house style marathon race or really anything I suggest - that girl is IN.  

Here's a pic of her trying to look badass (which is hysterical to me) and doing a pretty damn good job of it!

So back to the photoshoot.....

Despite hangovers, L train crap, and overcast skies we managed to have a pretty awesome shoot! Six costume changes and about a zillion pics yielded a bounty of good shots. The best weren't even shots I'd planned, just stuff that happened because we were going with it.  <good life advice>

Here's an example:  "Hey Jorgi, shake your curls out a bit, it's too cute. wait. wait, that's awesome. OMG do that again...cool! again... yes! again... now keep doing it until you want to kill me!"  <ahh hangovers> 

Jorgi is a trooper. So we celebrated with Thai food... as one must after actually being productive when you rightfully could have slept all day.

And here is my first painting from that shoot.  I like it because it shows that wild side that she lets out every now and then :)  Wanna help me name it? 

xxoo Ginger

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Here's a slideshow of how I got there:

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I Shot My Baby Down

So I've been shooting a lot of zombies lately....

I started with Resident Evil 4 (love that game - try playing it by yourself in the dark for a real thrill). Then I moved on to The House of the Dead-Overkill. Awesome game! Overkill? absolutely but I loved every minute. The carnage, the graphics - Rob Zombie would be proud.

It gave me an idea to do a series of grind house paintings.  I started by looking at old pulp fiction novels...I have a hefty collection already but I was looking for something particularly hip to get me started.

The lesbian ones are the best.  Here are some of my favorites~

But then I stumbled upon the perfect image....it's not grind house exactly, but it's so very, very cool. A dame with a smoking gun, lounging after she shot her baby down. Her eyes dare you to speak but you don't, you may be next :)

Even though my favorite medium is oils, I love grabbing a pad of drawing paper and not really knowing where I'll end up. I started with a simple charcoal sketch, then cleaned it up a bit on Photoshop to fix the contrast and the edges.

After that, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do next, so I played with some filters. I liked the different color combinations so much I thought why not run them together and try a gif?  This is what I came up with.

Voila! My first gif :) 

I was thinking these might make cute tank tops... what do you think?

~Ginger