Now that I’m all settled in into my new house and studio, I thought I’d post a little studio tour so everyone can see where I work!  Enjoy!

Studio Jbird

Another view

My desk

The wonderfully messy watercolor palette!

Supplies and reference materials

This is where I work with oil paint

Here's where my palette, mediums, paints, and brushes live.

See inside the drawer? Everything is in there!

Last but not least...the Studio Jbird mascots!

This past weekend, I had two art shows here in Atlanta.  I was really not on the ball with posting them on here, so we’ll call this a recap as opposed to an announcement.

The first show, called ManEaters and LadyKillers, hosted by my friends at MINT gallery, was something different and fun, and had a flair of the romantic just in time for Valentines day. The theme is based on the romance comics of the 50’s and 60’s. This was right up my alley because I am a comic book nerd and LOVE drawing in that style.

ManEaters and LadyKillers Flyer

The show had a good turn out and there was some really great art there.  It’s always fun the see other peoples interpretations of a theme. Here are the two pieces I did for the show.

Gambling for Love

Lady of the Evening

I had a lot of fun with these!  They are on illustration board and are painted with watercolor, embellished with color pencil, then outlined with trusty ol’ Micron pens.  I really enjoyed coming up with a “story” for these in my head to help with the imagery for the covers of the “would-be” comic books.  For the show, I took the artwork, which is the size of a comic book, and put it in a plastic comic book sleeve. I then floated them in simple black frames. Fun!

The second show of the evening have a theme not too far from the MINT show’s theme.  “Film Noir and The Femme Fatale” was the show at WonderRoot gallery on the same night.  I was excited about this show because I haven’t shown with WonderRoot yet, and looked forward to working with a new gallery.

The Femme Fatale Flyer

For this show I did another skateboard piece.  (Which, by the way, I am having so much fun painting on skateboards lately!) This piece almost turned out to be a nightmare…after stripping and sanding down the board, I decided to do watercolor on it, which I’ve done in the past.  But this board was different somehow and the watercolors just weren’t giving me the look I wanted.  Thankfully, my colored pencils saved the day!  I like the look the pencils gave it. And once that was done, I was debating with myself whether I should outline everything with pen…*sigh* Luckily, my wonderful art friends convinced me NOT to, and here is the result:

Lady in Red

Oh yeah….she’s hot. 

Here are some “progress” shots:

Line work on the skateboard

Sketch-a-doodle-doo!

Hooray for webcam when my camera is out of commission.

I didn’t make it to the WonderRoot show that night, but the show is up for a month, so I’ll probably go check it out this week and take some pictures.

Just want to post a little something I did for my nieces for Christmas.  I used to do a lot of murals, but haven’t done them for a while, so it was a nice and refreshing break to do this project for them, although it did remind me how much I hate painting with acrylics.

My older niece is a big Twilight Saga fan, and the 13 year old in me is too, so when she called me to ask if I would paint this for her, I was very excited. I think it turned out well, and I used the imagery from the book covers in the mural, which you can see in the border around the mirror, as well as one of the movie poster shots from the New Moon movie for the characters. I wanted to paint the figures of Edward, Bella, and Jacob in a more “cut-out” style for two reasons: 1.) It would be much easier to do a more “paint by numbers” approach for the most time consuming part of the mural, thus, hopefully, saving me time and getting the mural finished quickly, and 2.) I know how much I hate acrylic, especially the blending part of it, so this seems like the most logical way for me to keep my sanity AND make a beautiful mural that the girls would enjoy. So with that said, here are the pictures!

Twilight Mural

Twilight Mural

Jacob's "Giant" head (due to camera angle)

Detail shot

Edward, Jacob, and Bella

My art has been on hold for the last few months, and not so much by choice.  My husband and I finally bought a house (after a year and a half of hunting), so buying the house has been my “full-time job” since October. But we are finally settled in and cozy!  And I have my new studio set up and ready to get back to work.  Yay!

I did find time to do a few new pieces for the annual postcard show at MINT Gallery, as well as a house warming gift for my dear friend Leah.  Check out the new art:

Serpents of Fire and Water

Angels of Light and Dark

Lock and Key

Goddesses of the Sky

These postcards are all mixed media.  They are mostly watercolor, obviously, but each is embellished with either metallics or glitter or collage.

For Leah

Now that I am all settled in my new studio and ready to get back to work, my goals are to get the website up and running again, as well as the long awaited store that I’ve been talking about for ages.   So while I am working on that, I will update anything new on here as well as my deviantart page.  Until then, enjoy the new art!

~jbird

For the last few months, I’ve been working on a top secret project, or at least, something that wasn’t ready for the world to see yet.  WELL, now it has launched and it is HIP-BONZ! Let me tell you a story about how it all started:

My husband, Chris, works in the movie business as a grip. He was hired on as key grip for the new Halloween movie that  is coming out August 28th. (Go see it!) So Chris, being the head of his department, wanted to decorate the equipment truck to make work a little fun for him and his crew. He bought some twinkle lights to hang and even a “Live Nudes” neon sign.  He asked me if I would make him a poster for the truck that was Halloween related…we brain stormed on it for a few minutes and came up with this:

Design by: Jennifer Birdsong © 2009 Hip-Bonz, Inc. Halloween © 2009 Compass International Pictures | © 1978 Falcon International Productions

This is the digital version.  The original was done in watercolor. So anywho, I made it for him and he took it to work and put it in his truck.  Then people started to see it, and started telling others about it, and soon the executive producer of the movie, Malek Akkad, caught wind of it and had to see what all the fuss was about.

Meanwhile, across town… I get a phone call from Chris.  “How much do you want to sell the poster for?”  Whaaa?? Turns out that Malek wants to buy the piece!  He LOVES it!  And to make things even more amazing, Malek is not only the exective producer, but OWNS the Halloween franchise and wants to make t-shirts and posters of the piece, and hang the original in the Halloween Museum where all the other fun props and artifacts are from all the movies. 

So I sold the piece to Malek.  I find out soon after that Malek and his company are going to start their own apparel and merchandise company and that the Michael Myers “FEAR” piece is the flagship artwork. The piece is the reason they are starting this new company!

The more that he and I talked, Malek let me know that he wants to do a girl’s line of apparel in the company as well, and wanted to know what else I could do.  I sent him to my website, and he loved what he saw there as well.  So he set me up with Brian, who works with Malek, to hash out the details.  Brian has been a huge help and has been great in answering my questions.  I’m still pretty new to all this business side of art, so Brian has been patient with me.    I sent him a few more designs for the girlie line, and thus the “Vixens” were born!

Design by: Jennifer Birdsong © 2009 Hip-Bonz, Inc.

On July 28th, Hip-Bonz launched and is now here for the world to see!  They are taking pre-orders now and they will have so much more in the future available for you to purchase!  So please, go check it out and see what Hip-Bonz has!  There will also be more Vixens to enjoy!

“Hip-Bonz Inc. is proud to announce the “Coolest”, “Sickest”, and “Hippest” line of Apparel and Merchandise this side of the internet!

“Our goal is to provide our consumer with the highest quality merchandise we can while at the same time keeping it affordable for everyone to own. We want a brand that you can wear to the club or an event as well as in the comfort of your own home. Something everyone will like.”

We are not trying to re-invent the wheel…
…we’re just trying to make it look hotter!”

It’s been a while.  I haven’t even told you about ARTlantis!  How dare I! 

ARTlantis was a great show!  We had a lot of people come and check it out, and lots of fabulous food, friends, and art!  And, personally, this show was a success for me…far better than ICE was.  I do believe that the guys over at beepbeep gallery, who put together this wonderful event, are planning on doing it again next year. Here are some photos of my set-up there:

Other than that, I’ve been working on a side project for the past month or so now that I hope will be a big success.  I can’t say anything about it at this point, but once I have the “Go” from the powers that be, everyone and their mother will know.    At least, people I know.

I have a few other things I’m working on right now.  I’m trying to get a better understanding of the business side of all this art stuff.  There is so much to consider when deciding to turn art into a business, and I’m learning what those things are now.

I have a commission of the Angel Gabriel that I’m working on for a friend.  It should be pretty awesome when I’m finished with it.  I’ll be doing the painting in oils, which is some thing that I have not picked up since I left my old job, but I’m pretty excited about it.  I’ll post progress shots of that on here so everyone can see it. 

I’m still tinkering around with my online store.  I have lots of things for sale, but still trying to figure out the “shopping cart” stuff for online sales.  I hope to have that up soon, so keep your eyes open for that.

This weekend was the Indie Craft Experience, and what a blast it was!  I really enjoyed meeting all the people who came out as well as some of the other vendors.  The whole experience was a lot of fun and I am thinking of doing more of these art/craft shows in the future.  I do plan are being a part of one on the 6th of June, ARTlantis, which will be a part of the Highlands Summer Fest this weekend.    So if you missed out on ICE, please come out the ARTlantis and show some love to the local art scene!

Here are some pictures of the booth that Kelly MeKernan and I had at ICE.  I must say, it was one of the best looking booths there!    And we got a lot of complements not only on our booth, but also our work!

The fabulous ICE booth

Partners in Crime! Kelly McKernan and me

Thanks again to everyone to who came out to show your support!  I really appreciate it!

I have been busy the last few weeks making new art and getting ready for the upcoming craft show I am in at the end of the month.  Friend and local Atlanta artist, Kelly Mckernan and I will be sharing a booth at ICE Atlanta/Indie Craft Experience.

This is a fresh and inspiring craft show that takes place here in Atlanta and this year they have decided to make it a 2 day event!  You may think of “crafts” as grandma’s doily’s or something, but this is far from that.  I plan to have some original pieces there as well as some crafty goodies, included keychains, prints, jewelry, postcards, bookmarks, and more!

The fabulousness will take place at Centennial Park in downtown Atlanta on May 30th and the 31st.

I will be posting images soon of some of the wonderful goodies I will have for sale at this event, so please check back for that!  And I hope you can all make it to the event, it is sure to be a good time!

Hey!  I know I haven’t updated in a while…I’ve been busy with my designer getting the website together, and it’s finally done!  YAY!

Studio Jbird

Please, check it out, have a look around, and tell your friends!  The Store is still in the works, but I hope to have some things in there soon. 

Man, I’ve been slackin on this thing. But I do have some new work to show the world! I’ve been busy these past months with settling into a new job, looking at buying a house, the holidays, and I’ve had 4 shows in the last 2 months. The shows went well, I’ve sold a few pieces, so that’s good stuff.

Small And Cheap Show

This was a fun show the Ben and Sarah put together at their studio/gallery space to try to make some money before the holidays and for people to do some early holiday gift shopping. We had a HUGE turnout! There was so much great art, so much so that it not only filled the studio space, but also spilled out into the halls! Thanks to Ben and Sarah for doing such a great job!

Here are my pieces all cluster together!

Snow White

Snow Bunny

Rain Rain, Go Away

My Little Cupcake

Marie

Lil’ Devil

Lil’ Angel

Jodie

Hats Off To You!

Gold Star

Elegant Lady

And for the Twilight fans…

Edward

Bella

A progress shot!

Three weeks later, Beep Beep Gallery had their small pieces show. I pretty much moved everything from the Small and Cheap show over to this show. Sneaky, I know, but, eh.

(Oh! And if you look at the flyer, look at the top left corner of the little box o’ art…there’s one of my tattoo pieces! )

The week after the Beep Beep show, MINT Gallery had it’s 3rd annual postcard pin-up show. This is my 2nd year participating, and it’s always fun working with the people at MINT. They are all so nice and put together some great shows.

Beach Bunny

Queen of the Night

Earth Goddess

Gypsy Princess

I’ve had a lot of fun trying this new style of girls. They are quick to crank out and I’ve also really enjoyed playing with watercolors lately. I haven’t used watercolors too much since college.

Two weeks ago was the Animal Overdoes show at MINT. Ben Goldman put together this show and did an amazing job! Again, there was a lot of great art here and lots of wonderful people.


Entanglement

Pan’s Love

When the Blue Birds Sing

Jewel of the Sea
I really love how these turned out. I was apprehensive at first when Ben told me about this show and the animal subject matter, because I can’t draw animals. But I think they turned out well, and still had the “animal” feel. I have a few pictures of them from the show, but I need to upload them from my camera. I framed all these in silver frames and they really add to the pieces.

Well, now that I’m all caught up, there it is. I hope you enjoy it! And I’ll update again when I know more about my upcoming show in April.