blue cats and more ceramics

Nothing you haven't seen before here. These are some sketches for cat-shaped dishes I'm thinking of making in ceramics. I've figured out another glazing technique that works well for the painted detail I'm after with a delft-like blue wash over a milky white glaze. Here's a test tile I made in this method:

It was pretty exciting to have something that's high fired come out well after weeks of failed attempts. All the successful pieces I've been making are low fired, so it's easier to paint detail, as glazes and oxides tend to run or react unexpectedly when the kiln is super hot. But this is working! The feel of the ceramic after it's high fired is also so satisfying, the clay is stronger and has a nice "tink!" when you tap it.

Boogie, Pam, and Truffle

Boogie, Pam, and Truffle are my friend Courtney's dogs. She runs a handmade shop called Napkin and sent me one of her amazing pom banners so I made her these mini ceramic figures of her dogs.
If you don't follow Courtney on Instagram you should. I also recommend Pam's personal account.

More on my pom banner: it says RICH BITCH, and hangs above my desk to help me stay motivated even when I'm making cat dress after cat dress to pay my overpriced Bushwick rent. I moved into a new studio recently, and I'll post photos soon when it's all set up.

summertime, almost.

It's raining a lot so I'm drawing summer things and thinking about my California trip in July. Sidenote- I think I've given up on my tumblr, and I'm planning on updating this blog more. I really wanted to post daily drawings...and that lasted for a few weeks...and now I feel like I haven't made anything in 2 months. But I have! So more posts soon.

girls

A handful of girls from my sketchbook. I've been posting these & others almost daily over on the new tumblr.

Sad Girls Issue 2

You've probably already seen this if you follow me anywhere else on the internet, but here it is, the second issue of Sad Girls. The spreads above are by Karolin Schnoor, Angella d'Avignon, me, and Caitlin Shearer, and the cover is by Rachel Levit. In all, 10 girls contributed over 28 pages. Buy an issue here (only $6!), and issue 1 is also available if you missed out last time.

Ceramics

I finally got around to photographing most of the 18 ceramic pieces I made at my mom's house back in December. There are a bunch listed in my shop here, and the rest have become gifts for friends or objects I can't bear to part with. It was incredibly fun to make all these, so very hands-on in a way that the other things I do aren't, and the final product is so satisfyingly solid and real. I'm taking a handbuilding class next month and I can't wait to make more.

waiting for spring

You may have seen my holiday season picks, and now here's what's hot for Spring (...in my life). Best viewed large, since the actual image is 20 x 20".

Black Cat iPhone cases for 4/4S & 5 now in my shop. Cheaper than Society6 and directly from me :)

favorite sketchbook

The night before I was planning on going to New York Central and trying to buy one of these elusive sketchbooks, I had all sorts of wonderful dreams about paper and drawing and George Bates' sketchbook class and the open model drawing session at Parsons etc etc. It was really nerdy.

And then I had the best trip there, because not only did they have the sketchbook, I had this fantastic conversation with one of the notoriously pretentious employees about it. We were like "isn't this sketchbook the best, it's such a good size, it always sells out so fast, and the cover is so nice, and it even lays flat when you open it in case you want to use the full spread, and that coventry vellum is super nice too, such a good pick." It was really nerdy.

After a week of emails and recoloring patterns and writing licensing contracts, I was so happy to paint a bunch of leaves and flowers for a few hours last night.
I started drawing in sketchbooks religiously toward the end of high school when I was 16 or 17 and knew I wanted to go to art school. My drawings may not have been that good, but I can look at a page and remember exactly where I was and what I was doing. At Pannikin with Ryan and his brother on New Year's Eve. I was drinking tea, his brother was reading a newspaper. It was lightly raining. It's a more accurate account of my life than anything I could write.

My two more recent ones are less vivid, maybe because I don't have as many feelings as I did when I was 17 or 20, or maybe because almost all of the drawings were done while giggling with Chelsey in Jordin's class. It's really nice to flip through though and see what I was thinking about then (mostly girls and flowers, of course).

*tumblr*

I made a tumblr yesterday because I want to be able to post lots of drawings in quick succession, and this blog's format feels a little formal for that. Diwa & I started a joint tumblr ~5 years ago just so we could share images with each other, and after a few years I got tired of posting and really tired of mindlessly scrolling through the dashboard. And I just realized that tumblr is not just for teens posting uncredited fashion pix, if I just follow my illustration friends it's sort of like instagram for our work. Cool.

So, you can follow me at leahreena.tumblr.com. I'm still going to post all the really important things here of course.

Tropics

Now, who wants to license these for some board shorts and beach towels?