Miss Alice Teeple

I like to make myself look as freaky as possible and then take selfies with Hipstamatic, and then post them on Instagram with really goofy hashtags like “cute” and “sorority.” It cracks me up when I hit those hashtags and see my freaky face mixed in with the parade of duck lips and perfectly straight hair. I know I’m no beauty already, so why not have a little fun?

One of my latest endeavours involved me being wide awake at 4 AM a couple of weeks ago, when the thought popped in my head, “I wonder what I’d look like covered in shaving cream?” So I stripped down, covered myself in shaving cream so I looked like Fad Gadget (or at least a weird troll) and snapped away. Sometimes I’ll do double exposure shots and see if I can make it look like my head is inside my own mouth. And I still like to shoot myself smoking, which really brings about some strange, “Silent-Hill” type pictures.

Phoebe made this hilarious graphic of my illustration of Albert Campion (now owned by Shawna Ross) on a heart balloon, for a very funny article about fictional crushes in XO Jane UK. She really, really likes Albert!

Peter Davison, we love you that much.

Check out her article here.

We went on another outing to Coburn last weekend and took some more photos of the area. Harlan wants to work on another illustration of the rock outcropping over Penns Creek, and I just felt like taking photos in general. Here’s some that I shot with Hipstamatic on my iPhone 4S.

It’s come to my attention from several people that when you search under Google Image, my pencil portrait of Benedict Cumberbatch is the very first. Considering the massive amount of Cumberbatch-related material out there, that’s quite nice to hear. Yo, Benedict, let’s party!

This past weekend I went on a short trip to DC to visit an old high school friend. We mostly geeked out on detective novels (Campion, Lord Peter) and then took a jaunt to the National Zoo, which was pretty great. Saw pandas and gorillas for the first time. Man, pandas are strange. They act like people in panda suits. Anyway, it was fun.

I took the train home from Baltimore and shot a bunch of photos at the three train stations on the trip: Penn Station (which is a lovely Beaux Arts building), 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, and my old stalwart, Lewistown Station.

I just did this painting this afternoon on a whim. I was playing around with some old map books a cartographer friend gave me this summer. There were a few in there that I didn’t want to cut up because the books were quite old and that sort of thing makes me squeamish, but this was a pretty standard 1970s map atlas; nothing special. I sliced it into ribbons, covered it in Mod Podge and gesso, and did a splatter on top. Not exactly my deepest work, but it was something fun to make on a gloomy afternoon.

If you would like to have it, let me know. It’s 8×10 and I’m selling it for $40.

Welp, Frank’s done. He’s 16×20, or thereabouts (my ruler isn’t very big) and he’s gesso and various inks on canvas (so keep him away from water). $175.00 to anyone who’d like to have him in their home. He’s a faithful friend! Hit me up. If you can’t afford it all at once I’m fine with payment installments. We’re all broke, friends.

Well, Frank’s outlined. I had to wait for the underpainting to dry before I could put down the India ink layer that brings out the contour of the actual skull shape. Did you really think I was going to just leave it like that? Pshaw. I’m not THAT lazy.

Have you ever seen Night Gallery? Don’t bother for most of it, except the paintings. Holy shit. The man who did them is awesome, although he’s moved into art design since. I love his work. I’d love a Night Gallery painting, but cha-chinnnng. Guess I’ll just paint my own.

Anyway, I am one of those weirdos who pays a great deal of attention to details in set design (maybe even more so than the plots of some shows), because I love learning more about characters by the items in their surroundings. I think I missed my calling. (Anyone hiring?) Best shows to pick apart: Mad Men/Sherlock/X-Files. I even started a group on Etsy for set designers and vintage dealers to converge…one of my members is a set designer for Mad Men, and many other members sold to their prop department. Whoo! I hope I managed to help someone. I really love interior and set design. (Confession: I actually sent a fan tweet to Sherlock’s set designer to thank him for inspiring my living room layout.)

So back to Frank. Once the India ink dries, I’m going to hit it with another layer of gesso/ink combo and then layers of diluted gesso to give the illusion of chalky bone. Spooooky!

Anyone interested in Frank? Hit me up. I haven’t figured out pricing yet, but he’ll be affordable so you too can have a gothic touch in your home. x

Caveat: I’ve never been a massive Christie fan, but I’ve had a couple of requests for Hercule Poirot portraits, so I did a pencil drawing tonight of the David Suchet version because he had the best ‘stache.

He’s for sale, pals! $75 unframed or $200 framed…makes a great gift for your bloodthirsty murder mystery fan, Belgian enthusiast, or moustache fetishist.

I’m making a new painting right now of a skull that my friend Debbie has named “Frank,” which is an inside joke originating from that douchebag ghost hunter show I admit to guiltily watching on occasion with a bowl of ice cream.

I am working with whatever junk I can find in my art drawer, which – at the moment – just happens to be gesso diluted with water and hunter green Selennier fountain pen ink that’s half dried up and has got to be over a decade old – I picked it up when I worked in the stationery store in college. I mixed it up at different hue values, and am using my usual drip-drop technique that I like playing with. I like messy neatness. I want to layer it so the skull has a lot of nice detail and pops out from the background; this is just the underpainting so far. It’ll look more like an actual skull than just a cartoony one. It’s amazing how much the painting changes at its different stages. The second photo shows up darker, because I photographed it in another room. It’s not that dark in real life.

I got inspired by the awesome skull painting in Sherlock’s flat that’s hanging on the amazing wallpaper. Since I only had green to work with, that was perfect. So now stage 2 is drying and there are green driplets all over my kitchen floor that will need to be cleaned up by a Magic eraser. I really, really need a good studio space. Working in my living space is a pain in the ass.

Here is stage one, where I lay out the composition:

And here is the second stage, with a little more detail. I will go over this again when it’s dry so that nice settled detail in the edges doesn’t get messed up too much with extra moisture.

It’s gonna be awesome when it’s done! I’m excited!