New art and my first book!

I have had a very productive couple of weeks, even though things are kinda hectic for me right now. I decided I will be attending heroes con in Charlotte, North Carolina again this year with Paigey! and Little Asian Sweatshop from June 7-9! I still can't believe almost one year has passed since then. Seems to have flown by, but I am very excited to go again this year. I had a blast last time, and this year we will be in artists alley! This also gives me a real deadline to do all the things I want to do, like new art, and something that has been in my head for more than a year now but I finally finished, a coloring book! I grew up on coloring books and preferred coloring to anything else. So I really wanted to do one of my own. I finally got the proof in the mail and I love it. Here is a sneak peek!

Pardon the crappy quality! I will photograph it a lot better when I receive the final version in the mail.

I also finished a new pin up of Silk Spectre 2 from Watchmen, which is one of my favorites!

and Silk Spectre to refresh your memory:

Great Big Book of Fashion Illustration

Hello all!
Despite a personally trying and tumultuous couple of weeks, I am back with some great news on the art front! 4 of my illustrations are going to be featured in this book and I am very excited. It's a great fashion illustration source book with 416 pages of full color illustrations from illustrators all over the world and I am honored to be included. I was first contacted by the publisher in April 2010 and I remember thinking how far away Fall 2011 was but now it is finally here! So check it out! its is available on amazon.com but the official release date is October 4 in the US.
click the cover to get to the amazon.com listing.

So Fruity!

Happy April!
I have been busy working on lots of new art! I am participating in Girls Drawin Girls upcoming book, which i mentioned in the last post. The theme of the book is flora and fauna and I got apple. That drawing inspired me to work on a series of fruit themed pin ups! My loose inspiration was vintage fruit crate labels. I have four completed which I plan to sell as a print set. I love the way they turned out! Check em out! what do you think?


I am working on another series, which I don't want to talk about yet, but is different for me, but also a lot of fun.

New Art

I have spent most of this year experimenting with new drawing techniques and themes and styles, and so far I am very happy with the result. I have also been revisiting my paper cut out artwork, which I have always loved to do and seemed to be my most popular. I still enjoy the more realistic style of artwork that I have been working on for many years, but I feel I am ready to try some new things while staying true to what I love. I have to say, my new gig with snapfish really helped me start to think outside of my usual style and I have enjoyed it a lot. I have amassed quite a collection of designs, and right now I am working on getting some products together to have a table at a craft fair! I am definitely interested in doing Brooklyn artists and fleas, and am pleased with what I have so far.
I also mentioned I am going to be participating in my very first book with Girls Drawin Girls, and I felt inspired to try something completely new, yet still recognizable as my own. The theme I had for the book was apples and here she is:
What do you think? I am loving her!
I've also been looking over my artwork past and present, and there doesn't seem to be much racial diversity :/ its not intentional, I just usually draw the same people (Bernie Dexter most of all) but its definitely become a priority to focus less on specific people.

I'm excited about doing new work and changing things up a bit! Maybe its the impending warmer weather?

Tumblr and some updates

So I am on tumblr now. I really for the life of me could not figure out how to use this and what it was about, but now I am finally getting it. For me, I am using it as a place to gather inspiration images and also display some of my artwork. It's nice to have a page to go to to look at all of my favorite things, especially when I am in need of some inspiration! I am very visual and looking at pretty things makes me happy!

check me out!

http://mariartist.tumblr.com/

Also, I will be participating in a Girls Drawin Girls book! Yay! Won't give away too many details yet, as I am still working on ideas and inspirations for what to draw--I want it to be really good, as it will be the first book my artwork will be featured in. Needless to say, I am very excited!

Girls Drawin Girls Vol 3

Girls Drawin Girls Vol 3. book Sugar and Spice is now available for preorder! My work is not in the book this time around, (I joined GDG after the book was started) but there's a lot of amazing artwork in there by some fabulously talented ladies. I am going to pre-order one myself! The first 100 people to pre-order get a poster too!
Check it out people!