Lisa Mertins’ Life Illustrated

So, I’m watching the Lakers. Lots of my friends are fans and I think NJ would like a wife that didn’t groan every time a game is on the TV. I can appreciate basketball, and the team. But please don’t make me watch more than the last half hour. And if the Lakers are murdilating the other team…YAWN.

Derek Fisher I’m liking because he usually makes the free-throws. Why would a professional basketball player ever miss a free-throw? That seems so elementary. Tonight I learned why he was deliberately fouled in the last few seconds of the game. AND I know what an assist is :)

OH! I’m sure everybody but me knows this story about Fisher and his very sick baby daughter. “I’m committed to providing for my family no matter what it takes,” he said regarding Tatum. He seems honorable…

Random, I know. And my state of mind these days is mercurial. Today though, was happy and promising. When I think of the word electricity, I think of that stuff between people that makes them burn.

Oh, and the one song ELO did that I really loved from the 80’s — Mr. Blue Sky. So, there you have it. Illustration Friday’s word for the week (electricity), some electric 80’s song titles and, well, the electricity that keeps us all going…

Soon, but not sure when, I’m guest blogging for the fabulous Cindy McNatt on her Homebody blog (more about her genius later). It’s all about my penchant for ornamenting our garden. I just love this old playground toy that I got in a local shop years ago. But I just can’t figure out where to put it.

Is this a lame post? Yeah, I think so too but tonight, the traffic kept me stuck for SO long that I can’t think straight enough for a proper one. Sigh. Orange County traffic sucks all my energy, resolve, good sense, zzzzzzzz.

Are you a Neil Diamond fan? Me neither. But I couldn’t get that lyric out of my head when I GOT MY BOULDERS TODAY! I love how this photo shows their slow, massive fall — the ground shook!

Yup, thanks to the SimmCrew for these. I’m so thrilled. Now to move them :)

This illo ran in The Orange County Register on Wednesday. I know two people that have caught staph from a hospital stay. One, had to insist they test for infection. After a week, they finally did…

Watch it if you’re hospitalized!

So, I was thinking of highroads and lowroads today for some reason. That lead me to that song Loch Lomond. You know the rest; “and I’ll get to Scotland before ye.” What a coincidence too that I’ve recently found that I have Scotch blood in me!

While researching the seemingly jaunty song, I found this great NPR program called What’s In A Song. If this illo is kinda creepy, listen to the 5 minute exploration of the song’s origins. Interesting!

Hiya tender readers. Have you noticed a bit of a “blue” tint to my posts lately? I’m trying to see which of my Register colleagues is right regarding the best way to get clicks on a site. This illo went with a story yesterday in the OC Register about interest rates favoring cds — butt not with this headline (twitter!).

Some think a headline like the one above is the way to go (like this page on ocregister.com). Others believe making a personal connection is more honorable and I hope they’re right because, I think using “butt” in a headline is a cheap trick.

If I knew how to fashion a poll, I’d ask visitors to let me know their opinion. Instead, feel free to comment! Thanks friends :)

Oh, p.s.! If you find the grammar, sentence structure and spelling atrocious in any of my posts (extraneous exclamations!), weigh in on that too, would you?

Seed is the IF prompt this week. I started out doing my usual, quasi-cryptic self-portrait. Then I said aw, hell! No “faith-of-a-mustard-seed” optimism today. I can’t think of anything but the deliciously murderous Rhoda from the 1956 classic The Bad Seed, one of my favorite all-time horror films.

Tapping her tap shoes as she charms with her psychopathic, sugary manners Rhoda’s one seed that should have never germinated. Heh, heh, heh!

Recently, I was accused of wearing those glasses. You know, the one’s that make life seem better than it really is? It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last.

How can it be wrong to be optimistic? To keep persevering, despite the lousy odds? I can be stubborn in my resolve to try to make things work, maybe to a fault even. But damn, I just can’t live life any other way.

This rose, planted by our front door is named Tamora. My grandmother used to live on Tamora Dr. in Laguna Niguel. I’m thinking, that’s good feng shui, and a good sign that I’m on the right path. Yep, I believe it, try to dissuade me, I dare you!

Thank God there’s an Ethan Mertins to clean up your mess. I sure didn’t want any more cats but my family knows I wouldn’t have left these kittens in that box on the freeway offramp either.

They don’t seem any different from any other helpless babies I’ve known in my life… irresistible!

Here’s a piece done years ago for a Fall Arts Preview in Orange County. The original was alkyd paint on masonite, my medium of choice. I remember the page designer wasn’t crazy about it but I thought it was a fun solution.

I’m sure I spent at least 15 hours on it. And if I recall, it would have been shot on film for reproduction. Then of course, toned by someone in our imaging department. Tonight, I took it into photoshop and added some stuff to suite my current sensibilities.

There isn’t more to say except we once lived a lush life in the news art department.

Time to chase away the blues! This week on Illustration Friday the word is WRINKLES. In my humble opinion, the only wrinkles worth talking about, are those we can get rid of. Ladies and gentleman, can I get an amen?

EAT!

This post started as a spam art thing with the words “visual miscellany coifferi.” As far as a quick google search for the word coifferi goes, no luck, but a big haired coif came to mind.

However, all my concepts got crowded out because of the cuts announced at the paper today. More friends and colleagues let go today. It SUCKS!

And since the layoffs don’t end till Wednesday, the feeling that no one’s job is secure makes it hard to concentrate on anything. That and not feeling well equals another morose illustration. Sorry…

Last week, I got excited when I saw a Japanese maple in the full sun. It was next to a water source so we figured that was the secret (you can’t really see the water bubbling over the rocks here). That garden had a tiki that was pretty funky. But the one you can see in the bottom left has been in my family for at least 40 years, long before tiki was hip. He goes well with the rocks but I’m struggling with the Asian theme meshing with the country garden scene we have happening here.

How lucky that our favorite nursery Newell’s is having a big sale (I’m LOVING this recession!), making the maple affordable. Twenty five percent off, whoo hoo! So loads of cocoa mulch and our tomatoes are in too.

Now, if we could only block out my neighbor’s motorhome, also on the left, I’d feel in complete control of my domain!

“Love me much too much…” Boz Skaggs

I was antique poking yesterday and came across this photo. I can’t fathom why a family would part with such a precious reminder of someone’s fleeting childhood. So I snapped it up and added some doodles. I made these children mine.

Aren’t they lovely? Such happiness in the chubby baby. The second child all broody, and the oldest seems carefree, doesn’t she? They remind me of my sister Leslie and me and they’ll be hung on my wall and contemplated often…

My friend Suzanne over at Emphasis Mine (and the Register and heck, I can’t keep up where else!) posted a picture with her girlfriends including a song list and things experienced in O.C. in the ’80s. I’m under the weather and I thought yesterday was Friday so I’m all mixed up and it’s photos from the archives folks.

Here’s a couple from my ’80s youth. My first job at the Register was in the circulation department and that’s me trying to pretend I was hip. Flying all over the place with a flight attendant friend meant I was ultra-sophisticated, and so cool, it made my hair stand on end!

I loved The Pretenders, Bowie, Prince and Berlin then and my passion in life was European travel, boys and did I mention the partying? That too!

By the mid-’80s I was in the newsroom illustrating. This photo shows roughly HALF our department at the time.

Gwen Wong, Amy Ning (cute!), me (red beret, oh brother), Newman Huh, Stephen Rountree and my dear friend George Turney.

Here’s some of my favorite songs from then (I wish you could just click them and listen!):

Message of love The Pretenders

Shock the Monkey Peter Gabriel

Little Red Corvette Prince

Let’s Dance David Bowie

Since I’ve Been Loving You Led Zeppelin

Modern Love David Bowie

Steppin’ Out Joe Jackson

Babe I’m Gonna Leave You Led Zeppelin

Everybody Wants to Rule the World Tears for Fears

Kiss Prince & The Revolution

Let’s Go The Cars

Call Me Blondie

Raspberry Beret Prince

No More Words Berlin

Let’s Go Crazy Prince & The Revolution

Don’t Dream It’s Over Crowded House

Don’t Get Me Wrong Pretenders

Long lost loved ones, honest words of wisdom from a friend, blooming Van Gogh tulips and truth finally. Bye bye whirly week!

Oooo excitement when I saw Illustration Friday’s word this week! I love primitive art, folk art, untrained artist art. Well, because I fall into that as a (mostly) self-taught artist.

So I queued up Ryan Adam’s Heartbreak album (loveityLOVE it!) and imagined a simpler time. This piece is influenced by that music, naive American art, the Ozz Franca prints I have in my studio, and an old metal doll head.

A confession: I haven’t been an activist since the movie The China Syndrome came out. But my only real serious thought then while marching around San Onofre was how tan I’d get and would I maybe see some movie stars?

This is different. Brad Holland will explain it to you in a webcast interview if you go to the Illustrator’s Partnership website. The bill isn’t meant to take away copyright protection from only illustrators. Lobbyists with big money behind them (Google for example) want the ability to use AND MAKE MONEY FROM any visual image ever produced into infinity. That means photos too!

Go listen if you or anyone you care about makes their living creating visual art.