jenniferbrola.com

Here comes 2009, the year of COW! I can’t believe it… Didn’t we just celebrate the year of the rat….like a few weeks ago??(at least it feels like it) 2008 was quite a year for me. Totoro Forest Project really took a chunk out of my tank. It was well worth it though. There was just so much we had to learn. This experience will definitely be valuable at some point down the road. 2009 is projected to have plenty to look forward to. It will be the full on production crunch of Toy Story 3 lighting. That’ll be dictate my life for sure.(and it’ll be fun!) My first children’s book… I also have a huge event coming up. - Hope your 2009 will be a splendid one! - But all in all, let’s hope we see more peace and stability in the world….despite the current state the world is in….

Things are calming down… lots of people are taking the next few weeks off from work. Many are hitting the road for a holiday vacation. I am staying in town working.. I have my first children’s book due early next year. It is for a Japanese publisher so I’m not sure if it ever comes here to the States. With a limited amount of time I have on this, I intended to do it all digitally but it just couldn’t capture enough of the “charm” I remembered I looked for in picture books when I was a kid. I’m trying my best not to delay my process just because I’m mixing my approach… let’s see how this goes… And that’s why I can’t go anywhere this holiday season…. sigh… Here(the painting in the front as well as the flower one in the back) is the sneak preview of the book…..As you can see, I’m mixing collage and oil——-boy, collage is lots of fun…

Hello hello After the crazy Totoro event, my work at Pixar has been picking up.  Pixar’s next movie Up is looking real good and the movie I have been working for, Toy Story 3 is looking sooo good.  And now, the production is in full gear!  I’ve been on the production for about a year and half and it has been the best film production experience in my career. - Meanwhile, I have my first children’s book due early next year.  So I’m painting like a mad man at home.  I will show you some of my in progress work in my next entry!  Oh, also, I think Horton DVD is coming out this week or came our last week.  With lots of great animated movies such as Wall-E, Kung Fu Panda, and Bolt this year, Horton didn’t seem to be a movie that stayed with people’s list of favorites too much, but the movie has some good stuff in it. (especially visually!)  I will share my concept art for Horton soon since I’m off the hook with the DVD out. - Stay tuned! - This is a commission I did recently—— Miles 12 x 9 oil on board

I hate to do this but let me brag about my new iphone case. This is a birthday gift I recently received.   Yes, you are right!  It is a custom curved real wood cover!  You can actually choose different kinds of woods.(this one is walnut) I have not liked any iphone covers out there.  Everything looked very similar and there hasn’t been ONE perfect looking case to my taste.  But wow, this is the best one by far! And it has Wootie engraved on the back of it!!! - This can be a potential OOP product if there’s enough interests! wootieeeee…..

This is one freelance work I did earlier this year. I was invited to this super excited calender project, Frogfolio. Frogfolio is a calender project as a promotion for Dellas Graphics Inc. that’s been around for some time and is quite well respected in the circle of illustrators. In the past, the participating artists included such big name illustrators like C.F.Payne, Bill Mayer, Yuko Shimizu, and James Bennett. The art created for this project has won 5 medals at the Society of Illustrators. So when I was asked by Jim Burke has been responsible putting together such talented group, I was totally thrilled and honored by this opportunity! The calenders from the past are available here.  There are some beautiful images. We could do ANY image as long as it had anything to do with frogs. - Here is what I came up with!  One secret no one knows is that I started this one as my Totoro piece for my own project but later decided to use this for this project!   I started in oil but ran out of time so I finished it on photoshop…:( - I somehow got lucky to score the cover too! - Well respected illustrator such as C.F. Payne always has his amazing “frog” contribution in Frogfolio. - This piece by Josh George was my favorite of the calender.

Phew.. Finally back to normal… well… not quite but definitely I’m back to my Blog! It has been an intense 2,3 months before Totoro Forest Project Auction back on 9/6.  By far the biggest project I have run in my life. I’m sure all the TFP committee members feel the same too.  Especially Yukino Pang who poured into this as much as I have onto this project.  I killed myself over this one and I don’t know if I can do this again anytime soon. Of course, this incredible event couldn’t have been done without so many people’s generous help.  Many people worked very hard to contribute to the successful fund raising of over $200,000. - This may be a small sum of money considering how expensive Tokyo area real estate is, and this maybe a small thing in relation to the environmental crisis challenge the world is facing Today.  But I still felt this meant so much—-how so many many people around the world got united through one inspiration and this may be one of the key answers to the future of our existence. Thank you so much for your tremendous support everyone! Some of my friends who know me already suspect I’m doing something like this again soon.  Stay tuned!  - This is a small watercolor painting I did for John Lasseter to show our special appreciation for his support.  As a memory of this event, John will frame this along with the paintings by other committee members, Enrico Casarosa and Ronnie Del Carmen.  Darn… watercolor is really hard… not really my medium… but I want to practice more!