Jami Lee Rosa
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First of all, I just want to say that this post will be about me and my artwork. I'm taking part in a group show along with Serpenthes this Saturday at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles. So, here is a little self promotion. I will return this Friday (or Thursday depending on my schedule) to post about ink_smear (who is amazing) as my husband and I will be driving from Nor Cal to LA all Saturday.

1) How would you define your style?
Well, I honestly haven’t found my specific style yet. If I had to really explain it though, it’s a lot of women with androgynous features. I love the mix of bright colors mixed with macabre things like blood, skulls, violence, knives, things like that. I love bringing a little bit of light to the morbid. Ideally I would love my art to resemble what Marilyn Munster or Wednesday Addams would create.

2) What things inspire and influence you and your artwork?
Music, movies, my husband, books, clothing, pictures pretty much everything inspires me in one way or another. As I said before I love the idea of mixing bright colors with the macabre. My favorite shows and movies as a child were: Ninja Turtles 2, The Addams Family (more the two movies from the early 90s, though the original black and white versions hold a special place in my heart), Beetlejuice (the cartoon, I didn’t see the movie until I was much older, but immediately loved it in a different way), Ferngully (the original movie with Robin Williams and Tim Curry), the X-Men cartoon (I loved Gambit, Storm & Jubilee from this), and the Batman cartoon (Catwoman & Clayface). I’ve always had a soft spot for the “bad guys” or characters that are abnormal. All of these things influence my artwork a lot.

3) Do you listen to music when you create? Describe your perfect creative work environment.
I do listen to music when I create. Sometimes I spend hours in frustration because I can’t find the perfect mood music and some nights I have to force myself to walk away from my project for the time being. I paint at a desk that used to belong to my grandfather. I’ve had it for quite some time now. It’s not the ideal desk for painting, but it works well enough for me, I don’t mind the cramped space. Drawing is usually done on my laptop desk. It will start out as a quick sketch or notes of an idea and then move on from there. I like being able to draw in front of the computer, because I can look up makeup or clothing reference pictures very easily that way.

4) What mediums do you work in the most? Why do you use them?
Lately I’ve been doing paintings with acrylic on square canvas. I love the look of square canvas, rectangular pieces are done by everyone, they’re everywhere. I love chunky square canvas. When I’m not painting I love working with black Micron pens because they are simply amazing. I work small and they give me amazing detail when I do. They also don’t bleed through pages in Moleskine notebooks which is a huge plus. I love working with those books, I have a million of them now. I also love working with colored pencils, I use Prismacolor right now, because I know them fairly well. One day I will find the perfect colored pencils though and I will be giddy. I would love to get back into watercolors as well.

5) Name a few of your favorite artists.
Luke Chueh, Greg “Craola” Simkins, Cassandra Warren, Audrey Kawasaki, Mark Ryden, Sokkuan, Melissa Haslam, Mae Jane, Kurt Halsey, Ravel Iglehart, Sas Christian, Colin Christian

6) If there was one style of art that you could take up what would it be?
Painting with oils, sculpting, special effects, typography, photography, etc.




(The first painting I did for this weekend's art show)










A self portrait of sorts.


It is so much harder to choose pictures of my own art to show here. I hope I picked the correct ones!