Still no wacom, but new website design?

Happy New Year's Eve!

Still no news on the wacom front. I have managed to keep myself occupied with other projects, but I can feel a slight twitch coming on.

I was hoping to redesign my website soon, so I threw myself into that this weekend and actually managed to finish it. I wanted something much simpler and easy to update - hopefully this will be both.

I hope everyone has a warm, safe and memorable New Year's Eve! Bring on 2012!

Cintiq needs a timeout...

Earlier this evening my Cintiq decided to take a time out. I was 2 glasses of wine into a new Skyrim-related piece when the monitor went kaput. (My Nord and her favorite companion Farkas are actively seeking out a dragon to slay)

I scrambled to adjust the settings, un-plug/replug every cord to ever grace my desk area and swap power supplies... but to no avail. It seems my trusty cintiq decided it was naptime.

I'll call Wacom in the morning and see what my options are, fingers crossed that it is something simple. It's just incredible to see how fast I've come to rely on this piece of technology and how utterly weird it feels to see it turned off.

It's not like I don't have a heaping list of other non-computer works to attend to, so I'll just switch gears for a little bit. In the spirit of staying creative, I printed out this list of 33 ways to stay creative to help in my non-cintiq guided pursuits. It's a pretty great list to keep in a sketchbook in times of need :)

Update! Finished!!

Finish your present wrapping with free gift tags!

Merry Christmas!!

I hope everyone has a restful holiday filled with many delicious cookies, much eggnog and the warmth of loved ones!

I am preparing to head to Michigan for a few days, but still have a long list of things to accomplish before I leave. One of these things is the dreaded wrapping of presents.
I still sadly possess the wrapping skills of an 8 year old and I tend to leave the wrapping of presents until the day (or a few hours) before I give them out. This combination generally results in some fairly laughable packages. This year, I decided to snazzify my wrapped gifts with some custom gift tags, in attempts to make up for the saggy corners and uneven tape that will undoubtedly be featured in all of my presents.

I added them to my site as well, so that anyone can download the tags and print them off. Simply download the .pdf (its pretty large) and print on any thick paper you like. I tried my Hahnemuhle Bamboo paper as it has a nice warm glow, but any cardstock will do just fine. Just cut around the dashes (or keep them if you like the way it looks) and voila! A set of custom illustrated gift tags.

The watercolor animal illustrations are also featured on my 2012 calendar from my Etsy shop :)

Happy Holidays everyone!!

Oh Skyrim....

Skyrim is fantastic. AND, eating up the majority of my free time.

The other night my Nord ran into giant mourning his dead mammoth. It was really rather sad, so I walked over (slowly, to avoid space-flight.) Knowing that there was really nothing I could do to help, I dropped a flower before continuing on.

From the Sea!

I've been on a sealife kick for a bit now. I suppose living down the block from the bay and being an avid aquarium fan will do that.

With the opening of my Etsy store, I've been trying to create more physical paintings that I might be able to offer for sale.

The painting on the left (Tentacles) sold recently, so I was hoping to make a few prints of it. Unfortunately, my love affair with gloss gel seems to have made this task rather difficult. The glossy brush strokes scan *terribly*. They look like little white hairs all over the image, and ruin the feeling of the painting. While it looks nice in real life, I may need to abandon the gloss texture I've come to adore if I want to reliably scan any new work.

The painting on the right (Octopus) is a work-in-progress shot, which will NOT have the thick coat of gloss gel. I had a professor at MSU who abhorred the use of gloss medium, and I may need to channel her hatred for it if I want to leave it out!

In other news, I am still working on The Sketchbook Project sketchbook. It is still in pieces scattered by my desk, easel and work table. The due date is quickly approaching, so I am going to need to spend some serious time finishing it relatively soon. I'd like to create a time-lapse video of the project too, but that will probably fall by the wayside as the holidays approach.

And speaking of the holidays, I printed my Christmas cards with moo.com again this year!

I love, love, love their paper stock. The outside has such a soft velvety sheen to it --- perfect for Christmas cards! I've got them up on Etsy in packs of 10 (with matching envelopes of course!).

With so many things to work on, I have been running around a bit crazy. In the words of my favorite Companion, "Eyes on the prey, not the horizon".

...and yes, Skyrim is amazing :)

Grand Opening on Etsy!

I've had "create Etsy store" on my to-do list for almost a year now. I finally got to cross that item of my list! I feel like I should bake a cake or something...

I'll skip the baked goods for now (had enough over Thanksgiving anyway) and go with a coupon code to celebrate instead! From now until Friday, use "OPEN2011" for free shipping on any item in my store :)

New work wednesday!

Wood, acrylics, gloss medium and a spray bottle. I love these things right now.

I am pretty interested in exploring this new process. I've always loved drawing lesser-celebrated animals (hello possum portrait!) and the method of layering the pigment with gloss has me pretty much entranced. I've started a few more pieces with heavy india ink application as well, but I've had to lessen my reliance on the spray bottle.

In other news, I am about 30% done with my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project and am really excited to visit one of the tour locations. My theme is 'Time Travel' which has made for quite a few headaches thus far. Oh the paradoxes!

I am also trying to finally get my Etsy store up. I removed the store section of my website back in the summer while we were travelling and I have yet to find the time to put it back up again. I'm thinking Etsy might be an easier route at this point.

Moral of the story: So many things to do, so little coffee to be had!

Jon Snow sketch... in the snow

I finished season 1 of Game of Thrones and had some time to sketch a bit before heading off to bed. I'm about halfway through A Clash of Kings and I am so hoping Jon makes it out of the series alive!

On a sidenote, will the whole show be called Game of Thrones? Or will they change the title to match the subsequent books?

Creation

I finally got a chance to finish an image I started back in the summer. Originally I had titled it 'The Sorceress' but as I worked, I felt the image was less about the woman and more about the process (hers and mine.) I finished the piece a few nights ago and changed the title to 'Creation'.

Inking my sketches from Europe

We got back from our 2 week trip around Europe on Tuesday. Now that I have adjusted back to eastern time again (and not just falling asleep at my desk) I am starting to play with the sketches I collected.
I found myself pretty well enraptured with the buildings in the areas we stayed in and spent a lot of time sitting outside pen in hand drawing cityscapes. (Or in most cases, villagescapes!) I loved the closeness of Bruges, the colors of Munich and of course, the canals in Amsterdam. Each city had so many beautiful squares, streets and hidden corners that it would have been impossible to draw everything that struck me. For this reason, I brought 2 cameras :)

I am starting to ink a few of the sketches I made in Munich (might as well go in chronological order) and am hoping to throw a few washes over each one. This one in particular was created at Marienplatz, a medieval square in the middle of the city.

Added Kimbra to the Gotye Painting

I've had Kimbra's 'Settle Down' on repeat all evening. I love it. The Barbie, Ken and Barbie v.2 motif is killer. I meant to paint both her and Gotye into the piece I did a few weeks ago - and finished adding her tonight.

A few more acrylic transfers

'Pidgeon', acrylic and paint marker on 8 x 11 wood board.

'Pigeons on wire' also acrylic and paint marker on 8 x 11 wood board.

I used a gold pigmented base for the background, which isn't incredibly visible in the scans.
More transfer experiments follow :)

Gotye painting on 0 hours of sleep...

In the process of staying awake all night (to hopefully jolt my body back into a normal sleep schedule for a weekend in Michigan) I stumbled across an excellent video by a very excellent musician. Gotye's "Someone I Used to Know" has been on repeat for the majority of the evening, night and early morning. My goal for the night/day was to finish a set of new transfer images - but after a few hours of his music and being so struck by the visuals in this video I decided I probably needed to try to paint it.

Now that I have done that, I should probably go chug gallons of coffee if I hope to stay awake until this evening. My body doesn't seem to stay awake as well as it did in college...

Breaking in the new cintiq!

We made it back to Miami from Boulder in one piece - which is awesome, considering we decided to drive the entire 36 hour trip in one go. The ferrets weren't exactly pleased, but we supplied them with a bounty of treats... so they can't have been too upset with us.

Upon getting home, we found a stellar deal on a Cintiq (wooo craigslist!) and I found myself upgrading from the 12wx, to the 21. Seriously, it's a whole new world. It took me a few nights to get used to it and I still haven't grasped all of it's capabilities - but it is definitely one of the better investments I could have made this year.

This little guy was made as a practice image on the new cintiq, based off a 'hallucinogenic spirit guide' character concept from conceptart.org. I missed the deadline for submission but was still intrigued by the idea. I wanted him to be friendly, beckoning and full of ideas we haven't found yet. Somehow that part manifested as a yellow glow in my head.... perhaps I just miss the Michigan lightening bugs :)

Whirlwind Summer...

What? It's mid-July?? I have no idea where spring even went and it's already halfway through summer?

We've been in Colorado for about 3 weeks and though we have been super busy, it has been a wonderful time. The vibe out is here is fantastic and I could see myself living here, no problem.

As our level of busy-ness with our current project is at about 11 (on a scale of 1 - 10) I have not gotten much chance to paint. I am knee-deep in a pretty emotional portrait, but being surrounded by the scenery here I am finding it hard to focus on the face. Good thing I packed my seldom used watercolors!

I've decided to step back from the portrait (even though I enjoy it) and focus on where my attention seems to be constantly drifting. To the Mountains! The Flatirons, to be exact. I've been carting my watercolors and a convenient pack of postcard sized paper to the park across our street and have been trying my best to practice landscapes. Landscape work has always been a stretch for me, but I am finding the super small format keeps me from getting frustrated and encourages me to move quickly.

I also want to start painting the more interesting beer bottles I have started collecting. There are tons of local, delicious (and cheap!) breweries in this area, which results in some pretty nifty beer bottle designs. I'm hoping to do one each weekend :) Drinking beer, for art!

Saturday night sketching

I started reading Game of Thrones a few weeks ago. It's a beautiful story, but thus far - so very depressing. The story has gotten inside my head pretty well, so when I was looking for reference poses I found myself drawn (pun totally intended) to more medieval costumes.

This was done in about an hour, with mechanical pencil in my sketchbook. A reference was used for pose, but I tweaked the face/body structure a good bit.

Regrets turn to Inspiration

Not too long ago, Dan and I found ourselves reminiscing our time at MSU. I asked him if he regretting anything, and he said he didn't. Dan then asked me the same question. I unfortunately did.

It was summer semester of 2008 and I was in Drawing II with one of my favorite professors. Michelle was the caliber of professor that saw past the work you were creating and into what you 'could' be creating. She was full of wisdom and advice that I tried to take in, but my mind was cluttered. It was summer, I was a few weeks away from a summer in Austria and I was utterly unfocused. I felt myself falling short, which then caused me to step back further away from my work. There was so much potential in that class and though I was trying to grasp at it - the majority of it slipped through my fingers. I'll probably always regret letting that class pass me by, instead of addressing it with the fervor I should have.

Cut to a few years later, I found myself replaying some of Michelle's pointers to me as I worked. Caught off guard, I stopped working and began to examine the memories I had from Drawing II. Thankfully I possess a pretty reliable cache of college, (though I am not quite sure how I managed that!) and I found myself rocked.

Suddenly, everything I was trying to do had an answer. Everything I was feeling at that moment had a root and the root was buried deep in something I remembered from that class. Something that had not quite sunk in during drawing II, was suddenly brought to life. I can't quite explain the exact sensation other than the cliche, 'click!'. In a whirlwind of paint, paper, gel and brushes I started redoing old projects, looking at old work, rethinking old problems. And transfers... I had forgotten about transfers.

Michelle had suggested I play with transfers, (using gel medium to transfer a toner-based image to another surface) and I started to during that class - but never appreciated the process. Until now.

This week alone I have probably made about 10 various transfer paintings as I experiment with the process and materials. Each one takes about a day to fully complete and each one is a bit of an adventure.

This owl was one of the first experiments. I used an opaque gold acrylic in the background, which falls a bit flat in the scan. The paints for the owl itself needed to be mixed with a bit more gel medium as well, but as an experiment goes - I'm happy with it.

In the end, I guess having a regret isn't always a bad thing. Looking back on the situation and seeing where I fell short was the impetus to stumble into my current position and I'm grateful for that at least. I'll be honing my transfer process for the next few months and am very excited for the images in my head to finally have a home!

Thursday night with old pastels

I was cleaning out my desk area (again!) and came across a box of pastels I thought I had used up ages ago. I bought this set specifically for a Drawing II project back at MSU and they have followed me around since then. I've gone through sets of better pastels in the meantime, so it was a happy surprise to find this familiar box in the back of my supply closet.

The set had basically been worn down to teeny nibs of color, (except for the black pastel) so it was a challenge to cover the paper with as much thickness as I usually like. This led to a bit more color experimentation than I usually do; "Oh the brick red is gone? I guess I'll try magenta..."
Made for a fun evening regardless :)

Pictures from 'Take a Walk in Her Shoes!'

This past Thursday I had the honor of participating in the second annual 'Take a Walk in Her Shoes' fashion event. I created 4 large paintings of women as 'guardians' of our world and was pleased with the result.

With just about 2 weeks of working time, I spent nearly every day furiously painting, blasting Florence and The Machine and subsisting on a diet of primarily coffee in attempts to finish the images on time. (On a side note, Lungs is my current favorite painting-soundtrack. Gets my elbows moving!)

I was nothing less than thrilled when I was finally able to sit infront of the finished printed posters without any major art-tastrophies.

At 24 x 36, they are the largest images I have created and it was awesome to be able to donate them to such a fantastic cause.

Below is a picture from the event, with Guardian I up on an easel in an inner room of the show. (I am not sure who the nice folks are in the picture however)

Prints of the paintings are available for purchase through my site :)

New Business cards!

I returned home this week from our trip out to San Francisco (for Google IO) to find my new business cards were waiting in the mail! I was down to my last 10 cards and ended up handing the rest out at the conference/airport, so I was very pleased to see my stock replenished.

The new cards had been slightly redesigned to match with my new site layout and to include several new images that I felt would translate well to the backs of the cards. This is my third time ordering from moo.com and as always, I was impressed by the quality of the paper and the printing of my images. There's something about the sheen of the card they use that I just cannot find with other printers. The dimensions are a little different from US card sizes (as they are a UK based company) but I don't find the difference off putting at all. I think I enjoy having a *slightly* larger card anyway... more room for the art on the back!

In other news, I am gearing up for a huge art-opportunity this week. I will be showing 4 new pieces (24 x 36 posters) at the 2nd Annual'Take a Walk in her Shoes' fashion event. The event is put on by the Community Partnership for Homeless at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. To say I am excited is a massive understatement. The Biltmore itself is an absolutely breath-taking building and the fashion show is for a wonderful cause. I am so honored to be able to be a part in this fantastic event!

With that being said, I should get back to work :)

The Messenger

It's been a busy spring.

ChickenBrick is pumping out new projects, we redid my website to include Paypal, I've gotten started on an Etsy store and I've been a *tad* preoccupied with the release of Dragon Age 2 and Portal 2. It's safe to say, coffee has been my best friend for awhile.


In between the excitement of the videogames and the reorganization of my office-area (yet again) I tried to find a bit of time to draw. The Messenger is an image that I had been mulling over for a few weeks prior and was happy to finally have a chance to sketch it out.

Not too long into the sketching process, I realized I needed a refresher course in equine anatomy. I spent the next few days drawing nothing but horse heads, horse legs and horse musculature, it was like 6th grade all over again. (Except far more realistic - I hope)

Once I felt a bit more confident in the horse design, I finished the rest of the image and was fairly pleased with the outcome. The full version can be seen on my site :)

Art request: Fancy Goldfish

I got a request from a friend earlier this week for a fancy goldfish. I love painting fish so I was onboard immediately. She was interested in a slightly more graphic styled fish as she was hoping to use it as an oversized laptop sticker. I worked with heavy outlines, bright colors and was lucky enough to find a fairly dramatic reference photo. (However, I did make a few tweaks to the fins for added fish-drama).

"Goldfish, 2011" is a mix of watercolor and india ink on heavy bristol board. Hope you like it Kim!

Thane Krios Speed Painting

I just started playing Mass Effect 2 ( I know, so late to the party) and was inspired by the deadly drell assassin Thane Krios to make a few quick sketches and paintings.

While Thane is very interesting to look at, he was not easy for me to draw. I tended to humanize his alien features subconsciously (excellent example of "drawing what we know") and he looked like a human wearing a Thane costume. After a few more nights sketching his reptilian features I tried another painting.

This time I attacked it quickly, not allowing myself to get caught up in the fine lines (which I would inevitably turn human) and used a reference from the Mass Effect 2 trailer. 45 minutes later I decided to stop and just let it be.

The next Thane image I want to tackle will involve the texturing on his scales. In-game the scales are absolutely gorgeous, distracting even. On many occasions I have found myself circling Thane's head with the camera just watching how the light plays on the scales. Then I realize I have made myself motion-sick and need to go back to chasing down whatever thug I was bringing to justice. (My Shepherd is so Paragon is hurts.)

Bioware did an incredible job with Thane's design and I definitely look forward to sketching more of the assassin.