30.12.09
Sketchies!
Art Directors a-knockin?
Ye gods, querying art directors and submitting portfolio links take a long time when you sit down to do... *counting spreadsheet cells* ... 19 of them at once. Because you can't sleep. Because you drank hot cocoa too late. And you're stressed out over deadlines. As well as over cashflow.
So, you do something productive. It takes 2 hours to properly execute and doublecheck requirements and send out emails and copy down addresses. Anyway. Done! Thank tea I got the website cleaned up over this last month.
Now, during NORMAL hours, I'll do my dayjob work and then put together tearsheet packets for mail-in-requirement art departments. Maybe my spreadsheet will be all checked off before New Years? That'd rock. Then I just haveta be nervous while I awaits replieses.
Oh! And we might be getting a kitten to keep our roomie's cat company. If our friend's cat is pregnant after all. If not... might have to adopt.
So, you do something productive. It takes 2 hours to properly execute and doublecheck requirements and send out emails and copy down addresses. Anyway. Done! Thank tea I got the website cleaned up over this last month.
Now, during NORMAL hours, I'll do my dayjob work and then put together tearsheet packets for mail-in-requirement art departments. Maybe my spreadsheet will be all checked off before New Years? That'd rock. Then I just haveta be nervous while I awaits replieses.
Oh! And we might be getting a kitten to keep our roomie's cat company. If our friend's cat is pregnant after all. If not... might have to adopt.
20.12.09
The defilement of a respected tradition
So I got me an etsy shop, finally. It was a very long time coming, especially in these days when it seems every crafter and artisan in the universe has one. Took a few hours yesterday, when we were snowed in, and built the store:
And that's mostly what's there now: my ex libris/bookplate designs that are usable. I take on one of the bibliophile's most treasured traditions and make it as weird, freakish, or appropriate as I wish.
Or whatever strange disasters and arcane imagery YOU wish, even. Since I take custom ex libris orders as well as sell the array of personalizable designs. And of course, in the way of bookplates, any commissioned ex libris designs will never be sold to anyone besides the patron.
If you like books, or art, or both, you can't go wrong with bookplates in your library.
And that's mostly what's there now: my ex libris/bookplate designs that are usable. I take on one of the bibliophile's most treasured traditions and make it as weird, freakish, or appropriate as I wish.
Or whatever strange disasters and arcane imagery YOU wish, even. Since I take custom ex libris orders as well as sell the array of personalizable designs. And of course, in the way of bookplates, any commissioned ex libris designs will never be sold to anyone besides the patron.
If you like books, or art, or both, you can't go wrong with bookplates in your library.
14.12.09
Glorying in icy grasses
Here again, after a weekend in colonial Williamsburg, VA. Sister-in-law's graduation attended, fife-and-drum redcoat marching seen. Cold endured.
And, it's been on my (newly retouched) website and dA since just before I left, but for anyone who doesn't trawl the muck of my web presence (and serious, there's a lot of it... I understand), here's the newest painting off my drafting table. Part two in the Tailspinning series, in a different mood than the first:
And, it's been on my (newly retouched) website and dA since just before I left, but for anyone who doesn't trawl the muck of my web presence (and serious, there's a lot of it... I understand), here's the newest painting off my drafting table. Part two in the Tailspinning series, in a different mood than the first:
23.11.09
Harlequin Romance Sucks Something Else Entirely, or why you can't pay to play.
Harlequin Romance and their publishing house have taken the short step into the worst of the vanity presses, scamming aspiring authors out of money and pretending to provide a service.
One which Lulu.com has provided on equitable terms for years, I might add.
Post over on Seanan McGuire's LJ about this travesty.
Thankfully the RWA, SFWA, and MWA have all come out against this shite with fervor.
One which Lulu.com has provided on equitable terms for years, I might add.
Post over on Seanan McGuire's LJ about this travesty.
Thankfully the RWA, SFWA, and MWA have all come out against this shite with fervor.
19.11.09
Crossed Genres for YOU.
This is a great speculative fiction magazine, and it needs help. Go support Crossed Genres if you have $1.59 to spare. Preorder an anthology. Or just buy a few issues. $1.59 an issue, in pdf form.
It will be good for you. And print issues are cheap, and make great gifts for someone who needs some culture.
Blog post about CG:
http://sandykidd.livejournal.com/34
Crossed Genres:
http://crossedgenres.com/
It will be good for you. And print issues are cheap, and make great gifts for someone who needs some culture.
Blog post about CG:
http://sandykidd.livejournal.com/34
Crossed Genres:
http://crossedgenres.com/
11.11.09
A: Popple / B: Not a Popple
Hey, guess what? I'm not a Popple. Our roomie's cat, on the other hand... as yet undecided.
The past few weeks have been filled with book reading, feeling sick with seasonal colds, and being sorta bleh about things. I've been doing dayjob work, and thinking a lot about this painting (read: stressed about this painting). But you saw the sketch, if you follow this blog... it's been a while since that part was done, and today was the first serious day of watercoloring after staring at a light wash for a week. In celebration of my (about time, you slacker!) diving in, I'm uploading the first photo of it in progress.
...I mean me celebrating, you can feel whatever you like about this moment.
The past few weeks have been filled with book reading, feeling sick with seasonal colds, and being sorta bleh about things. I've been doing dayjob work, and thinking a lot about this painting (read: stressed about this painting). But you saw the sketch, if you follow this blog... it's been a while since that part was done, and today was the first serious day of watercoloring after staring at a light wash for a week. In celebration of my (about time, you slacker!) diving in, I'm uploading the first photo of it in progress.
...I mean me celebrating, you can feel whatever you like about this moment.
2.11.09
31.10.09
30.10.09
Hedgehogs on Moleskines! Best gift ever.
Hey, I just realized Modofly still has a small selection of my steampunk hedgies on journals for sale! My hedgehog series, on a nice 5x8" moleskine? That's a lovely, lovely thing, trust me! I've seen them and they are astounding.
Just GO HERE AND TAKE A LOOK at the images and all the other awesome artists who're participating in Modofly's neat idea.
Available are the three images below, on a shiny, sturdy moleskiney sketchbook. So have a gander, and if you need a quick, original gift for someone... well, who doesn't like blank notebooks? I don't trust that sort.
Just GO HERE AND TAKE A LOOK at the images and all the other awesome artists who're participating in Modofly's neat idea.
Available are the three images below, on a shiny, sturdy moleskiney sketchbook. So have a gander, and if you need a quick, original gift for someone... well, who doesn't like blank notebooks? I don't trust that sort.
29.10.09
Steampunk!
Squid to come soon.
I'll let you suppose what this entails. Or doesn't.
I'm sure you all are aware the Tor.com theme for October has been/is the wonders of all that iswasmightbe Steampunk. Now, this concept has been around since the late 80s (in the 1800s it was simply science fiction). But I wasn't even aware of it until 2005. In 2005, I discovered the welcoming, open-hearted, zeppelin-strewn skies of this odd little subculture/genre. Handmade craft! Dapper couture! Bizarre music! If you missed out on Tor's awesome columns and guest bloggers, and well... the event of the season, and you're interested even vaguely in this clanky, smoky mess that is Steampunkery, I'd suggest the following sites:
BrassGoggles
The Steampunk Workshop
The Clockwork Cabaret (Rather neat radio show/podcast of SP music and hilarity)
Dieselpunks
Steampunk Magazine
Make: Technology on Your Time (Steampunk and Maker culture overlap heavily)
Personally, I got into Steampunk through an odd coincidence of interests back in '05. I started looking heavily into handmade/renewable stuff like Instructables.com and at the same time, rereading Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, getting more disgusted with our cold sense of industrial design these days, and probably a slew of other catalysts I'm not remembering. The zeitgeist grabbed me hard and all these little aesthetic things that were floating around in my head coagulated like a chilled cup of pudding. Tasty, tasty aesthetic pudding.
I think I discovered BrassGoggles first, the Steampunk Workshop second, and it snowballed from there. I would guess I made my first Steampunk art in 2006 for work (greatest excuse). It was this custom dunny, given away as a prize in our local treasure hunt at Project A-kon 17 in Dallas, TX. I have since done t-shirts, art exhibits, vignettes from the Lively Adventures of Hogarth Merricule III, and of course... the 19th century outfit for my wedding last October.
In honor of the winding down of Tor's Steampunk Month, I would like to dedicate this entry to that end. In case this wasn't apparent enough already.
------------------------
Today's drastic timewaster: Twitter
Today's soundtrack: Regina Spektor & Luminescent Orchestrii
Today's projects: squid in the morning, digital graphics at night
*I keep capitalizing Steampunk because I've recently seen it used as a form of personal description, viz. "steampunk/s". So, to differentiate genre from practitioners.
I'll let you suppose what this entails. Or doesn't.
I'm sure you all are aware the Tor.com theme for October has been/is the wonders of all that iswasmightbe Steampunk. Now, this concept has been around since the late 80s (in the 1800s it was simply science fiction). But I wasn't even aware of it until 2005. In 2005, I discovered the welcoming, open-hearted, zeppelin-strewn skies of this odd little subculture/genre. Handmade craft! Dapper couture! Bizarre music! If you missed out on Tor's awesome columns and guest bloggers, and well... the event of the season, and you're interested even vaguely in this clanky, smoky mess that is Steampunkery, I'd suggest the following sites:
BrassGoggles
The Steampunk Workshop
The Clockwork Cabaret (Rather neat radio show/podcast of SP music and hilarity)
Dieselpunks
Steampunk Magazine
Make: Technology on Your Time (Steampunk and Maker culture overlap heavily)
Personally, I got into Steampunk through an odd coincidence of interests back in '05. I started looking heavily into handmade/renewable stuff like Instructables.com and at the same time, rereading Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, getting more disgusted with our cold sense of industrial design these days, and probably a slew of other catalysts I'm not remembering. The zeitgeist grabbed me hard and all these little aesthetic things that were floating around in my head coagulated like a chilled cup of pudding. Tasty, tasty aesthetic pudding.
I think I discovered BrassGoggles first, the Steampunk Workshop second, and it snowballed from there. I would guess I made my first Steampunk art in 2006 for work (greatest excuse). It was this custom dunny, given away as a prize in our local treasure hunt at Project A-kon 17 in Dallas, TX. I have since done t-shirts, art exhibits, vignettes from the Lively Adventures of Hogarth Merricule III, and of course... the 19th century outfit for my wedding last October.
In honor of the winding down of Tor's Steampunk Month, I would like to dedicate this entry to that end. In case this wasn't apparent enough already.
------------------------
Today's drastic timewaster: Twitter
Today's soundtrack: Regina Spektor & Luminescent Orchestrii
Today's projects: squid in the morning, digital graphics at night
*I keep capitalizing Steampunk because I've recently seen it used as a form of personal description, viz. "steampunk/s". So, to differentiate genre from practitioners.
27.10.09
Slide
Have you ever really and wholeheartedly loved a season so much that it competes with your sense of self?
That's how I feel about autumn.
be on twitter. peas.
That's how I feel about autumn.
be on twitter. peas.
26.10.09
GUD Magazine's excellent monster quiz.
| "Any euchoi around here?" monster: You're the Hadez daemon from A Song, a Prayer, an Empty Space by Darja Malcolm-Clarke in Issue 3. You click mechanically, devour prayers, and you'll destroy the connection to God in anyone who gets too close. What GUD Monster are you? Find out at GUD Magazine! |  |
25.10.09
Artist of the Day Special
I have to say, I discovered the most astounding artist by the name of Koren Shadmi. Go look at the work; it blows my mindballoon. I'd seen some here and there before, but seeing it all in one place and knowing it was all the same illustrator was keen.
A friend of mine who runs an art gallery in DC linked him on Twitter, and I'm quite stoked by the images. Want. Paint.
Tomorrow: get printed copy of new sketch so transferral to watercolor paper might occur.
A friend of mine who runs an art gallery in DC linked him on Twitter, and I'm quite stoked by the images. Want. Paint.
Tomorrow: get printed copy of new sketch so transferral to watercolor paper might occur.
24.10.09
Vitriolic Words
I spent the entirety of today (meaning from noon 'til one ante meridian) working on the second out of three digital vector illustrations for a government contractor for whom I'm on retainer. Thirteen hours! Of Adobe Illustrator. Augh. The memory hogging of AI is legendary, and I can't even run it after a while. My laptop has 4GB of RAM. Four. And it still chokes up on Illustrator more than thrice a day. Bloody astounding, the heaviness of that particular aspect of Creative Suite 3. Photoshop never does this. Acrobat, gods forbid. The few times I've had to use InDesign on my home computer, it's been fine. The only other CS program that's ever come close to this level of asshattery is Flash. WTF Adobe? AI is entirely MATH. There's not even pixel mapping.
I'm really not a pleased creature when it comes to AI, but that may be a combination of the above-stated and the fact that I'm just not as comfortable in AI as I am in any other program. I just don't think in vectors, and I have trouble conceptualizing what I need to do to achieve desired results, so I tend to wing it. Which probably takes longer than it should? I have no idea, really, since I've never sat and watched another designer or artist using it.
And in the end, 13 hours later, the files sent to my client... I'd like to start drawing. Mayhaps I will.
On the up side, I sent out a few inquiry letters to small press publishers today and yesterday! Here's finger's crossed. I need to finish the above painting to I feel comfortable about m'portfolio and then send it off to HarperCollins, Candlewick and the rest of them. I did enter the Illustrators 52 contest over at the Society of Illustrators. Am nervous.
I'm really not a pleased creature when it comes to AI, but that may be a combination of the above-stated and the fact that I'm just not as comfortable in AI as I am in any other program. I just don't think in vectors, and I have trouble conceptualizing what I need to do to achieve desired results, so I tend to wing it. Which probably takes longer than it should? I have no idea, really, since I've never sat and watched another designer or artist using it.
And in the end, 13 hours later, the files sent to my client... I'd like to start drawing. Mayhaps I will.
On the up side, I sent out a few inquiry letters to small press publishers today and yesterday! Here's finger's crossed. I need to finish the above painting to I feel comfortable about m'portfolio and then send it off to HarperCollins, Candlewick and the rest of them. I did enter the Illustrators 52 contest over at the Society of Illustrators. Am nervous.
20.10.09
Tailspinning Sketch 2 Final
Here's the final sketch for my new watercolor. Finally got a change to do some reference searches and finish up the ziggurat and the backpack.
So... trees to remain pale, graphic shapes against industrial darkness? Or perhaps trees to become dark, graphic shapes against a lighter background? Hrm.
17.10.09
The art, the work... a month in.
Anyone following this knows I've been working on and off this painting since early/mid September, and it's nearly a month in doing. Sometimes I wish life would leave me alone so I could paint... and then I remember that I am addicted to the internets. Oh dear.
16.10.09
Art Update: Tailspinning Story Sketch 2
Just for you, fine Jo(e) Public, a preview of the next picture in the universe of the glowing pear.
Will be watercolor, with the tree limbs and foreground the darkest portions against a lighter, happy industrial ziggurat dystopia. Or some of that, at least.
Un sketch:
Will be watercolor, with the tree limbs and foreground the darkest portions against a lighter, happy industrial ziggurat dystopia. Or some of that, at least.
Un sketch:
12.10.09
Art Update: Glowy Pear Goodness
More dragons and pear-carrying kids. It's probably finished, here. A high quality scan to follow as soon as I can find a place to do it.
Anyone know somewhere in the DC area that does large-format digitizing/photographing of artwork?
And I'd be joyous if people chimed in with their opinions of the painting, if you have any.
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