Added to my collection of studio toy supervisors: Mr. Gosh, Lenore, Ragamuffin and Pooty Applewater based on the Lenore comics by Roman Dirge. I’ve been eyeing these little guys up for a very (very) long time. I don’t usually take PVC sets out of the box, but these are so adorable, how could you not want to cuddle them?
A black cat for your Friday the 13th.
I drew this with a marker in my sketchbook first, took a photo of the drawing with my iPad, and brought the drawing into the Procreate app to add color. I tweaked the colors and added a tiny bit of texture in the background in Photoshop.
So I kind of made the mistake of signing up for the Sketchbook Project: Limited Edition earlier this year, and I ended up getting pressed for time (doesn’t everybody?), and delivered a sketchbook that tells the story of what a bad time I had trying to make a new medium (markers) work. I started posting the pages here and here and here on the blog, and then I got sidetracked, as I tend to do.
Anyway, they’ve gone and digitized the sketchbook so you can see all of it at once (well, at once, but just two pages at a time) on their site: http://www.arthousecoop.com/library/10060. Still not too proud of how it turned out, but it’s a slice in time, and I was learning, and I got some practice on my lettering skills.
By the way, the sketchbook is all about the Square Kats, and I went and bought the domain squarekats.com even though I don’t know when I’ll find the time to build a site for it. But I’ll work on it, and I’ll let you know when it happens.
Meet my supervisor. He stares at me while I work. Somewhere I also have an autographed 8″x10″ black and white glossy of Animal. Yes, somebody actually autographed it for me.
My book Twisted: Tales to Rot Your Brain Vol. 1 won two Purple Dragonfly Book Awards! First Place in the Fiction: Collection of Short Stories category and Second Place in the Interior Design category. Here’s a link to all the wieners:
http://www.fivestarpublications.com/bookcontest/book-award-winners.html#2012pdbawin
They sent me stickers that I can stick on the books that show that it won, but they’re a little limited in number so I’ll have to stick them sparingly and strategically. Like pasties, I guess.
So I’ve been messing around with the brushes and settings and gestures in Procreate on my iPad, and I’m finding out it’s a lot more powerful than I expected. I still have a lot to learn, but this is Marley. He’s the first all-out painting I finished there. I added textures in Photoshop to finish him up.
My napkin @ The Wicked Googly, 209 W Main St, Ligonier PA.
My napkin @ Blue & Gray Bar & Grill, 28 Lincoln Square, Gettysburg PA.
My napkin @ Appalachian Brewing Company, 410 Buford Ave, Gettysburg PA.
I’ll be the first to admit I’ve been slacking in the social media arena lately. I haven’t been keeping up with my blogs or my Twitter updates or my Facebook posts. It’s hard to post when you don’t have anything to show for yourself.
Here’s the thing: I haven’t had anything to post because I haven’t had time to work on anything, and it’s killing me. I have a day job, and they’re short-handed right now so my schedule has cut drastically into my artwork time (and my sleeping time and my eating time and my breathing time).
And my Facebook page has suffered for it.
I don’t really understand what’s happening there. When I don’t post for a while, I lose followers of the page. I get that. They want a page that’s more updated. I’ll post things like sketches and finished paintings and announcements about exhibits I’m in or books I’ve worked on. In between those, if I find news online that I think my followers might be interested in, I’ll post a link to that, too. I don’t post often, but when I do post something, I turn around and lose a ton of followers! Someone even accused me once of posting spam!
I don’t get it. Why do people follow my Facebook page? What do they think they’re getting when they hit the “Like” button? I’m an artist and an illustrator and a writer. I want to earn my living by making artwork. If I didn’t have to pay the bills, I’d be making artwork all the time. That’s what I’d be doing instead of sleeping and eating and breathing.
It feels like a no-win situation. I lose people when I don’t post, and I lose even more when I do. When I do post, that means I’ve had the time to make something new, but that seems to be exactly what’s turning people off.
So after much deliberation, I’ve decided I’m going to keep making art. That’s what I do and who I am. And then after I’ve made the art, I’m going to post it online, in spite of all the people getting turned off over it. I’m hoping somewhere there are people who want to see it and maybe even support it someday. I’m not going to be afraid of showing what I can do.
I’m glad I thought of that, and I thank you sincerely for listening.
O.K. Here’s my first poor attempt at marker art. Markers feel like all the bad things that watercolor and pen & ink have to offer: none of them are very forgiving. I’m also kind of stuck with the colors I have, and I’m not able to blend them very well. I ended up going over the cat fur with a white pencil to lighten it up a little.
So far I’m not liking the markers. I hope I don’t embarrass myself with this little side project.