Passing Time

Well happy new year all. I hope your holidays were great. Mine were pretty good aside from a very major event. I am an animal lover as many know, I've been a vegetarian for 12 years and an off an on vegan for about 5 now I guess. But I love pets as well. Summer of 2008 I adopted two kittens, Bullet and her brother Joshua. I was really attached to both of them very quickly. The following winter I was homeless trying to finish my last semester of school, living in secret under a desk in one of the illustration major studios. I sent my cats to my parents until I worked things out. The day before I found a place to stay Bullet was hit by a car. My parents house is a big farm and my cats loved the outdoors, loved it. I never let them out in the city but my parents couldn't keep them inside because they would wreck up the place until they got their way. We've had pets my whole life and the road the house is on is extremely dangerous. I felt awful about losing her. I felt like a bad person for losing my house and income and all these things that I had to send them there. Plus Joshua had never been without his sister and didn't comprehend death so he was off about it for a long long while. I haven't really gotten over it myself. But as some of you know I had to go through a loss of residence yet again when I was hit by a car in October, which put me out of work and income. This time I moved back with my parents, my little cat in tow. I didn't want to let him outside but he loved the outdoors so much. He would chase the wild turkeys in the back field and climb up all the trees. I thought that if I had children I couldn't keep them from the playground or something because they might get hurt and he was always running around the back field. A two days after christmas I let him outside, when I went to call him, he didn't come for hours and hours into the night so I went out to look for him. I walked to the edge of the driveway and looked down the street but all I saw were white snow drifts in the grass, but one looked kind of odd. I then realized it wasn't a snow drift after all, it was my cat stretched out in the grass. My friend and boss, Ed had been at the house to pick up the key to the production studio and he was walking to his car behind me. He said all he heard was me scream and when he turned he said my legs gave out and I was clutching the telephone pole. I don't remember it that specifically. I went to touch my cat, hoping he was still there, that we could take him to the vet but he was cold and ed starting dragging me back toward the house. By that time my parents heard me and woke up. My boyfriend was over and he came running out with them and I was a mess. I could only think about him being all alone, waiting for someone to come find him, to save him and I left him there. Just like his sister waited for me. I never came for them, I didn't save them. I didn't get to hold him one last time, I didn't go to bury him. My dad took him early in the morning and buried him alone next to his sister in the back under some trees past the horse pasture. I guess he was right to go without me, I couldn't bear to put him in the ground. It was just one minute he was there, then gone. For some people, they don't understand the pet thing. I don't either I guess. but someone might as well carve out the middle of me and expect me to live. I'm still pretty much devestated. I've been bouncing around between my parents, to my old house in philadelphia and my boyfriend's for months and now I'm ever more restless between them all. I'm not sure what to do with my grief but as I've been living out of the living room in my old house with my old roommates I decided I wanted to paint him. I don't do a lot of traditional paintings let alone classic style traditional paintings. I actually swore off oil paints entirely as the devil after my class with Tom Leonard showed me the power the paints have to ruin my life. But I'm sitting there in the living room with a piece of canvas paper (which is a brilliant thing I just found out about), and I started doing a charcoal sketch like in anatomy class, i traced it with a crayola black crayon since i had no watercolor pencils, I then did a version of a traditional oil wipe out but with acrylics with more of a watercolor painting technique. Then a purple acrylic under painting. Then I got my old roommate's oil paints out, those terrible terrible things, and her old brushes, used and abused, left in water for days and I painted. My pallet was my sketch book which I had wrapped in saran wrap. This was as ghetto and spur of the moment as you can get with painting I think. The whole thing took me about three days. I think my second experience with oils proved much better. Is it a spectacular oil painting? probably not. I think it looks like him and I do think it's a well done piece of art. I don't know if it helps my grief. I have a lot of pictures of him but this one seems to have his spirit in it, so maybe that helps. It's still drying. because it's oil and will never stop drying.

I have photos on my twitter of all the stages except the under painting, so it jumps from the "wipe out" stage to the final. http://twitter.com/paintedgrenades

My next creative endevour ended up being a hairstylist to all my old roommates. I'm apparently really good at cutting hair. I mean I just started cutting my own because the salon is a rip off. but I gave my roommates Angela a pretty great hair cut as well as one to Boss Ed though he hates it because guys never actually like good haircuts unless they're metro. I also did everybody's make-up. It was 14 year old's slumber party up in south philly.

I also did two little character sketches for my latest comic idea. I need to grab a scanner but I'll post them because I'm found of them as well as my costume ideas. I did "Morgan" the 14 yr old sister of character "Aaron" and "Missy DeWalt" the 17 yr old sister of character "Mark." I plan on doing some more today, as well as do a refined sketch for The Bakery website my old roommates are putting together. I'm much more productive when I'm in philadelphia.


I also did a lot of knitting and crocheting over this holiday. I made a really cute stuffed bear for my niece, a shaw for my mom, a bikini for my sister and an owl hat for my roommate. She, her new hair cut I gave her and the hat are also pictured here. Keep in mind my phone pictures are not great.

one day I suppose I'll get a real camera. For now though I have some food to eat and some art to make.

For Great Justice

Well I'm fianlly done coloring the Koni Waves Demonslayer crossover. Hopefully its second release will prove better that the first especially with my hand in the pot this time around. This is one of my favorite panels I colored, its one I actually went beyond flat color with, which was all I was suppose to do. I dig it. Steve said he might have some future projects for me which is exciting because I, like everyone else, am broke. I heart color. seriously.

I have some other projects on the stove right now as well. I need to design the main page of an artist community website. It's layer cake themed. I can't seem to escape baked goods. I'm pretty hyped on it, i have to lay some sketches down though. I'm also hoping to get to work on two celebrity portraits I've been meaning to get to. Ellen and Kelly Osbourne to be specific. Don't ask why, it just is. Then I have the scenery to finish designing for a philly based web series about local music and start work on my comic about the anti christ to be turned into a web series all while job hunting and editing wedding videos. You'd think i'd be getting some cash flow with all that but times are not fat. Most of my projects are part of larger ideas that take longer to actually see a turn over from, but hopefully it will pay off. I'll try to post some sketches soon.

Happy Solstice everyone! I think it was pretty sweet the Solstice rolled in with all that snow here in Philly. I know its a pain but I enjoy it. I haven't finished all my gifts for everyone yet but I'm hoping people don't mind waiting a bit. I did some pretty sweet things with yarn this year.Its about to get even busier though as I scurry to finish and attend all the holiday festivities. I can't believe how time flew by. I feel like it was just august.

I hope everyone is enjoying the winter and keeping as busy as I am. Lean times can't last forever, just start thinking out of the box.

http://www.koniwaves.com/roughsketchstudio/Home.html
http://www.enceles.com

Strangers

So what have I been doing all this time? Everything. Including employement changes, emergency room visits, housing changes and every other change you can imagine. Where is my art in all this? safely tucked in my mind and sketch book. I'm seriously lacking in technology so I've found it hard to bring anything to finish since last may. Though if I ever finish this traditional piece I;m working on it will be pretty sweet. I've been super crafty though. I'm knitting and stuff a lot. as for professionally I tried my hat at tattooing but as much as I love tattoos themselves the industry is not for me. Well at least that's the impression I got from the place I apprenticed. There's not a whole lot of room for moral and nice people apparently....but plenty of room for greed and back stabbing. Also trickery and plotting. I'm not much for such behavior. A friend of mine is a tattoo artist and she's one of the nicest people I know so I'm sure it has to do more with the people that than the industry but it sure soured me out of it. But that led me to be back with some friends of mine in their production company. I used to hang with a lot of film majors in college that were a few years older than me. They've been out on their own awhile and decided to start their own company that handles event coverage (like wedding videos) as well as private projects such as web series, documentaries or absurd movies. I am head graphic designer as well as one of the video editors for the company and I'm looking forward to redesigning our promos and website as well as the possibility of getting some interns in the near future. We have an office and everything. I actually just finished up a wedding video to be sent off soon. It's kind of an exciting time in its growth because we all have pet projects to work on. My boss wants to turn one of my graphic design ideas into a web series. I'm super excited about that. I have to get all my character sketches ready and plot written out for our upcoming meeting. I'm also set to draw up the backgrounds for a music themed web series we're putting out. It's actually a lot of work for kind of little pay at the moment but it's an investment and I get to do what I love and I'd kind of rather starve for that than do something that I find morally draining. All in all I guess doing all these kids storyboards in college paid off since I was the first person they looked for.

I'm also getting back to my work for Rough Sketch. I have to finish coloring this comic, its been far too long. I'm just they like me over there. Two of the nicest guys ever. I seriously owe them my life twice over. I should be done next week. I think by thursday and I'll be super proud and happy of my work, especially since it'll be published. I was going to post two pages I had colored but blogger is not having it. Maybe next time. Don't get my wrong, I love drawing and I know I'm damn good at it but color is always my favorite part. Its an adventure. Hopefully things will start calming down for me so I can really do some personal pieces and update my blog and my site more and soon.

hell of a summer?

I have been neglecting my blog so very much this summer. =( I've been going through a bit of a dry spell but i have a new painting i should be finishing soon and some great ideas for some short comics. well relatively short. also a short book on people's biggest fears. people have some ridiculous ones. but i promise to have some pictures up by the end of the week of some things i've been doing. scouts honor.

stupid jobs and good jobs and knitting

I've just spent the last two or three hours destroying the internet with resumes and links to my website. As everyone on earth does, I hate my job. It's just a crappy food service job to pay the bills. there aren't a lot of hours for me, its boring and dirty and I aspire to not have to get out of bed before 10 am. this is my one and only dream, to never get up before 10 am. is that so wrong? I just think i'm burnt out when it comes to working bullshit jobs. The only steady job i know of for an illustrator is like an Art Director which is not really what I want to be doing. Working at Rough Sketch doesn't exactly make comics seem like something that's steady. It's what i want to be doing though. The idea of working freelance is kind of scary. Because say i quit my job and just do that, what if there's a dry spell? then i get kicked out of my house. but i really don't want to have a crappy on the side job forever. i can't tell you how much i hate....i mean hate to the point of madness...that i have to get up at 6:30 to go to work. when i had class at 8:30 i thought that was the worst ever. I'm also afraid there is this curse that all people employed will hate their job. I also just want to draw right now. I need to get my studio space set up here at the house so i can just go work when i want to. I'm also really into knitting clothes right now. I'm making a bathing suit. it's going to be sweet. but i should get my sleep on, as tomorrow is one of those days were i have to get up way too early for reason

bicycles

so i don't know how many of you are avid cyclists, but i am. I get from point a to point b by bicycle no matter what. i have a bianchi cafe racer from 2008. its celeste green i love it. its taken some punishment too, but it refuses to die. and i get into some serious pickles on that thing. i've been hit by a few cars in my time riding it. recently huge catastrophes have befallen me. first my tire got shredded, then the tube, then old manager tried to help me fix it and screwed up my gear shift so it was held on with saran wrap, my back break didn't work so it was just disengaged, the break pads were replaced but wrong, then i was coming out of my work and someone had either tried to steal it or was driving on the sidewalk and just back up all kinds of over it and the chain wheel was bent to hell, then finally someone stole the seat off of it. i've been to many bike shops in philadelphia, but my all time favorite and most helpful is Via Bicycle off of 9th and south. i've taken it to them for each of these crisises and they let me skate on paying them once because i was broke. i just paid next time i came in. they fixed everything this last time i went in for my seat and for an awesome price. plus all the guys there are really nice funny and attractive. i made them this card to say thanks and they hung it up in the front. if you have a bike, go there.

Can you put this rice cooker in the bathroom?

I spent last night working on my portfolio and website for critque. we have to go through the oregan trail in order to meet some directors at this large shindig in new york in a few weeks. very important and very nerve rocking. It was an all nighter with The Hommenid. Things got a little dicey around 4 am when i couldn't stop singing the crab people song from south park, using various words instead of crab people and thinking i was hilarious. but i submitted everything and the jury told me at first that it needed a lot of work to be accepted but it was really not as much as i was expecting. just some tweats and refinement. which is understandable considering i was under the gun like a robbery victim.

Alright kids! enceles 2.0 is up, but still stay tuned for enceles 2.5 when i get all the links working and my comic pages up. which should be sooner rather than later. we (my web designer and sweetheart as well as myself) are going to tweat the roll over on the gallery page as well. she wants to rebuild it in flash, me not so much. we'll see what happens. but either way it looks pretty badass and i am excited. 

check out the bio, seriously.