Project Feeling Gross At Christmas

Ugh. The weather and temperature fluctuations have left me with a cold, or sinus infection. First it was warm and muggy, then freezing, then warm, then cold, and now it's 80* outside. Are you kidding me? No wonder I feel awful. I had a comically horrendous time trying to acquire Claritin D last night at the pharmacy, and that's kinda sorta helped out. But I definitely don't feel up to doing anything but lazing around.

I did stay up last night and attempted to figure out this Project Wonderful thing. I'm several months late to the party, I know, but it's kind of bewildering to me. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it, but at the present, I just don't see exactly how it's going to work for me. Eh. We'll see.

I'm sure to be bored later so I won't wish anyone a Merry Christmas, not yet.

Gah, what is in the AIR?? I can't stop sneezing...

Ah.

Well, here's the state of the union.

I'm at home, visiting my parents. My boyfriend tagged along for an early Christmas, and then flew back to NYC this afternoon so that he would have time to head out to Pennsylvania to visit his family for real Christmas.

It's been fun; he's never been to the real, Deep South before. We met in Florida, and though it is well below the Mason-Dixon Line, it is absolutely not the South. Okay, okay; the panhandle... that counts. But we were in Orlando. Not the South.

He enjoyed it though! So that's a relief. We ate far, far too much, of course. Tomorrow I'm gonna hit the local gym up for a guest pass so that maybe I can burn off a slice or two of pie before the Big Show on Christmas Day. And maybe now I can sit down and get some drawing done. I thought to bring supplies and my camera, but I don't know if I have the cord to connect the camera to the computer. Gah. So maybe you have to wait until the 27th or so to see anything.

But here are a few photos of stuff that's not art, but almost as good!


My Christmas tree


My Christmas dog

Merry Almost Christmas.


Yes.

Here's a shot or two from a couple of weeks ago, when I went upstate with some friends, to stay at their family's condo.





Pretty different from NYC.

Actually though, it reminded me a tiny bit of Brooklyn! I quipped that Hudson, NY seems to be the place you retreat to when you're tired of dealing with NYC. It was very quaint. The antique stores, however, seemed to still harbor NYC prices...

I got an illustration commission sent to me on myspace. I better hurry on it, before I go out of town on the 17th.

PS: Christmas shopping is 95% complete!

Today was a rainy mess in New York City.

And of course I had to go run errands in Manhattan, instead of staying cozy at home with my Christmas tree and dog. Gross.

But it's over now! And I am home, cozy, with my Christmas tree and dog.

just fyi:

Um, also, sort of in the spirit of last night's rant on Sally... I also don't like my ear ache NOR do I like salespeople who walk around their stores singing along with Christmas music. I really, really don't like those things. :P

A not so positive review masquerading as a positive one.

Don't get me wrong: I like 'When Harry Met Sally'. It is, as a friend described long ago in college, a very "comfortable" movie. You can put it on and either watch it or have it on in the background while you work or clean or whatever.

But seriously? Sally?



Is the most annoying individual ever. I don't know if we were supposed to fall in love with her big dewy eyes or what, but it didn't work. Harry was kind of obnoxious-- perhaps that is why we're supposed to believe they're meant for one another-- but it didn't compare to Sally. She's shrill, somewhat insecure... Hell, I identify more with Harry than I ever could to her. Blah.

Despite that, yeah, I like the movie. Just not Sally. Poor Harry. If they're still married he's probably settled into glum resignation that for the rest of his life he's going to listen to her simpering.

Despair

I had a depressing encounter with a berry muffin today. Look, I usually opt for oatmeal in the mornings, or something with some form of protein, such as an egg on toast. But I was in a rush to the Day Job, and so while getting coffee I grabbed a berry muffin. I usually don't eat muffins, and while there are many great muffins in the world, I just tend to have bad luck with them. They're either too bland, or too dense, or too dry. I have, on occasion, had magnificent muffins, but they are few and far between. So I knew I was taking my chances with this muffin.

And, sadly, this muffin turned out to be a disappointment-- and deceptive! All the berries were on the top. The rest of it was basically yellow cake mix. I was betrayed, annoyed, and ultimately hungry.

I'm now in the basement at the Day Job unhappily listening to the stock guy's screamo on his ipod speakers. Running through my mind are all of the art supplies I need to pick up, and the annoyance that there's no art supply store around here. At all. In New York City. Where art happens. The Upper East Side, save for the various museums and occasional 'Gossip Girl' is essentially devoid of any type of culture beyond copying your rich neighbor's style, so I guess that makes sense.

Boo!

sssssloow.

I swear-- the computer at the Day Job is the slowest thing I've ever had the displeasure to use. It's a toss-up what's worst, the decrepit computer itself or the internet connection. I just pop on in the mornings to check emails and the blog and what not, what usually takes 3 or 5 minutes at home, and instead I'm mired down for what feels like hourssssss.

Today's already a long day. I've already been pushed--literally--enough on the subway to start yelling obscenities before 9am. That's just a wee bit early for me.

I had a lunch date today! My friend recently started working in the Flatiron Building, and so he and I met up for lunch in Madison Square Park. It was neat. I felt like one of the cool movie characters I'd watch as a kid who'd randomly choose relatively iconic Manhattan settings for benign chit-chat or coffee or lunch. The cinematographer would frame everything just so you could see the Chrysler Building/Brooklyn Bridge/Empire State Building, etc. In today's scene, depending on where the camera was, you'd have gotten sweet shots of us framed against either the Empire State Building OR the Flatiron Building. We were eating salads. Very glamorous.

Afterward, I went on a mostly futile trip to seek out Christmas presents. My dad is proving impossible to shop for. The Day Job has afforded me an excellent discount for gifts for my mom and aunt, but that's about it in terms of ease in my Christmas shopping.

I also had hoped to find my power cord for my scanner tonight-- several of the photos I took of stuff I intended to list on etsy came out fuzzy! But I can't find the damn cord. And it doesn't work wirelessly or through the power of my mind, so I'm out of luck for the time being. Bah.

Here's one of the fuzzy photos in question, along with a photo with an unfortunate glare.




^The paint on his tail was acrylic and so it caught a glare from the flash. Lame. Boo. Hiss.

I'll try to correct this after work tomorrow; maybe by then I'll have located that cord!

It was strangely hard to drag myself to bed last night, and even harder to wake up today.

...At least I did it before afternoon officially settled in.

etsy stuffs

Just added tonight! More tomorrow. I'm spacing it out. It's, what, 1:18am? Yeah, it's bedtime for Bonzo tonight.


Check out my etsy store here

Posting new art on etsy didn't happen on Thanksgiving. A lot of pie did instead.


So... that's why I'm posting stuff tonight!

T~Giving

Tomorrow, Thanksgiving, I'm adding some stuff to etsy! FOR REAL.

I had some commissions that I got busy on. They came out of nowhere really, so that was a nice surprise, and nice bonus Christmas shopping $$. Ka-ching!

I will offer free gift wrapping and little freebies with prints and originals starting tomorrow, so that will be fun. It's strange to me how I manage to do better business via myspace. My mom has become an ambassador as well-- after I did the caricatures of her boss and his family, all the people in that department have been asking for samples of my work. I've sold a few pieces that were originally intended for etsy to her colleagues.

Soooo... Thanksgiving.

What the hell are people gonna do? I'm not going home... I'm not going to the boyfriend's... I will venture to bake a pie, though my oven has no temperature control! I put a little thermometer in it, but the best way I can figure to decrease temperature is just to open the door. This may mean disaster for any baking endeavours but I'm going to at least try. We'll probably go to a restaurant for dinner or just have something boring. NOT about to attempt a turkey or cornbread dressing (in the south, we don't call it stuffing-- and it doesn't go inside the turkey either!) with the oven being such a reject loser. I will take pictures of our uneventful day and perhaps of the triumph or misery of the pumpkin pie.

Gobble Gobble!

Go away, rain!

I don't like having to run in my rainboots.

Me.

Me.


Neighborhood.

PS It's really cold outside.

tsk tsk

chewww

--

I've lost the Photoshop installation disc that Joe gave me. WTF. How am I so scattered lately? I keep hitting these roadblocks on the way to completing certain things, and those roadblocks are created entirely by my own absent-mindedness! Is it really just all downhill from here? Oy.

I did drink some hot chocolate today though. So that's a positive.

Inspiration Wall, anyone?

I have a blank space above my desk, where an Inspiration Wall should be.

It is something that is highly touted by artists and illustrators I know, people who really know what they're talking about. I'm so easily scattered and distracted with this recent move that I just haven't gotten around to piecing it together. Let's see.

I do, at least, have an Inspiration Shelf on my bookcase nearby. So maybe it will take a bit of work--let's see, I'd have to turn 90°, roll the chair to the left about... oh... four inches, and extend my arm. Voila, I have a book. That's a minimal amount of effort, luckily.

So this is what I have there:

2 books by Claire Wendling



She's an amazing illustrator from France. Her book Drawers 2.0 is something I have to flip through every few weeks. I snagged Aphrodite off ebay not too long ago for a mere $14 and was thrilled-- it's in French but who cares; I got it for the art.

Belladonne, illustrated by Pierre Alary is another awesome find that I can't read, but will instead look at.



That's a start, mmmm?

Oh, wait. No Inspiration Wall would be complete without animated gifs from my favorite shows. I mean, really. Come on.


Strangers With Candy


It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia


Arrested Development

When I find an animated gif for Night Court, I will be beyond elated.

Treasury!

Oh snap, I'm in a treasury!

NORMandLOU on etsy included 'Poise' in their gorgeous grey-themed treasury. I'm so psyched; the other stuff in it is so pretty, and so I feel kinda honored. I THINK it's the first one I've been in... although a nagging voice in the back of my head is saying that another piece was in somebody's treasury a couple months back. I am, of course, losing my short-term memory, so who knows. Exciting!


It's one of the original pages out of my Moleskine sketchbook, done in Prismacolor. I don't hate it. :)

YES WE... oh, you know.

I'd be out partying myself, if I didn't have an early flight in the morning. :)


I'm so proud. And I don't mind waking up at 6am today.

it came!

Ack!

I was extremely psyched to find a tiny package waiting for me when I got home yesterday! My necklace came!



It is, of course, the necklace I mentioned purchasing before from luxedeluxe.etsy. I was shocked at how fast the post between here and Edinburgh is! It took just a weekend.

Anyway, it's super pretty in person. I'm pretty happy because it came just in time to be worn at an awards banquet for the NCN in Raleigh this weekend. I've already gotten compliments, and I've just been up and active for like, 2 hours.

I highly recommend checking her shop out; the stuff is all beautiful. I need to keep her in mind when I'm doing Christmas shopping.

PS go vote! and get your free Starbucks coffee!!

Voting Blues

The sick realization that I will probably have to wake up before 6am in order to have any time at all to vote tomorrow just dawned on me.

Excuse me please; I believe I may have to go barf.

Seriously, the sun isn't even going to be up. I value my REM cycles, you see.

I need this.

I need it so bad.



From RockLove's etsy shop.

OF COURSE.

Big ups to "Natally" at Flickr; after an impassioned plea, she did provide me with the Yahoo ID. It is simply beyond me how I forgot it. Twice.

Man.

Currently, I'm watching Season 3 of 'Scrubs' on DVD... it's a great season of a formerly great show. I just don't know what happened with it, but it definitely went downhill.

Maybe I should be doing something important but... Day Job sorta sucked. Sorta tired. So I'm gonna just sorta sit here.

I lose.

I have once again forgotten my Yahoo ID and can't log into flickr.

Maybe they'll help me out! Maybe I'll tattoo my ID onto my hand....

Just bought:

Well, technically I purchased it almost a week ago, but it took Paypal this long for the dang money to come in (forgot i'd emptied the account and had to transfer from my bank...)



Isn't it gorgeous? It's out of luxedeluxe's etsy shop.

I had two of her items favorited for awhile as I debated which to get. I even had to call in the calvary and have people help me decide. Ultimately I may even go back and buy the second one if she doesn't sell out. Way to go, me!

Yawn

Not sleeping as much as one ought to be lately.

Boo to that, eh?

In other news, fall has arrived. Woo to that.

I blow myself away, I really do.

For months-- MONTHS!-- I couldn't log into Flickr. I couldn't think of the yahoo ID I had especially created for the etsy/art-related pictures. I tried so many combinations of my names and other usernames.... nothing. Nada. Zilch. I felt like an idiot, and gave up.

Tonight on a whim, I logged into one of my gmail accounts and happened to do a search for "yahoo", and lo and behold, I found the notification from yahoo that I had used this gmail account as a secondary email. In it was the user name, and voila, I could log into Flickr. It was, perhaps, the easiest solution, and I still had a gigantic brain fart and didn't think to do it. All summer.

Oh well.

Anyway, I finally logged in and posted a couple of pics I'd been meaning to get around to posting in there-- stuff I'd added on etsy already.

I'm kind of getting excited about my upcoming projects, and will be adding them to flickr accordingly, at least now that I can log in. Yeesh. And here it is:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7seventeengallery/

I'm just suuuuch a doofus.

Detox

Gah, seriously; I feel like I just need to give myself a good wringing out. Trying to keep up with my friends is tiring. On top of that, I was sick recently, and out of town, and not feeling like hitting the gym. As a result, I just feel like I need to detox, just... just really cleanse the ol' system. Drink lots of water. Wheatgrass. Stuff like that.

Well.

Maybe not the wheatgrass.

I'm getting excited about Halloween looming on the horizon. I'm not really sure what I ought to be though. Never am. It's a major malfunction of mine; I get super psyched up about it and then don't have anything really worthwhile to wear. It's quite the bummer. Maybe I can circumvent the creative block this year and come up with something fabulous.

Although, my Mr. Orange costume of a few years back was quite the hit, to people who had at least seen 'Reservoir Dogs'...

Here's me and some Ghostbusters.

Phew, I am beat.

One of my BFFs from college came to visit and the whole week's been a whirlwind. Last night he, his girlfriend, and myself just basically crashed after nonstop going-going-going, and got ourselves a bunch of imported beer at the fancy Whole Foods, and got some thai take-out and BAM! We had ourselves a night. We planted ourselves on my futon and just watched 'The Office' for hours. Then she and I forced my friend to watch our "fave rom-com", 'Love Actually'. It appeared he did not share our sentiments.

It was super fun.

Anyway, they flew out today, which means I'm going to get my bedroom/workspace back to myself. Granted, I'm a bit low on ink in the printer, but I'm looking forward to getting some work done this week.

Oh! Um, also, I found this seller on etsy, and I'm in love with her stuff. These things, I must have:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_2&listing_id=15108050
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_2&listing_id=14868530

I wish I could screenprint; I should look into the classes etsy labs offer...

And now, back to my dvd!

I hate the post office. I hate flight delays. I hate colds.

Thatisall.



I write this, wearily, from the basement of Day Job, as I was recruited to show up at 8am to let in a maintenance guy to do... some...thing. Some things. I don't know what.

The good news is, I get to leave at 5pm so that I can finish installing Adobe on my laptop, so that I can do some digital tweaks to a couple of inked drawings. Yay, productivity! Although, I feel like I need a vacation. Never mind that I just took one. Kinda.

Yawn.

photo roll-out: San Diego

I never really posted pics from the Comic Con in San Diego, so here they are. I didn't take enough pictures of the mayhem and geekery, mostly because I was too busy being frustrated by not being able to weave through the hoards of people (over 100,000 people went that weekend). Amazingly, I neglected to take photos of the very reason we were there, to sell Joe's book at his table. D'oh.

Impending Day Off

I'm psyched.

It's not that I'm extremely overworked, I just find myself lately unable to switch off the ol' brain in order to fully relax when I do have time to myself. I know, I know, right?? The old cliched workaholic lament! But I'm not a workaholic. I just think too much. That can be as tiring as actually working, I find.

Anyways.

I'm off tomorrow! And though I just had a day off the other day, I'm extremely excited about this one. Why, I just recently got health insurance! I booked a doctor's appointment for a check-up, stat (this is perhaps the biggest reason outside of the fact that I have to pay bills and rent that I am suddenly a grown-up; I am supremely interested in medical appointments). Sometime either before or after that, I am going to laze about Gantry Plaza a bit, and then hopefully pick up my computer from the Geek Squad (finally) so that I can hook it up to the printer.

I've also been under the weather for a few days so this can give me a chance to recharge.

I've also got like 4 pages in the Moleskine to upload to etsy.

I was at a party at a friend's in Brooklyn until 3am today. Then I had the Day Job. I would've done well to gone to bed at like, 8pm, but my neighborhood friends opted to have a bar-be-cue on their balcony! I was invited, and c'mon. You can't say no to a bar-be-cue. Now, as a result, I am damn near unconscious and delirious.

The burgers were good, though.

Um, so yeah, Gantry Plaza is now my favorite place to go and laze about. To think! I was actually schlepping all the way in to Central Park to read/listen to ipod/lie comatose in the sun. It's a brilliant view of the Manhattan skyline (see the pic down below, framed by the gantries), and it's rather quiet, if not for the water lapping and the occasional helicopter. How awesome is it that I only just discover it a year after moving to Queens and a month before summer is dunzo? Not terribly.

Oh, also un-awesome is this news that New York is actually at a greater risk for a "substantial" earthquake than previously thought. WTF. That does it! Rent prices and now earthquakes!!? I'm going to California...oh, wait.

New. Actually New.

Easily my most favorite thing I've done in the last little while.


What is it with me and antlers lately?

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14526915

I've also started posting the Moleskine sketchbook. Each page will be $18 or less, and each will be an actual original. I think it's fun. We'll see.

one ACEO left...

The original sold 2 days ago, and an ACEO went last night.

One left in the etsy shop...


http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14335006

Artists.

Artists, Schmartists. I'm not one of those people who's gonna just huff and puff and fill you full of hot air whilst name dropping the most recently hottt+ artist around. Some people feel a bit self-important, as though their blog is all about INFORMING THE PUBLIC. Nah. I won't do that. You've maybe heard of these people already; I'm not on the cutting edge, and I won't pretend to be informing anyone of anything. I'm just sayin'... these artists are dope.

James Jean (lolz of course, right?)
Process Recess 2
This book is fantastic. A friend gave it to me for my birthday-- I'm terrible at buying myself things I ought to have or want to have as an artist or whatever. I'm usually blowing it on sushi and coffee and bills. I was super thrilled to acquire this though, and I recommend it to anyone who happens to really, really enjoy gorgeous illustration. That sounds so lame. Heh.


Claire Wendling
Various books...
I found out about her a couple of years ago at the San Diego Comic Con, when I happened upon Stuart Ng's imported book store (an awesome resource for french artists, btw). Her work is amazing! It's so dynamic and I'm shocked more people don't know her (oh SNAP I just went and informed some of you... hypocrite!).

Jan Op De Beeck
Famous Corpses
This is an amazing caricature artist from Belgium. In 2005, he and some friends published a "celebrity roast", full of amazingly rendered caricatures by Jan along with funny, irreverent blurbs about each one. His website and sketchbook are amazing. This fall/winter, a newer version of 'Famous Corpses' is supposed to be out. Sweet.

Takashi Murakami
Murakami
One of Japan's most celebrated pop artists, you probably are maybe rolling your eyes at me right now ("james jean AND murakami? come oooon!"), because, yeah. Duh. But dude. I went and saw his major exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum last month. That. Is crazy. And it's awesome to see.

Craig Thompson
Blankets
omg. A graphic novel never broke my heart with such sweetness as 'Goodbye Chunky Rice' did in 2000. A friend showed it to me 8 years ago and I haven't stopped loving it. 'Blankets', which I read a few years later, managed to beat my heart back into submission again. Le Sigh.

Ross Campbell
Wet Moon
An amazing comic artist! I went to art school with this guy, and only knew him peripherally at the time... after graduation, friends would say, "You should really check out Ross' website..." and I was so gobsmacked (fun word of the day) over his clean lines and his incredible knack for expression in his girls' faces.

So. That's all I have for now. Just sayin'.

I am a late adopter to the frozen yogurt fad that's had NYC in a choke hold since last summer but I will say this: Red Mango is pretty damn good. Better than Pinkberry! And granted, good is open to interpretation when we talk about Pinkberry. But it does have oddly and unsettling addictive properties. Last night I elected to try mochi and watermelon on my first Red Mango outing and I quite enjoyed the differing textures.


thatisall.

Oooh!

Two sales on etsy. Woot, woot.

FINALLY one of them was the adorable original I did for the Bee's Knees in March (and then left at home when i flew down for the actual event). I couldn't believe no one had grabbed it up before; it's my favorite, to be honest.

So that's exciting.

Also, note to self, never order from Tasty Thai. They are not Tasty, and their ethnicity is questionable.

Oh, honestly, you're gonna be like that?

So.

My Day Job.

I refer to it, and don't really talk about it. I post here occasionally from there, mostly because my computer was indisposed at home. It's entirely possible that this blog can be monitored by Day Job's Corporate Offices. That's okay; I don't plan on saying anything terrible. And I'm on my lunch break as I type this, so. Yeah.

But really? The customers at Day Job are insufferable. I cannot fathom what these people must do each morning upon waking to put them into such demanding, horrible moods that they must come in here to take it out on us. I work in Manhattan. I work on the Upper East Side. People here, they're not used to being told "no". And let's be clear-- it's not my job to tell people "no". Unless, of course, they come in wanting--nay, demanding--something that either violates the company policy (which is put in place by people above me), or that we just don't have. As polite as one can be, in those cases, I tell them "no". And then! Oh, gosh, you'd think I'd just punched their child in the face and spat on their Fendi bag. All hell breaks loose.

I mean, look. I'm 29. I'm not the most adultest adult. I'm not a kid either. But these broads are pushing 70 a lot of times! You can't tell me they were all born into a life of priviledge; I'm sure some of them really worked hard to get to where they are, sitting on their giant bags of money. But along the way it seemed that they lost the ability or desire to interact with people at the ground level, still making their honest living. I'm just here to do a job. I enjoy it a lot of times, but largely, it's to make money, to pay bills, to eat. I'm just here to work. I want it to be pleasant. Everything would go a lot smoother for everyone, if people would just relax.

I want to shake some of these people and just be like, "YOU ARE AN ADULT". Unfortunately, just like it's not my job to say "no" all the time, it's not my job to help people grow the hell up.

tired, etsy, stuff

Waking up at 6am for work is not awesome.

I nearly rolled over my poor mutt on my way to turn off the alarm. I got a foot to the face as a thank you.

Work kind of blew, but that was largely due to the waking up so early.

Now, I'm at home, and things are looking up, up, up!

I added new ACEOs to etsy. I'm out of Day Job early tomorrow so after my bike ride along the East River, I'm gonna go home and buckle down on some new work. I'm still woefully behind in posting some stuff.

Here's the new ACEOs


http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14335006

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_2&listing_id=14335276

Oh, so things that happened today...

I went for a haircut and took a nice stroll up 5th Avenue in Brooklyn. Stopped in to some of my favorite shops. I always consider accosting the lovely proprietors about selling some of my stuff there-- cards, namely-- but always chicken out. It's easier when I know the people who run things.

But anyway, here are the places that I <3

Brooklyn Mercantile
I found an amazing oil diffuser there, in 'wasabi + mint' scent. I didn't purchase it and am kicking myself. After the move next month, maybe that'd be a better time to go grab it.

Scaredy Kat
A fun little store for cards and toys. I'm not a stationary afficianado per se, but it's chock full of pretty paper goodies.

Cog & Pearl
GORGEOUS. GORGEOUS stuff that I can't bring myself to buy. Or rather, I can't bring myself to do without rent or food in order to buy all the stuff I want there. The adorable handcrafted plush deer, for record, make my knees weak.

And then I went to Target. Where someone set off a smoke bomb. I got the best of both worlds.

Well.

It's raining outside. I had planned on a bike ride, prior to the sun setting. Looks like I'm gonna have to.... take a raincheck. Bwa!

So, here's something that sucks-- I created a flickr account for my art. I then forgot the email address I created on Yahoo especially for it. I don't think there's anyway to recover it, or ha><0r the mainframe. I'm kinda pissed, especially since I saved it with my specific username. Gah.

Here's something that's awesome-- I have a computer! I have it hooked up to a printer! I will have prints made from that printer! Life is not all bad! Although I did lose everything I had worked on before with the old hard drive. But whatever. I'm just glad I'm able to start over, now that I'm given the proper tools.

briefest of all recaps

Comic Con was great. I picked up some great things. I hung out with great people. Great.

My computer is still not in my possession. Not great.

When it rains..

Annnnnnnnd my hard drive fails.

Fantastic!

Time, she does fly.

What the....??

It's July, people.

It hardly seems possible. I think the problem here is my current day job. I changed jobs back in February due to some ridiculousness at my old place, and the new place I fell into... well... I suspect that it's a black hole. Time does funny things. I'm noticing that while I'm in here, it creeps by, slower than a snail. When I'm outside, time has been revving its engine the whole time and takes the break off so it suddenly accelerates and leaves me in the dust. I'm usually asleep or wishing I was asleep.

And suddenly, I find myself in July.

This is a big month-- last night was the opening of the Off-Broadway play I'm participating in (not so much acting as well, standing around).... tomorrow is the Fourth of July, which brings fireworks. Who can argue with fireworks? The 17th is my birthday (yays!), and the following week, I'm jetting off to San Diego for the Comic con! I will be helping man the table of an ~esteemed colleague~ but I will also have a tiny corner all to myself for the purposes of selling.

I'm gonna start posting the Critters finally in a few days, almost a month after they were promised! Dude, life. Oy.

Oh noes!

The Critter Creation Extravaganza has been put on hold! I didn't anticipate a couple of things--
1. Working 40+ hours a week all of a sudden
2. Being exhausted after said work
3. Freelance pile-up that consumes what little energy and ability I have post-day job


Blah.


It's okay... I expect July to be a bit better. Well. Maybe not. But we'll see!!

Hot. With two T's. Hott.

Good lord, have you been outside? I feel as though I'm going to melt all over Madison Avenue.

I was happy to have two days off in a row tomorrow, to run errands, but I really don't see myself venturing outside, and therefore away from my air conditioner.

Summer Series Madness!

So this summer, I'm gonna start debuting a new series. Tis the 50 Days of Critters.

That's 50 brand new, original critters... an unusual little menagerie of suckers. I'm plowing through, and have gotten a good number already, but posted on the etsy forums asking for any suggestions! The deal is they're each unusual, unique... mostly hybrid animals. I asked for 8 suggestions and whoever comes up with something, I'm gonna draw it and post it, then send 'em the original.

June 1 I'm gonna start posting them-- here, and on my myspace, and each one will be up for sale on etsy. I'm selecting a number of them to run prints of, and will also sell the originals. The majority of the ones I've been working on are at least 5x7, so hey! A nice size! Yays!

Rainy Evening.

In contrast, this was my commute last night. May's been rather rainy.

On the way home Tuesday--

People used to try to convince me that the sunsets in Florida were unparalleled, but I dunno. There's a lot to be said for a man-made skyline, too.

<3

Caricature, Schmaricature

My mom's boss asked her to ask me to draw caricatures of his parents, and him and his wife. It's been almost two solid years since that was actually how I made my living (and honestly, I hated doing it for the most part-- which is due entirely to the work environment itself), so I was skeptical. But I think they turned out okay, and they all loved them. I think I've gotten myself suckered into more work as a caricature artist though!


Excuse the glare-- I didn't think to take pictures myself and had him do it after he'd already received them and had them framed.

Bees' Knees

Just like last fall, I went down to Florida for another arts & crafty extravaganza at the excellent Redlight Redlight. I had a ton of fun, and saw a bunch of people, but I'm still kicking myself that I left the below picture in my apartment in New York:




Gah, I'm pissed. I feel like I woulda sold her. As it stands, she's available in my etsy shop. I'm gonna offer prints of it in addition to the original. But don't you just hate planning to do something specific and then to realize you forgot! D'oh!

But anyway, it was a good time. Here's the new proud owner of one of my robots:

etsy etsy etsy blog blog blog

You know, whatever. A reminder, if you will.

I love these girls

I did pretty well selling off the other girls in that inkwash series, yet my favorite two are still languishing in a drawer. I don't know why! I think they were the cutest of them all. I guess let me know if anyone wants to talk $$$ and adopting them.