This weekend wreaked havoc on my productivity.  I basically had none.  Saturday was spent doing a variety of errands and then taking in a screening of Alice In Wonderland. Fantastic! Though, I suspect people will liken it to Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, which I don’t think a lot of people got.  I also had to reformat my hard drive. Yup, good fun times!

Then Sunday, more errands  I had every intention of doing some sketching but a  headache really put me down and kicked my butt. So instead I spent  the evening lying on my couch, watching the atrocious Oscars.  They were terrible.  Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were terrible hosts (moreso Baldwin). Just not funny.  Too bad NPH only did the opening musical number.   He would have made a fantastic Oscar host.  I really didn’t like that they eulogized the Best Actor/Actress nominees. Ugh, too much ego-stroking. Did not like.  Plus, I think they forgot Farrah Fawcett and Bea Arthur in the memorial section of the evening. Whut?!

And do not get me started on that sad Horror montage. I’m sorry, but there was nary a Romero zombie or Bruce Campbell in sight?! How do they figure that Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands are horrors films!?  And those Twilight films just shouldn’t even be represented at the Oscars. At all. read more »

I sent my self-portrait to Brooklyn yesterday! Very excited.  I hope the show goes well and I can’t wait to get my digits on the book. Hee.  Now I just need to figure out what I want to do with myself.  I should probably start on the next self-portrait in the series I have been kicking around, but I am just not feeling it.  I also haven’t touched DAZ in about a week. And i haven’t been sketching during my lunch break at work.  It’s a bit of a void right now.  And I’m pretty grumpy about it.

On a completely unrelated note, make sure you watch the Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics tomorrow night. My girl, SMc, is participating! She says that she isn’t a featured performer, but she’s the star of the show to me (and the only reason I will probably watch)! So watch! Enjoy! Cheer her on!

I didn’t do much in the way of art making this weekend.   Well, that’s not entirely true. I worked on a couple sketches revamping the pinup girls I did for SMc last Xmas.  I have improved a lot since I did them for her – so much so that I actually cringe when I look at them. Eeef.

Not entirely sure how I feel about the revamped versions. They have an obvious Katie Cook style influence to them – especially the new She-Ra.  Mostly because they are more voluptuous than their previous incarnations.  Soft and squishy.  But I won’t lie, I’m a bit worried that there is too much influence in them – if that makes any sense?  Not a flat-out copy, but enough that it makes me take a pause. Do. Not. Like.  While the influence of other artists is a given, I want to discover my own style, not rip someone else’s off (which isn’t to say that I feel I am in Katie Cook’s league – I am nowhere close – she is awesome).  I guess it’s a work in progress – this style finding thing.

Beyond some sketching, this weekend was actually for a project – creating my own lightbox!  I found several sources on the internets that I used for inspiration, but overall, the entire build was of my own creation.

I’m pretty proud of it. Is it perfect? No. Is it fancy? No. But it will work for me. The lights give off approximately 50w each and I think that it should be sufficient. It allowed me to trace through some pretty thick bristol and that is the basic paper I use. So I think it will be sufficient.
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Last night was supposed to be DAZ Studio night. I was going to work though a couple newbie tutorials that I found on the internets.  That was the plan.  Only, a five minute cat nap turned into a two and half hour nap and I got nothing done.

I’d like to say that tonight will be better, but  W and I will be going to a movie instead. To be fair, we could both use a legitimate night off. W has been killing himself in school (it’s only been a month!) and I have been pretty busy my own self. It’ll be nice.

Ah boo. I have a finished piece, but I forgot to upload it last night. Fail. But I’ve been sporting a pretty insipid headache for the last few days, so I will blame my forgetfulness on that.

Anyway, its another girl. While I know that these particular portraits aren’t particularly challenging or perhaps even interesting to anyone else but me, I am enjoying working on them. A lot. Mostly because they are letting flex my imagination muscle as well as allowing me to learn a lot more about my Prismacolors.

Plus, they are just fun. I haven’t had a lot of fun with my art as of late so I will take it any way I can get it. I know I will eventually return to the land of the stressful, time-consuming, graphite portrait, but in the meantime, I get to have fun! This pleases me, my friends.

In other news, I have created a brand new blog. It’s a dog blog and it’s purpose is to chronicle my on-going adventures with Ripley and allow me a place to spew my doggy-related nonsense because I really think people in my fleshy, really-real world (Hi, W!) are getting tired of hearing about the dog. Like really, really tired.

If you are interested in my dog ramblings, you can read them here*.

*Yes, LV-426 is super nerdy name for a blog (well, a cryptic super nerdy name). But my blog, my title. So shush.

Yeah, so new site design. Much simpler. Less flashy.  Much more where my head is currently.  I am pleased. Now, it’s definitely a work in progress. There are some things that need tweaking and others that need a bit of re-org.  I haven’t done any cross-browser testing so I am sure it looks like ass somewhere. You’d think with its simplicity that it would be much easier to tweak, but this is not necessarily so.

With it being a new year, I just wanted something new and shiny (ok, new and plain) to look at.  So voila!

Well, it’s almost that time of year again.   2009 is drawing to a close and we are about to welcome 2010.  It’s kind of crazy to be entering a new decade. Mostly because it seems only like yesterday that I was ringing in 2000 with CJ, AvD and KS in the middle of frosty downtown Calgary.  I don’t think I even knew SMc yet! Nutty! Either way, the last 10 years have brought a lot of changes – both good and bad.  And I am very excited to see what the next 10 years will bring.

Last year, I did a review of 2008. I don’t particularly feel like reviewing 2009. Mostly because it wasn’t a very good year for me.  It just wasn’t.  And I mean, it goes beyond losing my Dad and Odin. The year had more lows than highs, so sucky.  Still, 2009 did allow for a lot of reflection that will definitely influence many of my decisions in 2010.  So, that pleases me.

My art goals for 2010 aren’t as grandiose as those I made (and didn’t accomplish) in 2009.  They are considerably smaller and more personal.   For the better, I think.

2010 Art Goals:

• Consistency: Draw/sketch something each and every day.
• A Girl A Day: Considering doing a 365 project to practice drawing my girls. This one isn’t a hard fast goal.  I am still debating it.
• Etsy: Make a commitment to get an Etsy shop off the ground by the end of this year.  This also means getting prints of my work made.
• Anatomy/Poses: Focus on human anatomy, dynamic poses and facial expressions.
• Art House Coop Self-Portrait Show: Participate, participate, participate!
• School: Take a course or two through Extended Studies at ACAD.
• Tablet:  Finally learn how to use my Wacom tablet that has been collecting dust on my desk.
• DAZ Studio: Learn to model using DAZ Studio so I can create my own references for posing, anatomy, etc.
• Photography: Take more photos sometime.
• Site Redesign: I need to redesign this site.  Again.

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