Tags: art, cute t shirts, illustration, robot, t shirts, vector, zazzle

A goldie I doodled, and then decided to paint last night.

Yeah, maybe I should stop spending all that time worrying about my process and just pick up a paintbrush or a stylus or whatever and do something.  Because even doodle-ish paintings like this one come out looking pretty cute. Rather than think too hard about it, I just kept painting until it was done.

And I made some cute golden retriever stuff available on CafePress.

You might say I have “unicorn issues.” I like them; that should be fairly clear by the fact that this blog is called blackunicorn.org. I don’t tend to draw unicorns, though. I used to, back when I was in junior high, or early high school. And then I just stopped, I suppose because the College Board didn’t take kindly to my AP portfolio having a bunch of fantasy art in it. I didn’t pass, which was a devastating blow to my ego.

I didn’t really do anything remarkable in college- there isn’t a whole lot other than my graphic design work that was very good- my drawings were very stiff, or very obsessive about detail. I learned a lot, but I don’t have a whole lot of work I’m proud of to show for it.

Meanwhile, this movie came out my senior year. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it- Napoleon Dynamite. I hated this movie. I can’t remember another movie I so viscerally disliked as Napoleon Dynamite. I could never get on board with the whole “Let’s start wearing the uniform of the un-cool social group” trend. You know, how all of a sudden it became edgy and cool to wear t-shirts with sentimental pictures of horses? See, I was one of those kids who wore stuff like that in school, and I was ostracized for it. And now the cool kids have adopted that? That’s not fair. (also trucker hats piss me off, but that’s another rant entirely. Breifly, I think it’s subtle class warfare)

And unicorns, too. Cool kids suddenly love unicorns. But only ironic unicorns. Because if you earnestly like unicorns, you’re not in on the joke, as a matter of fact, you’re kind of the object of ridicule. Well, I like unicorns. I like this shirt collection I found on CafePress because it reminds me of all the good and sweet and magical things I liked about unicorns in the first place. And the cool kids can’t have it, because it’s not ironic enough. I think maybe if the star and moon didn’t have smiley faces it might skate the line between good-enough-for-the-cool-kids and Just Good, but it’s just too nice to be in on the joke.

I think there’s a place in the world for earnestly cute and sweet things. There needs to be some innocence left, untouched by that making-fun-of-nerds subtext that seems to be all over the place nowadays. I think I need to start drawing unicorns again.

Tags: art, cute, ironic, Napoleon Dynamite, POD Stuff, unicorns

I have, however been working on more cute t shirts for SnoogleZoo. Namely, these cute designs of muffins with faces!

Right now they come in two flavors: The blueberry muffin is cute and sweet, but the cranberry muffin is sassy and a little tart. Go take a look at the cute muffin section of Snooglezoo, and scroll all the way down to see the muffins together. I didn’t do it on purpose, but when I showed the muffin pair to Brad, he cracked up and said that the pair shirts would be bought by boys for their girlfriends. I looked, looked again, and then my ears turned red. It’s classic!

Tags: bursitis, cute shirts, cute t shirts, muffin, snooglezoo, t shirts

It’s a lonely life being a yeti. One day, he encounters a bunny in the forest and asks him “Bunny, you have a big family. What’s it like to love and be loved?”

Poor yeti.

I have no idea where this came from. I was doodling and I thought it was cute and funny and kind of sad, so I put it on tshirts.

Tags: bigfoot, bunny, forest, love, nature, rabbit, sasquatch, trees, yeti

You’re probably asking yourself when I’m finally going to commit to one of these new projects. Well, the problem with how to draw animals was twofold. First, it was very labor intensive to produce a post. Second, I was getting very little feedback.

I’ve been working on snooglezoo and trying to give it direction for some time, it’s no longer just a cafepress store, because who cares about that? Here’s the deal- you send me some words, and I’ll draw a picture to go with it. Sort of like exploding dog, only not so stick-figurey, and probably more cute animals. ‘Cause that’s how I roll.

Tags: rabbit, vector, work

This new snooglezoo thing is kind of a mixed blessing- I’m drawing more, and that’s good. But everything I’m drawing comes with the question “Can I turn this into something I can sell?”

It’s difficult striking the right balance; I want to make a living by drawing, but I don’t want to become a completely profit-motivated artist. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. I haven’t made a cent on CafePress yet, so really I don’t need to worry at all about profit. Just keep making cute stuff and the rest will take care of itself, right?

Tags: work, works in progress