I’m doing a little series of portraits of the women of Oz, starting with Ozma. It’s an exercise to give me something to draw, and to practice some new materials. I like the way she came out, but I had a funny little mishap:

So I’m working on my inks and things are going well. The paper’s not great for the croquil pen I’m using- it tends to bleed a little and the nib scratches it up, but I’m proud of the control I seem to have. I’m starting to get distracted by the idea that I could sell the series on Etsy, when suddenly, BLUT! My hand skips and I drop a huge perfectly round circle of ink right on the edge of Ozma’s eye!

You know that sound you make when you burn your hand on the stove? That kind of inwardly-drawn scream? That’s the sound I made.

You can actually still see the blob in this picture- I covered it up with gouache, but it’s still somewhat transparent. I meant to take a picture of the damage because I was immediately aware of the lesson the universe just dropped on me, but I decided to refocus and just finish inking instead, which was the original purpose of the whole thing. So I did. And I’m still happy with it.

I set out to do this set as practice. Not to sell it, not to make Deathless Art, but to work on a particular skill set. So I worked on it, in spite of the mishaps. I feel good about that. I won’t be painting this one in real media- I’ll do it on the computer because the gouache will interfere with the watercolor I had originally planned to use.

Tags: croquil, dip pens, drawing, ink, oz, ozma, practice, works in progress

I’m one of those types who loves a fresh start. I make New Year’s Resolutions about four times a year (new years, my birthday, my half-birthday, and the end of November Sweeps), and while the same things are often on those lists (over, and over again…) the enthusiasm is always genuine. Draw more. Quit picking at my cuticles. Quit procrastinating.

I’ve made a list this time around of weekly homework assignments to draw, because I will often sit in front of a blank page for an hour not knowing what to work on. Well, for the next 30 weeks I know exactly what I should be working on, and last night I filled a bunch of pages with little drawings of owls, because that’s the subject of the week. My hope is to begin the week doodling, and by the end have a number of finished peices that will either go to cafepress or etsy or maybe just into my portfolio.

It’s one thing to make a resolution. It’s another to make a plan!

Tags: works in progress

The only problem with having a nice relaxing weekend is that it means I don’t get nearly as much work done as I hope to have. Oh well, we got our Christmas tree, and went to a lovely party, so it’s not like the weekend was wasted, per se. And I did draw, like this cute Dorothy, who I think will end up being part of a series for some shirts and stuff.

And now to get a comic together for tomorrow morning!

Tags: works in progress

I got myself a laptop (finally!). Nothing over the top, as a matter of fact it’s just slightly more powerful than my desktop, but otherwise very similar. The idea is that I spend a lot of idle time that I could use to be productive, like when I hang out with Brad at his radio show, or when we’re sitting around watching tv. I like to kid about not having done anything with it other than surf the web from bed but I have been drawing for the last two days (and I’ve had it for two days). I’m going to try to do the drawing jams at the drawing board- it’s good practice. So here is sexy Victoria’s Secret model Miranda Kerr…in progress.

Look at how wide my screen is! That might be my favorite thing about the new laptop. That and the 4 gigs of ram. Yum.

Tags: drawing, drawing jam, green, miranda kerr, model, victorias secret, works in progress

I got Pez!

And I don’t think I’m going to have to eat again for a week. Well, at least I won’t have to cook anyway.

On to new year-type things, and thinking about resolutions. I need to get how to draw animals back up and updating regularly, do up my new portfolio site, and get a bunch of other stuff up and moving. Plus I need to fix all the broken links. That’s what I get for not keeping a centralized backup- all the stuff I did at work didn’t transfer to the new site because it wasn’t on my local copy of the site, so there are a bunch of broken links and missing pictures

It’s gonna be a fun year

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Tags: 2007, good things, works in progress