Running in artistic circles

Ok, enough with the mouse tales! Let's do some of that promised art! (Yes, I forgot to post this yesterday... and now it takes up today's post instead!)

This piece of work is the one I've been playing with for quite some time - with very little success. Keeping with the tradition, my hours of work on this bugger ended up making the painting look... uh... exactly the same as it did when I started. WHATEVER, THERE'S MORE PASSION IN IT NOW!

Painting for the people!

It's been a comic work day, but that wouldn't give me anything to show here. Time for a painting break!

Not much progress, but it's something. I tried out a few new colors to see if they meshed, with decidedly mixed results. Time for more outlining? That solves all my problems!

The friendly hermit

Work on the "I hate everyone" painting is continuing - in spite of some people being nice to me! I think it's becoming more of a "this is what I can do" statement than the "so shove it" part of the motive. I still may start mass murdering or supervillaining at any moment, but at least I'll do it with modernist flare!

On the comic front, I'm trying to get a few days ahead. I'm pretty bad at using my free time right now. I've been playing too hard, so free days end up "sleep like the dead" or "walk like a zombie" days. It's Friday, though! While normal people go out and play, I use the silence to get as much work done as I can.

There's no time for swirly colors!

I have a comic to do, dammit! Oh, whatevs. THE ARTIST'S SOUL MUST BE SATISFIED!

I tried a new trick with this painting: I turned to twitter for inspiration! Twitter IGNORED MY PLEAS! Go to hell, everyone on twitter! New painting idea: Everyone on Twitter sucks! I'm all alone in a vast uncaring universe because people are too infatuated with themselves to lend a hand! Wait, that's stupid and cliche. New new painting idea: I'm paranoid and whiny because I don't get enough attention. All I can do is thrive on my own and make everyone else look the fool for not acknowledging my supremely obvious awesomeness! Vengeance shall be mine!

Well. vengeance shall be mine in a bit. A good friend is coming to visit this weekend and that means I need to get the comic far enough ahead that I don't have to worry about it. That means I have to get my Sunday strip knocked out TODAY. Ack! At least it should be relatively simple. It's only three panels! Bonus: It contains a joke I've been trying to fit in for over a year! Yay!

Portrait of the inside of my head?

No, it's not about my clear insanity - it's about my teeth! Complete chaos? Nothing aligning quite right? A bit of decay at the bottom? Yeah, sounds like my mouth. Artists like me are so deep.

I'm nearly done with this bit of playing around. On to the next one?

Cool color is cool

As foretold by the gods, I have indeed swapper out the yellow in my latest painting for pistacio (and pale olive)! I like this much better, although there's still a long ways to go before this is worthy of even a cheap hotel room wall. (Dream big!)

I'm still getting the color situation straightened out. A lot of my typical black and white outlining might do wonders here. If not, I'll probably do it anyway BECAUSE I CAN'T CONTROL MYSELF!

It's fine art tomorrow - Today!

As threatened, here comes the fine art - full of tortured emotions, inner pain and twisted emotions. It's deep! It's dark! It's scary! Ok, fine, it's about my mouth.

For those in the audience who are not also outside my window stalking me (please stop that, those who are), you may not know that this pile of stress has TMJ as a result. That means I suffer from jaw pain periodically and it can flare up at times. This might be one of these times. There's so much wrong with my mouth on that side it's hard to tell. It's not very pleasant right now, and it gets worse if I eat on that side, but I'm putting my faith in ibuprofen. (It's kinda hard to think of the funny when in pain.) Anyway, that side is out. It should go away soon enough if I keep wearing my bite guard at night. (It's my fault for slacking on that in the first place.)

On top of that, as part of an ongoing restorative project, today I got a temporary crown on the *other* side of my mouth, which means staying clear of *that* side when eating for two weeks.

Ruh roh.

Well. I need to slenderize some anyway. Starvation is easier than exercise! (Oh, who am I kidding? I can still abuse noodles!)

Anyway, I'm taking a day of from making the comic (unless I can somehow script) to do some painting/napping. This start of a painting here is all about inability to choose sides. I actually flipped it over part of the way through and started playing anew. As always, I have no clue how the heck this will play out. I'm extemporaneous!

The mark of the illustrator

Here are the two paintings I worked on today. My versatility owns you all!

Hey, my modernist fetish won't be paying the bills any time soon. It's those cute cartoon animals the offer my best route to salvation.

What we have here is the latest update of my "A Loving Family" commission. I've laid down the first layer of color (mostly) and things are starting to come into focus. Jacob's blanket and the background color are still up in the air. Once I figure those out, it'll be finishing the colors and then one last black and white pass to crisp things up! The end is near!

On the other side, we have what I do for FUN! I quite like how this bite-sized painting came out. While the colors are all on the lighter side, they pop nicely in the composition. All I have left to do here is add a pale olive border. A work of mine with NO BLACK? Blasphemy!

It's important that I keep my skills up with all my art styles! I have a strong fine-art portfolio, both in printmaking and painting, but that will only get me so far. If I want to do illustration in grad school, I need to prove I have the chops for some commercial art. The PJ Harvey illustration was fun, and I really do need to draw more celebs. But that's for home and I'm in sleepy DC land. Painting is the key!

Sleepy time

Man, I forgot what a sedative the grandparents' house was. Even my paintings are sleepy! Well, sleepy for ME. Controlled chaos is me at peace.

The best type of procrastination

Rather than do the inking I'm supposed to be doing, I decided to go back and work on my latest bite-sized painting. I really like where it's going. Heck, it may qualify for done.

I'm not fully satisfied with the left side of the painting, but it's not bad considering the original (awful) paint sketch that led to this bugger. The swirly balls (technical term) came out nicely, though. I had worried they would be the ship sinker.

Anyways, I hope this gets that pesky art out of my system. I still need to get that inking done...

I got the music in me

In a week of low motivation, a guiding light has emerged: Imogen Heap. I have her new album, Ellipse, now and I've started listening to it. (Good so far!) To get some inspiration going, I decided to groove the music via painting. This is what popped out. Not bad so far, although the bite-sized paintings never seem to translate well online. I have no clue where it's going next, but with painting I never do.

Enough guppies can eat a whale, right?

Look, it's been documented that I'm ADHD, like FOR REALS. It's not that fun, because concentration is really kinda important in getting work done. Over the past few days, I have been hard core scrambled for some reason, bouncing between project after project and taking nibble after nibble. The result: LOTS OF UNFINISHED PROJECTS! Booyah!

In theory, if I keep going around, thinks will start getting done. Copper Road is now sketched and ready for inking. Saturday's strip is ready to ink as well. Sunday's? I'm FUCKED. Got nothing for that yet. Next weeks' strips have been lettered, so it's time for some (rather extensive) sketching. Stupid elaborate compositions. Web design is in the corner with Sunday's potential strip and my pride. I'll work on that stuff LATER.

Between all this chaos, I've been painting. It's better than sitting around in a daze or playing video games. I'm gonna pay with this EVEN MORE because I'm still not satisfied, but it is progressing. Enjoy!

I don't *do* serene

My painting has turned to the side of busy! Don't fret too much, as much of the background is my version of underpainting. I intend to lighten it up a bit and embolden the foreground. How? I don't know. When? Whenever I want to avoid working on the comics?

Oh, and if you're wondering, the feeling I'm going for is driving the interstate through Atlanta when not familiar with the rout, on which the left and right lanes may veer off or end at any time. It's so obvious, isn't it?

Drawing inspiration from strange places

I started work on a new large-format painting! Hey, after the bite-sized babies, 3'x2' is MASSIVE!

Why did I start painting instead of working on all the Precocious stuff I need to do? Blame my iPhone.

I was connecting it to charge when I looked at my current wallpaper. It's a dim shot of one of my bite-sized paintings. (This room has terrible lighting.) I wanted something brighter, so I searched the room for something well-lit. No dice. Maybe if the painting was bigger it would show up better... so I grabbed one of my giants from the other room and snapped a shot of that. (Lighting was still too dim, but it's a NEW dim wallpaper!)

Holding that massive work of art in my hands inspired me! I had some bigger canvases lying around and it was about time I started working on them. Screw Precocious, I want to paint circle-ish things! In Precocious I have to draw things I am rather unskilled at drawing, leading to unsatisfactory results. In painting, I can do whatever the heck I want!

It's a nice start, but I'm not certain where to go next with it. Oh well. It's not a problem as I'm sure I'll have something in mind by the time I can get back to working on it.

Now, back to drawing some Precocious strips! Dammit.

Schizo painting!

No, not a painting BY a schizo, dangit! This little painting, of the bite-sized variety, has gone through several incarnations. It began as pink and green, and now it is... less so. I formerly has little black, and it is... more so. It began with no yellow and all, and yet yellow is now all up in its business. Whatever the case, the painting is now more FUN! And slightly unstable.

Guess it wasn't out of my system.

Look what I did instead of inking today!

A fine art interlude

While waiting for the ink to dry on some strips, I whipped out my sketchbook to try and draw today's blog entry. I intended to do Precocious stuff, but nothing was flowing. I felt like painting! But painting has a lot of prep and clean up! Forget it!

So I turned to colored pencil. I had been reminded of their existence because I spilled them earlier. It was kinda fun to just scribble away in the sketchbook, with no consequences. There was also something therapeutic about it. (I keep my pencils in a used up spiced pumpkin Yankee candle jar, so they smell great!)

The scan cut out all the lights (it's a preset that works great for comics and not so great for the rest) but you can still see what went on there. I had a fun time improvising, and I needed to get it out of my system.

Now, can I FINISH the inking I started?

My wall is awesome!

I felt leaving my bite-sized paintings stacked up did not do them justice, so why not throw them all up on my wall! It's like a gallery designed by a mental patient! (Click the image for a larger version.)

Also, note bite-sized paintings #13 and #14 have been started! I CAN'T BE STOPPED!

Because I care for you

Today was mostly working on the comic. (Actually, it was mostly relaxing, but that doesn't sound as dynamic!) But I need something to share, so I went and fixed the remaining unfinished tiny painting. It is now time TO MAKE MORE!

Hey, baby, I'm FLEXIBLE!

I paint crazy modernist stuff AND cute cartoon animals. What about you?