WIP Wednesday: More Paint Jobs

For those wondering-- with bated breath, I'm sure-- about the progress of last week's painting:



It is possibly finished? I'm not sure, but I'm at a point where it's hard for me to make things better and very very easy to make things worse, so I'm giving the paint a couple days to cure and me a couple days to get some perspective.

And in the meantime...





Experiments in Glazing continue apace. I like the bubbles, I've never painted those before! And the green/gold thing happening. I have overworked the background, maybe? It had a light quality I like and lost at some point, but on the other hand: bubbles! What do you think?
Oh, and also I'm working on another set of four atrociously cute paintings, that I can hardly wait to show you next week, when I'm well past the early euphoria of making something new and into the angst of being sure that my next brush stroke will DESTROY ALL I HAVE WORKED FOR.*

But I've also got a couple new pieces up in my shop, mostly so I can play along with some of my teams. Which, speaking of, if you read this and haven't voted for me? Go vote for me here:

http://etsytx.ning.com/page/march-april-design-challenge

Where my entry is the one that looks like I drew it. I mean, you COULD vote for someone else, because there's other very nice work there. But believe me, given how the background on this is giving me fits:



I need the external validation.**

WIP not picturable: catching up on forums, mailing out OWOH prizes (yes! They're going out THIS WEEK woooooh!), the ever changing FAE blog post, which you should also go look at, because it has shiny.


*Which will involve...photos. Oh joy. Have I mentioned my paranoid distrust of cameras? But these are giant actual canvii, and my poor wee scanner cannot accomodate them. Or these others I've been showing, really. Alack!

**Haha! It's funny because I'm the sane one in my house. Me, with the yelling at the canvas and frightening the cats because the brown isn't RED ENOUGH, curse you Liquitex!
...My childless status is probably for the good of all.

Look! A Distraction!

Though I do the wonderful Folk of Etsy a great disservice to call her such....

I'm trying very hard to have a fun post for ya'll tonight, but for now, why not check out my interview with Folk over here:

http://folkcraft.blogspot.com/2009/11/in-craftlight-carapace.html


She asks a lot of fun questions, and I took my own verbose time answering them, so that should keep everyone busy for quite a while. Look over there, while I remember how to type!

I Have No Words

It is time for me to Enjoy Being A Girl. You do not want to know what I want to be saying today.

So have a comic instead, to explain why I've been away this week:

Party Panic!

I have blogged before on my deep and abiding love for Halloween, day o' hedonism. This year, for the first time in ages, Halloween is falling on a Satyrday, thereby allowing me to have aparty with those of my friends not granted the artist's schedule.

This means, for the first time in years, I need a costume. Now to be sure, I have plenty of fancy dress- Renaissance festivals of a decade have left me well engarbed, and my recent passion for steampunk had only added to my wardrobe's oddness-- but for me these are *normal* clothes, which I wear any day I don't attend the dread Office Job. I want to dress up as something unusual and disturbing for Halloween! Without falling back on anything political. I mean, Zombie Nixon is plenty unnerving, but so overdone, you know?

Also, I do not want any "sexy". This disallows pretty much every female costume in the stores.

So, this is a callout to all my hypothetically extant blog readers-- what should I wear to the ball? Give me your suggestions, and don't worry about making them too weird-- because if I can't wear it, I'll draw it, and do a Halloween Costume Ball of the suggestions I get here!

ETA: I monetized my blog pretty much just to see what weirdzo ads Google would throw at me. I note with bitterness that I now have an ad for "Sexy" Halloween costumes on the side. Next week, I am blogging about trolls and old socks. See what they make of that.

Reality is Dangerous

One of the reasons I like working in digital-- and am gnashing my teeth at the current tech-failure that is preventing me from doing so--is that in digital, nothing is irrevocable. For instance, if I got something to this level of Done:




where it's lookin' pretty good, but I can't quite get it the extra step to being just actually good, I can play with it, confident that if I make a horrible horrible mistake, I can just erase those steps and start again. That's problematic in itself of course, because I can waste hours playing with highlights and filters and oh hey maybe she should be holding a book oh wait no a shell. But at least I don't have the horrible paralyzing fear of being about to wreck something completely after hours of work, based on a vague sensation that there ought to be more shadows or something. Gah.

Anyway. Advice on what to do with these pieces to make them more...dramatic? Polished? Something? Is hereby solicited, while I go work on some protoform paintings that aren't driving me to existential angst. Gah, once more.

All About ME! In Watercolor!

The ever fun Etsy Bloggers Team is having another carnival! Unfortunately for me, all the recent carnivals have been photo-based. Now, shop images notwithstanding,I have an innate mistrust of photographs, at least as applied to people. The problem is that people think photographs are accurate, and thus complete. In fact, photographs leave out almost everything important almost every time. I can't get behind the idea that you'll know me better just for seeing a photo.

Also, my camera is broken.

But my scanner works! So, here is collection of things you would never know from a mere photograph:




Notice that you have now also learned that I have abysmal handwriting, and that I am far too trusting of very cheap paper. Try getting THAT from a Polaroid, hah!

Ahem. Off to look at the blogs of people whose cameras have not deserted them.

Hey Everybody, Look at Me

The lovely Crystal has been sweet enough to give me an interview on her very pretty blog, which I can't figure out how to follow:
http://beadhappilyeverafter.com/blog/?p=7136

So go look, and tell her how much you love me, and how very clever she is to showcase someone so awesome. And see if you can't get on her good side, too, because Crystal is fantastic!

Still Alive, and Posting!

Hey, it's only been nine days since my last post! I am getting less atrociously absent! Go me!
But I am slow indeed these days-- blame it on the summer heat and the internet-killing timesuck that is Con Season-- and know full well I need to get back on the blogging and arting horse. But it is very very hot, and my muse has fallen out of shape. So I'm training her back to fightin' condition with the Index Card project! It's all my own, but you can play along at home! The rules are simple:
* You get 100 index cards.
*You get 5 days to put a picture on every one.
*No subject or media off limits. Nothing is too twee, too weird, too stupid or derivative. The only rule is that each card has to have a bit o' art on it in five days.
* After you've done the pictures- in stages, or in the end-- you have to show them ALL to an audience. Me, I'm putting mine up in my Etsy shop when I'm done, even if I think they do stink.

Which is important, because at twenty pictures a day, they ain't all awesome. Here's a random sampling of what I've managed to do so far:



I may post them all here in time, as this is a better place for feedback than Etsy, really. But not until I'm done!

One of the things I'm enjoying about this is writing down descriptions as I go, which is going to make listing a lot easier.

Now, if I can just get myself blogging regularly...

All Hail Me!

Because it's my birthday. Well, ok, not yet.But soon! August 3rd, actually! My 4th annual 27th birthday, a fairly significant one, at that.

My birthday and my Etsy birthday coincide pretty neatly, so I want to do something cool, shop-wise. So I turn to you, blog-people, for advice-- what should I do for my loyal and semi-loyal patrons? Free shipping? Percent off? What do you like to see going on in a shop?

Send me your ideas, leave a comment, whatever-- because I'm doing another giveaway here, right now, and I'll be drawing my winners on the day itself! What's the prize? Well..you'll see. But if you like my art,you'll want it.

Meantime, I am off to conquer the world like a pinata full of chocolate and paint. Meaning, I guess, I'll miss a lot and end up winded and falling over. Still: fun!

Ohmigosh, SALE!

Yeah, yeah, I have a bunch of posts you're expecting. And they're coming! But first, I would be a neglectful hostess if I didn't mention I am having a SALE! tomorrow. As part of my Etsy Texas team, who I neglect awfully, I must say, and who are having a big $5 sale for Fifth Monday. Suddenly, I love Fifth Monday and cannot wait. So, besides going to my shop, you should totally be searching ETC5. Ok?

Anyway! All my ACEOS are going to be 5 bucks. All! And I've got a few special listings planned. And I'll be putting up ACEOs as fast as time and my internet connection allow. Maybe I'll even get my shop to crack a hundred! Woo!

Ok, back to natter into the keyboard for a while.

Blog Carnival: Summer Line

First off, if any commenters still want to join the Halloween PIF, there's room for ooooone more. Just leave a comment in the post under this.

Ahem.

I am in grief, because I missed the last Etsybloggers blog carnival. Alack, because it was about fairy tales, and if you like hearing me ramble (and if you don't, why on earth are you visiting my blog? Rambling and occasional sketches are all I offer here!), well, you are grieving too, because there is seriously a hundred years worth of prattling to be had off fairy tales.

But this carnival is, conveniently, about my New Stuff for the Summer * and my new stuff for the summer is apparently going to be heavy on the fairy tales! Yay! In fact, check out these early sketches:



Oh boy, doesn't that look promising! Hah, I kid. Early sketches always look like someone kicked muddy sticks on a page. Mine do, anyway. Maybe yours look like Degas layouts, I don't wanna know.

Anyway, can you guess who they are? I bet not, because that's a rough sketch, and it looks like mud! But in the stage it's at now, that's a really rather pleasing composition of Snow White and Rose Red.

I always liked Snow White and Rose Red a lot better than just the Snow White story. True, it's missing the wonderfully wicked Stepmother, and the disturbing fact of the dwarves, but it replaces them with an evil gnome, a talking bear, and sisterhood with axes. Better deal all around, and that's before we even get to the color contrast. The Grimms and their translators did some fantastic things with very basic language, and that's coming from someone whose favorite authors are mostly in the grand Dickensian tradition**.

Anyway, I seem to be on a kick illustrating the stories of my childhood. I don't expect I'll be doing a lot of the Disney-famed stories-- they aren't the interesting ones, anyhow. But The Girl With Golden Hands? Brave Little Tailor? Mother Hulde? Oh heck yeah. I'm getting itchy sketchin' fingers just thinking about them.***

There's also going to be a new set of clays in my shop, with a little more potential usefulness. Over on this blog, there's going to be, well, prattling about fairy tales, some con stories, and not a few photos, if all goes as planned. And sometime-- I'm not saying when-- a great big enormous summer sale! So stick around, this'll be the best summer ever at Caramakes!****

*Well, it was that or birthday stuff, and my birthday stories are kinda depressing.

**Tell me more about the bottle on the windowsill! Exactly what shade of green is it, and how does this reflect the nature of society, again?

***Dear Disney: Unless you're willing to have the mutilation scene in full glory, leave Golden Hands and Mother Hulde alone. Thank you.

*** Also the second summer ever. So it's an easy promise to keep.

Free Swag! For You!

Well, in theory, anyway. It could be for you!

I'm in another feature/giveaway, this time over at the lovely Recupe's womenpreneur-galore site:

http://women-prenuergalore.blogspot.com/2009/04/interview-with-carapace-from-carapace.html

You all know how this works, right? Go and comment? It looks like Recupe might actually get people who don't already know my shop commenting--which is sort of the point-- but I'd love it if one of my blog-faithful won. So go! Comment! Comment for your very lives, mortals! Or at least, comment for a piece of free art.

And because I hate promo-only posts, and am otherwise very boring today, a picture of a regimental beetle:



I have stacks of old National Geographic magazines around, because the photos are wonderful creativity prompts, and the articles are reassuring proof that Science Marches On, even in a five to ten year span. The cover to one is this very colorful shiny beetle with some impressive mandibles. And I wanted to draw the beetle, but then I realized that in that undershot, it had kind of a mustache, and well...now it's turning into a Modern Major Beetle Bug. So, this undersketch.

I Win!

Geez, look at me here, three posts in one week. I must be sick or something.

Oh, wait, I am sick! That's no fun. So I was especially glad to win these pretties:





from this lovely blogger:
www.sarahjanestudios.com/blog

Who you should of course go visit immediately.

Now, I don't offer art giveaways very often, because I am very very very picky abotu my art. This isn't a snooty Art Person thing. I don't buy into the High Art vs. Low Art debate. But for me, finding art I love is like making friends-- or falling in love. The world is full of good art, and good people. And I get along with most of them. I would not object to spending the weekend with any of my coworkers, or tear down a framed painting by almost any artist.
But finding something- or someone- that I really love is different. With art, I'm drawn to open spaces, simple lines,clear colors, a sense of narrative-- and all of that's quantifiable. But there's something else, more important-- a way of looking at the world that sees it as inherently welcoming, even beautiful. This has nothing to do with subject matter-- I love me some Dutch realism-- and is the part where it really falls down into personal taste.
But these pics? Totally have it. I am going to squeal over the Thank You card every time I see it.

What sort of art makes your heart happy?

Yikes, I'm Exposed!

My Creatability team-- about whom I really really have to write, some day when I have world enough and brains-- has an Etsy Exposed treasury, and I'm in it! Which means, for as long as the treasury is up, I'm showing my face! And for that long *only*, because this is seriously wigging me out. So for those who wonder what I look like, here y'are:

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list_west.php?room_id=45593&show_panel=true

On the plus side, I like how my hair looks. And I think I got some pretty good photos, considering I was the photographer and the model, and sometimes an unspectacled blind model at that.

Still. I'm all visible. Unsettling.

Daily Sketch: Dentist!

Gyah, missed yesterday! Hope I didn't worry anyone too much.

I'll catch up later, but here's the sketch for today:



I have a peculiar affection for dentists. Their work is so straightforward, like a sort of medical carpentry. And I like the little birds that dentist* in the mouths of giant (relative to them) monsters.

Hence, this picture, which is about half- done.

*In English, any noun can verb. Try it!

The lovely MVincent- Mannie of Mannie's Mandibles has tagged me once more! Hurrah! In keeping with today's sketch, I'll make mine medical:

1. I had reverse headgear and a palate spreader for three years. Right in the awkward tween years. Gangly, uncoordinated, shooting people with rubber bands when they broke off my sharp metal chin-prongs. constantly drooling-- oh yeah, I was a charmer. I knew I could never believe anything my mom said when she insisted I was *still* an attractive child. Love you mom, but you were lyyyying! Or possibly insane.

2. I wanted to be a surgeon when I was a teenager. I still would like to be able to do that, but it's not a physical possibity ("I shoot with this hand"-watch Blazing Saddles, you'll get what I mean).

3. Relevant to #2, I have dissected:
two fetal pigs
3 frogs
a cat
2 rats

All before my junior year of high school. I do in fact know where the spleen is and what it should look like.

4. I have never broken a bone. I have dislocated every single joint in my body at some point, with the possible exception of the cranial suture (the joint in the top of the skull).

5. I can usually reset any joint I happen to dislocate, except my ribs. Anyone with good tips on self-manipulating their ribcage, there's a population of EDSers waiting to give you a prize.

6. I am missing a tooth. This is not because of poor hygiene, or even my usual native weak enamel, but because the tooth just failed to show up after its original baby version disappeared.

7. I have been stung by bees, wasps, and scorpions several times, and it just gives me a bit of a buzz and makes me giggly. But booze makes me pass right the heck out; I can't even drink enough to get a hangover. I have no idea why this is, since biochemistry is not my thing. But as alcohol is easier to avoid than scorpions in my life, I'll take it!

Sketch # 5: Agnes and Vlad

Time for the Octobery stuff! And what could be more in season than a witch and vampire?




Inspired when someone wanted Discworld fanart, and I had to face the realization that I have never drawn anything Discworld. I've always been so satisfied with the Paul Kidby stuff, I figured anything I drew would be trying too hard to ape his designs (or orang them, I guess), so I never tried.

But I've never seen him do Agnes, so I was free! Bwahaha!

I love Agnes. She is an honest to goodness FAT female hero. Not plump, or overweight, or buxom and insecure. FAT, specified several times. And it actually affects the way people treat her, and the way she sees herself. She's not a Catchy-style weight-obsessed idiot, it's just a part of her life, like being tall or having a broken tooth. And she is a Pratchett hero, of course, so she gets to have all this real life stuff and kick butt at the same time, in very female fashion.

My feelings about Vampires, at least the modern prettified version, are rather different and less positive. But there will be other sketches to discuss that.

If you haven't read the Discworld books, do, right now. They are better than anything else you could be doing with your time.

If you have read them- hey, what do you think?

Daily Sketch #4: Monkey on the Shoulder

Inspired by the tales of teammates whose pets ruin their art, yet are somehow not thrown out into the world.

I say this as my cat gives some painted glass the crazy eye.


A LOT of coloring work on this one. No GOOD coloring work, or details; it's pretty much Paint Bucket Ahoy with a few highlights. I really don't have a feel for coloring in Photoshop yet, not the way I want. It would help if I knew how to make brushes, I'm sure; anyone know a good tutorial?

Yes, I use Photoshop on all these. I need to start playing with Illustrator, too, but I'm gonna need some tutorial time on that. I have a degree in this stuff, but it's been eight years, and I'm a wee bit behind the newest model of the software.

Oh, and a big Welcome! to Ruby-- she's not from Etsy! Let's lure her over with shinies!

Daily Sketch #3: Princess of Hearts

A work in progress. I'm really enjoying how it's turning out so far (although much creepier than I expected, again-- does the Wacom tablet empower my evil, emo alternate self?). I'm thinking I'll add a bit more detail, especially the whites, with the computer, then print it out and make an altered art print. Wouldn't that be cool? Some gold shine to it, maybe some lace?

Daily Sketch #1: Skeercrow!

Ok, so I can't post something new everyday on Etsy. But so long as Blogger cooperates, there's no reason I can't have something new everyday here! And as mentioned, I need practice with the Cintiq.

So to kick off October, here's a skeercrow:



Woo, spooky! Not much like me, with the creepy glowing eyes. But I think he's jsut climbing over the fence to help a passing motorist with a flat tire. I mean, I drew him,he can't be *that* spooky.

I really like being able to get the bright color-on-black effect with Photoshop, along with the faded layout drawing-- I always sort of like having the ghost of the layout in my work, I might stick with that.

What do you think?

Blue Line 1

So I've got a Cintiq! Yay! There's acres of stuff I want to do on it. But before I commit to any big projects-- a comic blog, an overall series, making new my Christmas cards for print-- I want to make sure I've got this thing under control. It's magic, I don't want to go using it unprepared!

So, I return to my first artistic love, comicking!



Now, I always want comments, but this time I really NEED them. Does the line resolution here look ok on your screen? Is the text legible? Do you notice any technical problems?

Your reward, should you choose to leave me a comment, is to dictate my fate in the next weeks-- leave a comment, and tell me what the next Blue Line should be about! Yes! You could make me draw squid-hugging elephants, or a romantic comedy, or the Viking invasion of America! And all you have to do is give me some feedback. At this point, ANYONE who leaves a comment and instructions can get on the list!

So what do you think, sirs?