Zing! Kablam!

I have started a new blog. This one is.. schlummy. See you there.

http://handready.blogspot.com/

Grr!

Today I decided to begin a very aggressive motion of creating a portfolio. I sat down and made a t-shirt. Its silly, I'm not sure where the idea came from, I just wanted to do something. After downloading some interesting vector brushes I was able to really spruce up the idea. The end result turned out great for something I had never tried before. (I'll have to do more like this!)

Like I said, goofy. But I like it! Also, here's another one I did a couple weeks ago, but have been lazy about uploading it.

Pretty cool, jyes?
Jyes.

Besides t-shirts, nothing too new is up. I can't sit here and keep uploading pointless jibber-jabber about what I may or may not do. I haven't accomplished much lately, and this is going to be a big hurrah towards getting things done. Like I said, I'm going to really push for a portfolio and see if I can get a more professional job along the lines of my preferred career. I also need to start a decent website, something more than a blog where I can actually sell my services. So, yes, there are plans. Today I was able to complete an idea into a shirt within 3 and a half hours. If I can keep up that pace, there's no knowing what'll happen. But it should be good.

That's all folks.

So..

I changed up the blog. I wanted some brighter colors that fit me a bit more. They're a little rustic and autumny I guess? Hope they're pleasing to your eye, 'cause I like'em.

I had a great weekend. My friends came from Pittsburgh to pick me up and take'em back with them. That's about 2 hours of driving just for lil' me. I really appreciated it, and I had a great time. While up there, I got a few things off my chest and decided to make some big changes. Things are going good right now as I organize my thoughts and plans. I even put dibs on my friend Charlie's guitar, so some time this week I'll be buying his guitar, amp, and etc. for just over $100. That's a great deal to me! So I can't wait.

On a side note, movies!:
Starting from December with Spirit, the comic book to film adaptation. Spirit was freaking amazing. It got tons of bad reviews because, what I think, is that a lot of the people reviewing it simply couldn't relate to its humor, or ingenuity. It has a very modern scheme directed toward youth and young adults. I mean, seriously. There's a random scene with a dinosaur head, and you hear a giant dinosaur roar, and then it pans off the dinosaur for you to realize it was simply a little kid's toy in the sand. Does it have any meaning in the movie? No. Is it absolutely hilarious? Yes. Not to mention all the other ridiculous mockeries in the movies, like Nazis. Just absurd.

Aboot a month ago I saw Coraline in 3D, which was more than fantastic. The story was really, really strong. You couldn't help but fall in love with every aspect and angle in every scene. The animation was brilliant. I highly suggest this movie.

And just over the weekend I saw The Watchmen in Imax. A great experience, but I definitely suggest going in to the theatre prepared for an R rated movie, as it is such. There will be tons of story building, and then bam, some dude's bones are popping through his arms and he gets chucked at a brick wall. Or, bam, nudity. Nudity nudity nudity. (It was everywhere.) Did any of this make the movie bad, or questionable? Maybe if you're a very self-concious person? But really, the movie was just as bold as the graphic novel. (Which it stuck to almost flawlessly, up to the details in the backgrounds of panels.)

So, l I know I say "stay tuned because you'll see new stuff being posted all the time from now on!" all the time. But I'm serious this time. Give it a week and you'll have another post. Promise.

Here it is!

The first product by me. You can find it at My Shop. (Oooh new age technology!!!) I redrew the Seattle design, and decided to move from cafepress to Spreadhsirt. Cafepress is very simple, but when it comes to handling the designs, you simply don't have as much freedom. Spreadshirt on the other hand has a very well maintained site, easy to use shop set-ups, and better design usage. In fact, the design would have to be half the size it is now if it were on cafepress.
It was a good decision.

So today I set up my online shop at Spreadshirt.com. I need to work on more shirt designs, but I've got an all around great start. I'm considering upgrading my store account, but we'll leave that for the future.

On another note, my birthday was on Sunday. T'was good. Got a new art program, (shirt-shop being the result of), a couple great books uncliding the 5th Volume of the Flight Comics, which always rule, and Devil's Rose, by Brom. One Hell of an artist and a great story teller to boot. (what's "to boot" mean anyway?) I also gorged myself on tacos and delicious lemon cupcakes. Out of the two dozen that were made, there is only one left. What happened?! Kalsey...

Lack of baked goods aside, it was an awesome birthday. I'm really looking forward to these next couple weeks. From all my friends home for break, to Christmas, a family trip with my Dad and Step-mom to Florida (Oh yes, Florida), and then back in time for the New Year. It will be good.

Until next time!

Hmm

I'm here again. Some strange place where I sit and maul over my thoughts, wondering if things are good or bad. See, here's a thing.
My life plan right now is to earn a sufficient amount of money to head out to California, so that I can attend Watts Atelier. It's a fantastic art workshop, and I'm sure the learning I would take on there would be more than amazing. So far my plans on getting there include becoming a supervisor at UPS, which I'm very close to accomplishing. That would get me a good part time income, very good actually. From there I know I can get just about any other job I'd want, simply for having it on my resume. However, I don't really have any intentions of having more than one job at a time. Only to evolve in my workplace, and perhaps to a greater single job elsewhere. Meanwhile, I'm trying to make money on the side, with any art I can "sell". Opening a shop on cafepress seems to be a very promising idea. Anything else would be great too. Murals, airbrushing, etc. I'm prety confident it'll go well, but I'm having a hard time starting. Why?
I don't really know, I guess I just lose focus all the time. I don't know why. Distractions, laziness, exhaustion from distractions.. those are the real barriers. Its not like I don't want to be more active, I just convince myself its challenging and confusing, and slowly concede. So I get angry about it. Which is dumb.
I'm not an angry person. I like to get things done, its a great feeling when you step back and look at finished work. Even if its a pile of clean laundry. But I feel like I always need to refresh. Clean up, take a shower, relax for a few hours so I can start again. And I can't figure out why.
So far a few things I think might help include a new release. I think I'd really like to learn how to play an instrument right now. Even something simple, like a harmonica would be great. A guitar or even a saxophone would be fantastic. But something. Something new.
I'd also like to get a hold of my mom's camera. It'd be nice to take some shots and see what I can do with them.
Looking around, I love my new studio and bedroom. Its a really comfortable environment.

Some good news;
The house and all of its renovations are coming along well. I ordered a limited edition of Steve Wilson's Insurgentes CD. I'm extremely excited for that. Should be getting it around late November in the mail. If you don't know who Steve Wilson is, I encourage you to look him up. He's one of my few heroes, and he's one brilliant musician. Look for Porcupine Tree, Blackfield, or No Man if you want a band name. (He has many projects.)
My way to becoming a supervisor is almost over. Its a timely process, and it doesn't help my bosses are generally lazy. I have to schedule for an interview, and if that goes well I've got the job!
I guess that's it for now. Hopefully I'll have some more artwork up some time soon.

Numbah 2

I don't really know how I feel about this one. I mean, it looks cool... and it's kinda neat. But it sorta screams "I'm super indie and dramatic about being cool" or something. Which stinks about the common public these days because I'd eventually like to exceed regular expectations and have a new personal style. Eventually... but for now this is why I've got! (Or maybe it screams "HEY! Ever get that really catchy Grease song stuck in your head? You know the one, "She's the one that I want, hoo hoo hoo!" yeah, you know. We can relate, buy this shirt now!!)

So! I decided, instead of going through the painstaking agony of trying to airbrush this stuff, I'll just start a shop on cafepress.com! I'll open it up once I have at least 10 designs or so. At this pace I should be done in 2 weeks or so. Then you can all buy my shirts and be my billboard zombies. This whole idea is still way new to me, and I had no idea cafepress existed, and a site could be so cool. They print your designs and you get a percentage of the money made through the shirt. You can even up the price so you get a larger chunk. It's cool crap. Maybe if you want to have your own personal clothing line, you should check it out! (www.cafepress.com)

That is all.

Seattle

A shirt design I wanted to perfect on the pad first before going in with an airbrush. Think I'm gonna need some frisket with this one.. lots of sharp edges and all that. Some acrylic strips too I'm sure. Cool yeah? That city there is Seattle. One I haven't been to yet! (Not that I've been to many others.)

I had a frickin' awesome past week. Took my supe test at work, which I totally aced. (I think. Find out at work this week.) Had a great weekend with my friends up at Pitt, and made some of my own. Going to a party with older member's of my friend's family was hysterical.
I'm a huge fan of this weather. Cool, gray, sometimes the air stings your throat. And in a couple weeks, you'll be able to smell the snow even before it falls. Oh man. Hot chocolate. Eggnog. Awesome. But first Halloween! Dunno what I'm being. Figure that out later. Welp, I'm gonna go now. Peace/out bean sprouts.

Another Go

Hey! Sorry about the extensive silence. I don't have any good excuses. (And a good excuse is really more of a reason. Which I have none.) Just been jumping around and doodling here and then when I have the chance. I've been spending a lot of time with my friends, and at work of course.
I've been up to Pittsburgh a few times these past few months to visit some friends of mine. It's always a good time up at Pitt. My habitual visits to the hookah bar started a terrible craving. So I curved it by purchasing my own! (Jointly owned by Kevin of course.) It's a beauty.

Started airbrushing some shirts, and man that's fun. If I ever start taking pictures of artwork that isn't made on the computer, you'll be sure to see it. I haven't posted any photos of art since the end of my fall semester at Cal, and that's a bummer.

And I just gagged from all the pulp at the bottom of that glass of OJ. Eehhh....

This morning I decided to start really working on my digital competence. So I flipped through a hair style magazine I sheepishly purchased over the weekend and picked a chick. The whole picture took about 4 hours. I impressed myself with this one. I had no idea that through all the quick sketches and basic painting attempts on the art pad I would've picked up enough ability to recreate a portrait this well. Not to say I don't need more practice at it. That would certainly be a lie. It was a fun painting though, from start to finish. I'll have to do more.



I'd say not bad for a rookie.

I have a lot on my mind, and would love to ramble. But currently I don't know where to start. So I will end instead. Hopefully you'll be seeing many more updates, and I'll have accomplished something worth talking about in the future. Have a good time until then!

Ouch.

So, of the many things I learned this spring semester.. one of them is I can't juggle very well. Things got hectic for a while, and I let myself get distracted with them. I ended up taking a big hit in the grades, and let some people down, myself included. So.. the plan is to never, ever, do that again. Right now I'm doing all I can both at home and at work to get things rolling. What do I mean? Wellllll!
I painted a couple murals for my much younger cousins, and wish to see where that will take me now. I don't have pictures of the train I did, but here are a few dinos.

I'd personally be scared as a 5 year old to have something this big looking at me all the time.
And I know this guy has a nice big sheen on him, and his butt's doin' the swing pretty sharp around that corner from this angle, but I think he looks pretty good. Still, as a 5 year old, would probably cry. I'd spend every night convincing myself they looked friendly, instead of having cruel intentions, like that one creepy stuffed animal you may have had as a child. For me, it was Pooh's large, black, unreadable glossy eyes.
I'm all around very happy with the way these both turned out, and it was freakin' fun too. Not to mention, I got paid, a new airbrush, and some good experience out of it. I really look forward to doing this everywhere.
(If anyone's wondering, I used spray paint, airbrushed the details, and finished off by taking the wall paint on the over spray for sharp edges.)
So, that's how out of work is going. Work, trying to get a promotion, and plan on putting in a resume for supervisor. That's right. A fancy shirt job.
Right now, I am using my friend's digital art pad, and plan on getting as much out of it as I can. So hopefully there will be numerous updates!
Until then, jive on.

Shazamf.

My good friend Kevin came up from Florida to live with us, and hopefully go to school. This guy's an amazing artist, so I'll probably get him to start putting some of his art on a blog some time soon. The parties were a lot of fun, but I've been so distracted for so long (Not just parties of course) that I really need to get back into the school groove. Work doesn't help. I hate UPS, never work there. Such a negative environment.

On the up side, I'll be committing more time to my school work and art, so I'll be posting a lot lot more. I actually want to start writing shorts and illustrating a few of them when I can. I think that'd be great practice, and things like Joey Comeaus Over-Qualified are great motivation. I urge you to check it out, he's a brilliant writer. (Or at least I think so. Its very entertaining.)
I've also finally done a few drawings for my Art class that I like, so I can't wait to get those up. I think I'm finally figuring out how to get figure drawings right. I'm a huge fan of Adam Ford's style, I think its beautiful. So if there's a way I can get into that level of detail and tone I'd be pretty happy.

I wonder if these people will ever be mad that I link to them. Hahaha. We'll have to see...
*Carefully slinks away.*
Until next time!

WhatwhatWHAT!?

So I've been kind of jumping around lately and keeping up with school and work and all those kerfuffles, and haven't erally been able to draw much more than I have in actual drawing class. But I realized I hadn't posted a picture I did last year, a self narrative that was due as a final grade. It really stinks that I forgot, seeing as it is my favorite thing I've drawn thus far. Hope ya like it.
And hopefully I can keep up with this thing after a while. I'd really like to start drawing more, and have already started drawing sketches for some short stories I'd like to put together. Anyway, here's the pic.

First Semester Unload

These are all of my works from the first semester of my college schooling. I'm really pleased with most of'em, and can see some decent improvement over time. I'll post them in chronological order so you can get a better sense of that.
We first started with perspective, which was good. I got a good grip on it fast, but could probably use more practice. (I'll get around to that once it gets warm out. No way am I sitting outside in the cold just to draw buildings.)Yeah, the lines are kind of curvered.. But all in all its not bad. I think each one's about 2.5 hours each. (I know, a long while for some simple lines, right?)

Then we did some other practices involving tonal mark-making, (No lines, and in this case sideways), and some negative space work. It turns out its really hard to make a negative space drawing turn out decent since it becomes quite hard to proportion stuff. But it was still fun. Skeletons always look cool.

We ended up doing some still-lifes as well, which are kinda fun, but only for so long. I really like the way the deer turned out. Even though he looks like a chihuahua-giraffe. 4.5 hours on both I think. More like 6 on the piggy bank now that I think of it..

One of my favorite things to draw turns out to be trees, which are extremely fun. The large lonely one was an in-class, while the other was a homework assignment I didn't really put enough time into.

Lastly come my figure drawings I did for a few special sessions the school hosted in the evenings. I couldn't make all of them due to work, but they were enjoyable while I went. I really enjoy figure drawing, and am really glad my Drawing Class this sem. is being taught primarily as one.

Week 1, Fin

I droned through my anthro class in the morning, and drew these dudes not long after lunch. Takin' my portfolio from last semester home today, so hopefully I can get those up. Tomorrow's the whol Art Addicts thing, so I really hope that goes well. Anyway. Get ready for some heavy updating in the near future!
As for the image, the whole black/white lines style is something I picked up from guys such as Skottie Young, you can find him in the link list. He's got some sick stuff, and seems to be a pretty cool dude. (I obviously don't know him, but he makes cool posts so that's good enough yeah?)
It's a real fun technique to work with, and I certainly suggest it. You don't have to pick a brown/orange background, but its a lovely color to work from so I like it. Like parchment or something.

So I just started my second semester at Cal, and things are going pretty good. I have a feeling this one will go a lot smoother, more focus involved. I just received my portfolio from last semester that contained my Drawing 1 projects, so when I stop by home this weekend, I'ma take photos of them (They're far too big to scan), and post'em when I can. As for other sketches and whutnot, I'll head down to the multi-media center and hit that up. (Given I sketch a lot more often that is!)
Which brings me to another topic. During my Adv. Drawing class yesterday, I brought it up with my professor that I want to start a weekend event for people who are obsessed with art as I am. I told her I needed a place to set up, and she offered the art hall. I said that sounded great, and she announced to the class I was starting this Saturday that there would be a meeting for everyone to gather and art it up together. Abrupt! So I just played it as it went and decided then it was a now-or-never kind of moment, and invited everyone up. I ended up spreading the word to quite a few reliable art students, and I think I might have something goin' here. I hope.
Until something happens with that, or I can find some time to work on some personal projects I have planned, Adv. Drawing assignments, or more, I'm gonna try and post some weeklies like these fellows when I can. Any practice is good practice, yeah?

Jam-Sketches

I was lucky to find that my Dad had a scanner down at his house, so I took advantage of it while I'm here. Even if they are just silly things.

Just a few things I doodled while listening to a couple great CD's I got for Christmas. My Mom took a leap of faith and bought me a Flaming Lips CD, which ended up being amazing. I definitely suggest Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by them. And then there's 2 Porcupine Tree jams too.

I know they're just sketches, and nothing to go on. I just wanted to post something instead of getting on the habit of letting a blog rot. No way! I just saw Golden Compass, and feeling much more artsy than I have in the past couple days, so there's some motivation lingering around here somewhere. Anyway, there's those. Distracted, jumped around, short jam-sketches.

Since the dawn of this Blog..

This is pretty much my first step into the realm of online expression. Just wanted to start a blog so I could get used to postin' some art while I improve through my college years (given that happens, which I hope!), and just kinda have a source that I can ramble on when I want to. Which will probably be often. I longingly look to a day where I can host my own website and set up a nice web-gallery and all that whosie-whatsit, but I'm good withthis for now. And feedback or comments are extremely appreciated, and tips are utmost wanted. I've still got a long way to go, so any guidance would be great. Thanks a boonch, have a great winter!