I’ve been having a lot of screwy ideas for stories lately, and the only way I know how to deal with them right now is to write them out, stream-of-consciousness style. Here’s an excerpt:

“And she hears singing?? What the hell? And then a little genie comes out. HAHA. The genie’s all, hey what’s up. Not sure what happens after…”

It’s a bit rough, obviously.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

I created these little guys a while ago so I figured I better post ‘em now.

So, in high school I had a better-than-modest collection of four-leaf clovers. Finding my first was nothing short of magical, but the magic died a couple of years later when a new patch of clover grew, ALL with four leaves, directly next to the driveway of my parents’ house—I think because of some fertilizer. Some of the clovers were nearly two inches across, some had five leaves. I’ve lost my collection since moving out, and every time I go back home I forget to check for the patch. But I’m not not superstitious, you know, so I think I’ll start searching again.

I don’t need to write about this since I’ve posted about it everywhere else already, but I created a new weblog header yesterday so I might as well update with something today.

Anyway, I started a new project this year called Tree Association. It’s my own special version of those free association word games people and psychiatrists play, where you begin with one word (in my case, tree, because it rhymes with free—see how easy?) and make connections to new words. I plan to update every week with a new drawing, and if you have your own Tumblr you can follow my blog with the click of a button! (Otherwise, I don’t know, I guess you can try the RSS feed. Personally I still use bookmarks and visit one website at a time.)

I’ve come up with a pretty long list already so the associations aren’t necessarily fresh when I draw them, but while I was compiling the list I made sure to take no pauses. (After all, I think it’s better to relate a bunch of words all at once than it would be to actually do one per week.) So far tree has led to coral, coral has led to salt water, and salt water has led to tears which rhymes with gears. Isn’t my brain just fascinating?

It seems I update so infrequently that WordPress chooses to log me out of my weblog account every week. I’m unable to come up with much in the way of an interesting story (I like to think of my longer posts as interesting stories) because I’ve been sorta busy. Not super busy; only sorta.

I just finished some illustrations for a new client (YAY), which I’ll post to my portfolio soon. I’ve also been working on new ideas for myself, liiike: patterns! I figured out how to make a clean pattern repeat, so that’s what I’m excited about right now. My first pattern is going to be beavers building dams, because duh. Here’s one of the little guys:

Now it’s time to go and listen to the thunder and rain again. When it storms it’s like I’m under a spell.

You know those beautiful sketchbooks that some people keep, with detailed drawings inside of them that might as well be framed?

Well—of course—I don’t have a beautiful sketchbook. I don’t have a sketchbook at all, really, because my sketches look like this:

Small, and very scribbly. To keep them together in a big ol’ bound book would just be ridiculous and sad. (Can you even guess what they are? They’re meant to be for two separate images but I kinda like what’s happening there between ‘em.) I used to be embarrassed, but I’ve finally accepted the fact that I’m an ugly sketcher. These pencil scraps are just a way for me to get an idea down quickly—and that’s all. No collages or fancy nonsense, at least not anymore. (It might help that I’m out of school. Professors who demand sketchbooks usually aren’t prepared for mine.)

Sometimes part of a sketch will actually make it into the final version, though. For my most recent drawing, I quickly sketched the mermaid’s hands like this for placement (click to biggify):

… but after creating that rockin’ keytar, I decided I liked her hands—so they stayed. It makes me happy when this sort of stuff happens, because you can’t really plan it. A drawing remains a sketch to me until the very last steps. So… it’s cool if my first step sucks, right?

You know how when you have a pen that’s stopped writing, you shake it? (Or lick it, to revive a dried-up tip. Not a felt tip! Just ballpoint.)

Well, I use a Wacom tablet almost every day, to draw and color in illustrations. While it’s not the biggest and newest, I’m really comfortable with it. And sometimes I’ll be in the flow, finishing something up, when all of a sudden my computer will pause to render the latest line or color blob or whatever. In confused frustration, I always shake the Wacom pen as if it were a regular pen with low ink.

I do it all the time; I can’t help it.

I’ve added some new work to my portfolio (both sections), including that 2009 animal calendar I kept on whining about! I owe Google Images, big time.

I can’t believe I’d seriously say this… but after the calendar, I think I’ll be tired of drawing animals for a while. I know I should probably add more subjects to my portfolio so that not every promotional piece of mine looks like a zoo.

There’s not a whole lot to write about here since things have been fairly quiet for me lately. I’ve just been drawing and knitting and working, sometimes, at my job. I consider this the calm before the storm, though, because I’m about to embark on a crazy journey of long-distance traveling, interviewing and possibly moving. Well, definitely moving, but where we go is up in the air until next year, I guess. Not like that’s a long time now, is it?

Chris and I have been married for two months today and it’s just so nice to have a sweet husband in the back of my mind all the time. I came home to baked goods on Thursday night: chocolate cupcakes and the brownies I’d planned to make but hadn’t had much time for. I know! I could barf too.

Now for my second round of exciting news: it looks like sending postcards works!

Thanks to a few great designers at Cosmopolitan, I have three spot illustrations in the “Man Report” section of the December 2008 issue. Ms. Theresa Izzillo, Deputy Art Director, e-mailed me about my postcard and introduced me to a few of the graphic designers there, who were really quick to give me information and to respond to my sketches and questions. For this issue I illustrated three ways you might tell somebody is lying to you:

Last month I also got to work with Mr. Tom Davis, the art director from Her Nashville magazine. When he asked me if I would illustrate and do hand-lettering for the cover of their November issue, I jumped at the invitation. A magazine cover! I spent a lot of time composing my sketches, making sure I was filling the space of the cover in ways that didn’t feel too squashed, or empty. I think I succeeded, and am really pleased with the image that was chosen. Tom gave me some helpful suggestions that transformed my initial—slightly spooky—idea into something a lot warmer and more relevant to the topic of the issue.

Overall, these experiences were both really positive and I’m thankful for the opportunities. So do like I did, and go buy December’s Cosmo. And if you live in or around Nashville, Tennessee, pick up a free copy of Her!

(Also, I’ve been uploading some more of my old college projects to my design portfolio. I wasn’t sure if I wanted such a mix-up of media and styles in there… but what the heck, I want to show more stuff.)