Questing

Wow, spring storms are in full effect as of today. We actually had a tornado warning, and took shelter downstairs for a while at work. 20min later we came back to our offices.

But the air is different. It’s cool and charged, and the wet earth smells from hail and rain pelting against the building. I’m on edge, energized, and stir crazy.

I’m getting to take a course next week at the DOIT center downtown on Dynamic Web Sites using PHP and MySQL. I’ve used these things for years now, but I look forward to some more foundation and understanding in them.

Writing and Art nights went very well this week. Projects are moving forward.

So is spring.

My parents, just back from a trip to Ohio(8 hour drive each way), spent enough time in town with us so we could celebrate my father and grandfather’s birthday, before returning to Ohio (8 hour drive each way) to pick up my Nanny( my dad’s mom).

My Nanny has dementia, and has been living alone in the house she raised her four boys in. When my parents went over to her house last weekend, they found carpenter ants in her house, that her clothes washer was broken and full of smelly water, and no real sign that she has eaten in the previous 3 days.

The family(s) down there is supposed to be checking in on her, but since we saw her last(my uncle’s funeral), she has lost twenty some pounds. She really needs to be taken care of.

Family politics down there are apparently very stressful. Lord knows our family up here doesn’t need more stress, but we can’t leave her there, not eating and alone all day.

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In other news, my husband is looking for a new job.

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In other other news, I now have an iPod Shuffle 1gig. (So the hubby can use my laptop for looking for a new job, and I can have tunes.)
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In other other other news, my lj account is expiring this week.
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In other news, I finished some great artwork last week, but the recipient doesn’t know, so I can’t show it off yet. I am pleased with the way it came out though.

Isn’t it funny? I haven’t played my Viola since college, and yet I think about it almost daily. Strangely enough, all that Wisconsin Youth Symphony stuff has embedded itself into my psyche. I feel like I was trained by the muse of music, and have broken off to follow the muse of visual arts, with a bit of writing, on weekends. How do the muses arrange for custody, anyway?

Andre Norton died yesterday
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/books/03/17/obit.norton.ap/index.html

I’ve read many of her books, and was reading one of them just yesterday as well. I can remember binging on her books at the old library which is now a family video store. She’s always been a creative inspiration to me.

Her last complete novel, “Three Hands of Scorpio,” is set to be released in April. Norton’s publisher, Tor Books, rushed to have one copy printed so that the author, who had been sick for almost a year, could see it.

“She was able to hold it on Friday,” Jewell said. “She took it and said, ‘What a pretty cobalt blue for the cover.’ “

Norton requested before her death that she not have a funeral service, but instead asked to be cremated along with a copy of her first and last novels.

She was 93.

Advise from the moo on scrollback:
libella [to you]: you’re beautiful
pong [to you]: find a job that lets you be creative

I had left myself idle all night, and it seems like some very interseting things were in the /more.

feels a little like
penguin [to you]: Slide.

I don’t usually get to indulge in art from Friday to Sunday, it felt really great.
Long awesome weekend recap.
Wow, the weekend swept past. I managed to hang on to several moments, and didn’t waste my own time.
Friday, I created a new illustration! Ancient. For the first time I used the translucency of the copic paper, and without a lightbox, traced the pencil sketch with the sepia ink on the copic paper, with the sketch underneath. No erasing!

It worked pretty well. The sketch was only slightly better in my opinion, but it was nice to get right to the markering as soon as I could. I may have to construct a lightbox in the future, as would likely really help speed things up. Note to self: Let ink dry a bit before jumping into the markering. I had a little bit of ink smearing with the markers, nothing that’s really even noticeable after I was done, but I may not be so fortunate next time I move too hasty.

Saturday, I slept in, and then did some general housework. By 2:30 or so, I was heading back to my art desk to work on the pencils for page 10. I worked on some scrap paper layouts until 5pm,figuring out where each character needed to be, but not actually placing them on the bristol.

I then packed up all my art stuff and headed over to K&M’s for dinner and more art.By the time I left, around 10:30, I had finished the pencils for page 10, yay! I’m planning on inking tomorrow night.

Sunday, The three of us reconvened for a day’s road trip to Chicago Comic Fest. The comic fest part was ok, and cheap ($10!!) They had lots of pirated dvd’s of cartoons not seen since my childhood and classic comics by the box (I rarely by single issues anymore, much more interested in the trade paperbacks). My junior high, high school self would have totally grokked it, but after years of Gencon, and anime and manga associated cons, it was fairly lackluster.

The artist alley was very kickbutt, though. So very worth it. There were a bunch of self-publishing and small press comics. I really enjoyed talking with (Connie P) and (Pam Bliss). Connie’s art is amazing, fairy/goth/fantasy work with an explosion of color and textures. Pam has amazing minis, and is a blast to talk too. We traded our zines to her, and I also bought some of her fun comics.

The Studio met and traded our zines to several artists in the alley, and got to meet lots of people from Chicago, Detroit and Minnesota. Then we headed out to Mitsuwa’s with Dirk, Gerry, Jhim and Christine and Alysia from Kumateworks, and met up with Derrick from PandaRage Press. It’s always so much fun to hang out with different artists and studio, always inspiring, and nice to share sketchbooks around.

Ancient
Uploaded by Metahari.

Ack, I really mean to do comics stuff tonight, but a quick doodle led to a finished illustration for illustrationfriday.com . Still, happy to have another piece done.

Now I totally have to get motivated to finish up the pencils on page10, tommorrow.

Man, I’m tired. and it’s not even 11pm.

P.S. Happy Birthday

flamebush
Uploaded by Metahari.

I got to sit down last night and actually work on my comic page. Yay! Almost have the pencils for the last 3 panels on page 10 complete.

Before I got to work on it, I took about 10 min to do a color marker warmup. This is what I came up with. Strangely enough, some kind of burning bush.

I pretty much drew random colors out of my bag, until I decided I needed the purple.

This copic marker paper is pretty amazing. They really mean it when they say it doesn’t bleed. I had so much color on the paper you could see it like a slick sheen, and it still didn’t bleed through the page.

I think I’d like to do quick color warm ups everytime I sit down for art, it’s a good way to get focused, and also gets the colorbug out of my system for the night.

Hoping for more art-ing tonight. *crosses fingers*

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