A quick sketch for a new piece.

Here's the finished version of the early sketch posted below.

     I haven't posted anything for ages. Literally ages. Generations of people and entire cultures have risen, flourished and then blinked out of existence since I last updated. I believe that I said in the very first post of this blog that I was going to make a good effort to update this regularly and I hardly think that once every two months is regular. I could chalk it up to being too busy however that's a lie; I just haven't finished anything recently. My plan is to work smaller; not excessively smaller but small enough that each piece doesn't take months on end. Pffft, like I work on them every waking minute; if I did that they'd be done in weeks which I guess is still a long time.

     The above pic is a tonal study for a piece I'm working on.  It's just a little something a dreamed up (dreamed or dreamt? I never know now since that movie I Dreamed of Africa) that's a little less dark than what I usually dive into. That could be a good thing. I may, MAY, post it when it's finished.

I recently got glasses. I've been wearing them since I picked them up to get used to them. So far they've made me sick to my stomach and made it difficult to eat because I kept over shooting my mouth. As clear as everything has become (like what Brad Pitt experienced when he was turned into a vampire in Interview With a Vampire) I've suffered an unforseen unpleasantry. I've been looking at some of my work, particularily the pieces that I've posted and their flaws have developed into glaring, eye sores. Each picture has mistakes that went unoticed to my un-specticled eyes; mistakes that shouldn't have slipped through my fingers. No more I say; a new day has dawned, shining light on a more refined batch of work. Perhaps...

There are a great deal of things wrong with this but for now I'm going to put it away. I'm pretty happy with how the under water actually looks underwater; that took a lot of noodling. By noodling I mean a different word that means experimentation that doesn't make me sound like a grandma.

The piece is a great visualization of a fear I always had swimming up in Algonquin Park. The water's crystal clear but most of the lakes are so deep that when you look down it's just black. Even when I'm swimming in shallow water and something like a leaf or something touches my leg it grosses me out. What happens in Algonquin is there are hundreds of fallen branches and entire trees that have fallen in the water and are just under the surface that you can't always see. So I'd be swimming along and then kick one by accident and flip out because I thought it was fish or weird thing grabbing me. 

One time I was reaching down the side of my bed at night and my finger touched something that I didn't expect to be there and I thought E.T. was reaching up from under my bed. It turns out it was just the support beam.

I took a couple of the sketches from earlier and threw some colour onto them; kind of experimenting for my book. My book, you ask? Yes, I'm writing a graphic novel. Slowly but surely it's being written. I'm not going to tell you what it's about though; you'll have to stay tuned.

I just bought a vestal, new sketch book that I'm vibrating with excitement to corrupt. I needed to make some room next to my computer for my last sketch book so that it could spend its retirement with my other sketch books that have fulfilled their duties. As such I started looking through some of them and found these gems that I believe I did during boring lectures.

I'm a little tea pot...

The comicon wrapped up last weekend and I was there with rings on my fingers and bells on my toes. The week leading up to it was more stressful than was necessary but the con itself was executed with great precision; precision that would make the most learn'ed ninja weep. My thanks goes out to all the fans who showed up to buy prints and just generally be really cool about everything.

Let me also extend my deepest sympathies to all my friends who didn't show up and now have to live with the pagan hex I've cast upon them. It should arrive in the mail in 3-5 business days.

Penny Arcade fan art. I was going to send it to them but they don't have any contact info on their site so I give it to you, the internet.