Halloween Memories

This post raps up my parallel postings to #monthoffear.

We leave off with Halloween memories. I don't really have any ones that particularly stand out in my mind, but there is a sort of ritual that has developed over the years in my life during the holiday. Of course I was excited to come up with an idea for a costume, and get free candy.

But mostly I love picking out a pumpkin at the pumpkin patch, and carving it up. I love drinking hot apple cider with cinnamon. I love seeing kids in costumes, though we don't get many trick-or-treaters ={

I also love diving into scary stories and watching scary movies to this day. When I was younger I used to read Scary Stories, or In A Dark, Dark Wood and stay up late on Saturday night to watch Svengoolie make fun of crappy b-rated movies.

Happy Halloween!

Phobias

I have a few phobias. Leporiphobia, coulrophobia, but the one that probably most effects my life is arachnophobia. Just the other day I was reaching out for the computer mouse and noticed a house spider crawling from the table towards me and the couch. My husband thinks it was funny how shrilly I was able to scream, getting over excited and anxious as I pointed my finger at the little beast and told him to get rid of it.

I have a way of thinking these spiders are a lot bigger and nastier than they really are. I know it's an irrational fear, but it's one that still gets me screeching like a banshee when I see a spider.

Marker on Bristol

P.S-

Last Summer my husband caught this....

This thing was the size of my hand!

I had just come out of the very bathroom where only minutes later my husband found this hand sized spider that he at first thought was a tarantula. Or maybe a mutated spider with some extra chromosome that made it a giant. It turned out to be something called a Nursery Spider, which apparently eats other spiders. Needless to say, he relocated the thing.

P.P.S-

While we were in Oz we saw some other nasty spiders called Huntsmen, which are like the Oz version of the nursery spider, in that they eat other spiders. But they are big and hairy, and look like movie props. True story....

#monthoffear

Month of Fear Catch Up

So for the past week I was away in Chicago visiting my family and making an appearance at The American Academy of Art to give a lecture on the importance of networking. Thanks to the Academy for having me, and it was nice to see some old faces.

While I was gone I was unable to post the last two week's challenges so I will do so now.

Pickman's Model. Watercolor on Bristol

 So for illustrate your favorite horror story, I chose H.P. Lovecraft's short story Pickman's Model. I'm a huge Lovecraft fan and every year around this time I pick up and read my anthology of his stories. Pickman's Model has long been my favorite work of his, perhaps in part because is is about an artist. I would imagine that it was a lot scarier back in the day than it is today. I absolutely love it, and doing this piece has sparked a desire to dabble on the subject in the upcoming months.

Creepy Closet Door. Colored Pencils on toned paper.

And last week's challenge was to illustrate something that terrified you as a kid, which was perfect for me since I was at my childhood home. My parent's house is a bit over 100 years old, and now that everyone has moved out it's sometimes a bit more spooky than it was when we all lived there. 

As a kid I used to sleep with my mom in the master bedroom for a few years until one of my sisters moved out an I was able to have my own room. During my childhood I often was afraid of 'the fat lady in the closet'. I don't have any idea now, what that was all about, but I do suspect that I thought I was seeing the ghost of a rather large woman jam packed into the tiny closet space. I was terrified to be upstairs alone because I thought she might come out of there and get me. 

My mom couldn't help but chuckle when she saw me take a picture of the door with my phone so I could do this drawing (There is no way I was gonna sit in the room and draw it!). She told me that sometimes she is in there dusting (This room being vacant now), and she thinks 'I'll keep the closet door closed in case the ghost is in there trying to look out.' 

-What a creepy thing to say, mom.

P.S.

Carrie was on the other day (the original movie), and I was reminded how similar the closet in my mom's old bedroom with it's stoic white walls and religious paraphernalia looked like the closet door that Carrie's crazy mother used to lock her into. I assure you my mother never locked any of us in the closet...but I think my older twin sisters did that to me at some point in my life. I don't recall as I have probably blocked out those memories.

Until the next challenge: Phobias. Ta ta!

#monthoffear

Month of Fear:Week 2

Watercolors on Bristol

This week's challenge is 'What is your reoccurring nightmare?'

I would have to say that mine is probably the nightmare of loosing someone I care about. Sometimes I have dream snatches of the possibility of loosing someone close to me, be it my mother from a heart attack, or my husband from any number of things from a car accident, to being deployed somewhere and not coming back home. 

Of course none of us can escape from Death when he finally comes for us. But the idea of him coming is no less unsettling. 

Trying to end this post on a more positive note: according to my dream dictionary to dream of someone dying actually isn't that bad of an omen. It means some sort of a rebirth, or some sort of a good omen for things to come. 

Until next week.....

Month of Fear: Week 1

It's been a while since I posted anything to my blog, and a lot of things are changing for me. 

I recently attended Cincinnati Comic Con, which was kickstarted by Tony Moore. I had a great time in Artists' Alley with the rest of the crew from Surreality, plus Andrew Day, R.C. Young, and our beloved Amanda Bolin. It was my first time setting up behind a table and selling my art, and I plan on attending more conventions in the future as an exhibitor. 

I have also opened up shop on Etsy, selling pin up prints and offering commissions as well. Check that out here. 

But now onto the reason for this post. There is an online challenge going on over here that I have decided to participate in this month. I first saw this blog when they were doing a Month of Love earlier in February, and decided for me it was a bit too late to join in on that. 

Week 1's challenge is 'What Lives Under Your Bed?' 

This is something that I was afraid to consider as a child, and something that, from time to time, also haunts my thoughts now as an adult. I am afraid of many things, namely spiders. And so I thought that would serve as inspiration enough for this week's challenge piece. 

And so here you have it, a young girl creeping to the end of the bed to investigate that weird bump in the night that your parents try to tell you is just normal house noises. Or perhaps investigating that there are no Ghoulies hiding under you bed, because you stayed up late on Saturday night watching Svengoolie on the boob tube. 

11 x 14 watercolor doodle

Looking forward to the next challenge idea. 

#monthoffear

Private commission. Watercolors on 140lb hotpress watercolor paper. This came out very well for a piece entirely out of my comfort zone, not just for the use of green and blues in my pallet, but overall. It was fun and tricky. I need to work more on foliage. It's good to work outside the box, and frustrating. 

Ch-ch-cha-changes!

I'm posting this to let you know that I will be planning a revamp of my work, which will most likely include this here blog of mine.

I think that I have been totting around a whole lot of baggage since college, perhaps before then too. I realize that now is the time for me to maybe take a step back from a few things and try to sort things out. Find out my likes and dislikes of my art making, really take a moment to go over and practice a lot of things that art directors and fellow artists have been telling me to explore.

I am not sure when I will have a chance to come back to this blog, but be sure that I will, with much better work.

With that, I leave you with this pencil draft for a private commission....

Coloring for Surreality

Hello world, it's been a bit since I posted anything on here.

I wanted to take a little time out to call attention to the web comic Surreality, created and inked by fellow alumni Caleb King and Carla Wyzgala. This coming April will be the mark of our first anniversary of releasing our online web comic.

The image as sent by Carla

I like to throw some color in  with the borders

Laying in the foundation colors

Adding in simple layer tweaks

Finishing up with some detail

Above is a quick look into how I apply colors to the comic. This is my first time as a colorist and I think that in the last year of working on this I have learned a lot (especially about cheating with layers). Caleb is a wonderful writer and artist as well (not to mention a pretty relaxed slave driver). Carla and I have been wanting to collaborate on something for a while, so I was her first choice in a colorist, and I am happy to have not let them down. 

Our comic has been a great success, and last summer we were pleased to reach our goal to fund a special anthology comic featuring the works of Andrew Day, Lucas Durham, Nicolas Giacondino, David Pauwels, and of course ourselves. Could there be another anthology in the future of the comic? We'll have to wait and see.