Updates: New Art, New Conventions

I'm alive!

So my new job took some time to settle into, but I think I've got it now. As promised, here's some new artwork!

Andromeda

First up is this thing. I thought I was done with it the last time I showed it but it turns out that I was not. There was a lot more that I could do and so, I did. I'm much happier with it now and it has turned out to be a great seller at the comic conventions I've attended so far this year.

I still never added a background because I wanted to give the sense that she IS the universe. I have been thinking of doing more ladies along these lines but I haven't really had the inspiration yet to do more.

Owls for Grandma

Next is, "Owls for Grandma," named so because that's exactly who I did it for. She's not really my grandmother, she's my cousin's grandma, but she just enjoys being everyone's grandma. She had a rough year last year, a lot of deaths in the family.

I had told her a few years back that I would paint her an owl and I just never did. Truthfully, tried a few times to digitally paint her an owl and it never turned out right. Maybe I was hard on myself I dunno.

Eventually I bought a wood board and decided to do this with acrylic paint instead and that turned out to be a good decision. What started out as only being one owl, turned into three when I realized that eastern screech owls were really tiny and the hollow in the tree was a little large to put just one in there.

Oliver Lucas: The Staff of Moses

When all was said and done, it's not the most amazing masterpiece ever but I am happy with it and my grandma is too!

to the left here is a finished commission done by myself and my usual partner in crime, Nga Nguyen. (Her lines, my colors as usual) I went to a small one day show in Richmond VA, where I met local author Andrew Linke. We are currently working on book cover number two!

This was a pretty ambitious piece with all the hieroglyphics in the background. Not to mention that making something look old and a bit distressed is somewhat difficult to do in photoshop. sometimes your textures tend to come out too perfect to look right.

Anyway, I hope to have the second cover done by mid September. Nga is always super punctual with her work, but me? Not so much. Just another something I have got to work on. I need to make myself work more. I run on inspiration far too much.

Clockwork Koi

 Next! "Clockwork Koi" I've been working on this thing since last November. I'm not sure what inspired it really. This is one of the rare times that I drew exactly what I set out to draw. That is always difficult for me for some reason. Probably goes back to that "running too much on inspiration" thing I mentioned earlier.

My job deals a lot with machines and I actually enjoy it. I'm used to seeing metal, rivets, nuts and bolts, and hydraulic lines, so I incorporated them into my art here.

The lotus flowers seemed out of place and far too plain when I added them next to the mechanical features of the koi. After a little thinking, I decided to go with an antique lamp look. My grandmother had one of those antique stained glass looking lamps, so I used those as a reference. I eventually want to draw a dragon to match it, but that will have to wait until I've cleared my commission list.

Love you to the moon and back

Last but not least! Here's the latest artwork. This isn't the whole thing and it actually can't even be finished until after the wedding. It's a guestbook idea that actually came from pinterest but my friend here had me do my own spin on it.

I told her I'd do it and decided to have it done in watercolor but didn't stop to think that I haven't actually seriously used watercolor paint. I don't think that el cheapo watercolors when I was ten years old really counts as practice. So I may have panicked a little.

I watched a few tutorials, grabbed a few supplies and just hoped that it would turn out okay. I'm happy to say that she loves it and not too many people could tell that I'm a total watercolor n00b. What can I say? I learn really fast. I have to. If I had to list a skill as my best asset, it wouldn't even be art, it would be the ability to bullshit like I know what I'm doing until I actually do know what I'm doing.

In any case, that's all I have for the moment. It makes me happy that this is the most artwork that I've updated in a while. I'm getting more time to do it these days since I ditched that old job and found this one. I just... feel better. It's amazing how much your job affects your life. Since ditching my old job and getting with this new one I've lost nearly 20 pounds, I've completed four more artworks and sketched many more, and I've signed up for the most conventions I've ever done in one year.

Speaking of conventions, I've also updated my convention schedule page. If you know of any that I may be interested in, feel free to comment! I'm always looking for more!

Talk to you again soon!

Spark, out.

To The Anti-Parent American

"Having kids is a choice. Can't have sympathy for anyone who willingly invites misery into their lives."

Some asshole said this, and then asked me to explain why this thought process is wrong and a problem. This is what I have to say to them and people like them:

To the childless elitists: 

Your thought process is wrong because it is you that makes the system so rigged. It is people like you that make it hard because you've never been in the situation to know anything about it. It's people like you that think a woman can go back to work the day after popping out a baby because you don't care to understand. You are the reason why there is no sympathy for a woman that had a good career until she got pregnant and laid off.

You and people like you are enablers for this broken system of parent haters. The shamers, the little green-eyed monsters that think that maternity leave is a vacation, the little selfish brats that think that the woman or man leaving work early to take care of a puking five-year-old is just the same as taking the day off to go relax by the pool. You perpetuate the cycle and care nothing about fixing it because it's "Not your problem."

The problems I am having as a parent are not simply money oriented. Financially I am doing just fine. There are many problems in society that you will not notice until you become a parent and people like you are a large part of that problem because you refuse to acknowledge it. Not having children does not make you smarter. Your unwillingness to really understand a parent makes you blissfully ignorant to the problems that you perpetuate with your snooty attitude. Remember, parents remember what it was like to be you. They were childless once. However, you don't know what it's like to be them.

My child is not misery, children are not the cause of misery. 

America has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the developed world, we also have the least family leave and the biggest gap between the happiness of childless people and the happiness of parents.

And this is your fault.

Shaming parents for having kids is your fault, the deteriorating condition of family life in America is your fault, the link between being a parent and being miserable is your fault. Don't want to have kids? Fine, that's your choice, but you are no smarter, no wiser, and no better than any parent just because you made that decision.

You won't wake up and smell the roses until these kids who have had a hard family life - thanks to you - end up running the country. You won't think about it until these kids are taking care of you in the old folks home. I guess you had better hope that you die long before you need that kind of help. I suppose you could also hope that their parents managed to install a good moral compass during the time they weren't working their asses off, or just maybe you could change your attitude before it gets to that point.

This is why your thought process is wrong and this is why you need to stop turning your nose up at the problems facing kids and parents today just because you aren't one.

You and your ignorance and your elitist bullshit are holding back the whole damn country!

The world that the future generations are growing up in is EVERYONE'S PROBLEM.



Next time I promise to have an art related post but I just had to get this one off my chest.

Spark, out.

New Artwork, New Year, New Job

As of right now I'm snowed in, so I had time yesterday to work on something. I wasn't feeling particularly like anything so I just painted and whatever came out of it I rolled with it. Not a bad idea. It's not getting a lot of love but I enjoyed painting it anyway.

Andromeda. You can see more at my DeviantArt page. :D Prints of this are also available.

I'm feeling a lot better these days. I have started hitting the gym every day even if I just run on a treadmill for 30 minutes. Personally I like weight training so I've tried to do as much of that as possible. Only two weeks at the gym and I already feel much better and my gut is visibly shrinking. Hooray!!

F*** you, F*** you, F***you, You're Cool, F*** you, I'm out.

I also managed to snag myself a new job! That's right, I am finally getting away from this soul sucking pit of hell. Two weeks from now, I will officially have my weekends back! Now I can spend some time with my baby, AND do significantly more artwork.

That resignation letter was the shortest one I think I have ever written. You know what they say, if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all... obviously I didn't have much of anything nice to say. I am doing all I can NOT to send a mass e-mail with the scene from Half-Baked in it. That would definitely be frowned upon and it's not that I hate everyone there. Just like... one or two people. The job itself is much worse than the people I work with.

I'm looking forward to having more time in the new year to actually be a mom, get to more artwork and complete projects for once.

This couldn't have come from me... Too adorable.

In other news... Alex got to see her first snowfall,it was adorable. She's killing me with cuteness.

JUST LOOK AT THE CUTE!

Anyway, I'm out until I have something else to show lol.

I want to thank all of my current followers for still watching out for my posts. Thanks so much! I know I'm slow and not always coming out with new stuff but any little bit of support helps. I appreciate it.

Spark, out.

Hard Times: Finding Time

Hey everyone, just letting you guys know I'm still alive!

Feast your eyes on this CUTENESS!!

As of right now I haven't completed any artwork in ages. It's not really got much to do with having a baby. I know that people will tell you all the time that having a baby will cramp your style. You have to give up everything for the baby. That is really only partially true. She's nine months old now and while I do have to sacrifice a lot of me time for her, I actually feel like I don't get enough time with her.

This is how she wakes up...

I actually enjoy being a parent. Everything she does is cute (Except the pooping ... that's not cute.) I really don't feel as burdened as people told me I would. I even had someone tell me that my life was over because I had a child. No, no, on my rare days off I can take her out places. Sure it takes me longer to get out the door but she's plenty portable and really enjoys getting out.

I take her everywhere.

I suppose I also got lucky and have probably one of the happiest, most well behaved babies on the face of the planet. So far, I have never had to take her screaming out of a restaurant and at the moment she mostly sleeps through the night. She wakes up SMILING every day for crying out loud! I wish I could do that!

I could not have even imagined a more perfect child.

The only thing she didn't like was Santa.

I think I can live with that, she'll probably get me back in a few years.

She wasn't looking at the camera she was looking at me.

My life with a child is just fine.

The soul-sucking, time-destroyer is my current job.

It's awful and I hate it. I have a hard time even getting out of bed in the morning because I dread it that much. Every time I pull into the parking lot and realize that the building hasn't been burned down overnight, I just want to cry. I have been working overtime every week. I can't get away from overtime. I work six and seven days a week. Seriously there are some weeks, I walk into the break room and see the schedule and I don't even have a single day off for the whole week.

Don't even get me started on the fumes in that place. Plastic injection molding plant with no ventilation? They're asking for a lawsuit and I feel like complete crap when I get home. I have a feeling I'm not going to be able to get much of anything done until I can ditch this job for something that pays more and actually gives their employees more than just one day off a week.

I work so much that I feel like I don't even get enough time with my daughter. Before the Christmas break, she would treat my grandmother like she was her mother instead of me, because I was gone so much and my grandmother takes care of her while I'm a work. It was heart breaking. I was so depressed I felt like just driving my car into the nearest telephone pole on the way into work because I didn't want to be there. This job makes me feel like a failure. I've failed to get a good job, and thanks to this job I'm also failing at being a mother. One of the most natural things ever and I can't even do that because this god-forsaken job is in the way.

I need a scanner so bad.

The holiday was a much needed break, but it's gone right back to the way it was and I'm honestly not
sure that I can take it much longer. Luckily I've got a few job prospects lined up now that it's the beginning of the year and a lot of places are looking into hiring. I just need to actually get hired by one of them. I've got three chances to get hired in the next two weeks, someone's gotta take me so hopefully this debacle will be over shortly and I can get back to doing some artwork.

I've been sketching some when I can find a spare moment. Over the past few months the only thing I have worth showing is an anime style original character and a steampunk koi fish.

Well I guess that's some kind of progress since I rarely do my own line work. If anyone can help me figure out Adobe Illustrator, I'll be forever grateful! I want to turn the koi into a t-shirt design because I think it could be a hit.

I like it anyway and I don't usually like my own things.

Anyway, hopefully next time I'll have something to show and I can start making updates for just artwork. That's what I eventually want to do with this blog. An article every week, and two purely art posts. I haven't given up yet! Just give it another month...

Spark, out.