Friday, July 30, 2010

Another Day, Another Zombie

My brain can be a rather horrifying place sometimes. When left on its own with access to copious amounts of glucose it can come up with some of the strangest and incomprehensible ideas one has ever mentally seen.

But on occasion those ideas contain a nugget of, not wisdom, something just entertaining enough I decide to follow through and put form to function to weird ink drawing.

Thus I give you:
This is that rare breed of Zombie that has sworn of mortal flesh and instead subsists upon beans, nuts and tofu cooked in human fat for that fresh human flavor with none of the dismembering.

Also for reasons beyond my comprehension my Zombie wound up looking a bit like Bill Nighy. 
I also put the image on a t-shirt cause I could.
Now my brain is off to the recesses of its wild world to try and rummage for something shiny. Ta.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

A Baby Bunny and Cards

Hello all,

Ever wake up one day and realize you hate everything about your room so you tear down the wall paper, repaint the furniture and reverse your bed linens? No? Huh, must just be me then.

Well I have some paintings to show to you my lovelies.

The first is one that has actually already sold (Thanks God for twitter followers, the only people who still buy from me):
After a walk where Essie somehow managed to completely ignore the cute baby bunny gnawing away on some grass under a tree I felt an inexplicable urge to paint a bunny doing what bunnies do best (No Not that! I meant being cute, shesh. Get your mind out of the gutter for two seconds.)

I also made a new scenery lake painting, a fairly good sized one too as I hadn't done one in a while and wanted to get back at it as it were:
Finally, this latest endeavor might need a tiny bit of explanation. As I got into the painting world I discovered this trend for artists to paint on little cards your typical baseball card size and trade them with other artists.

I'd had the idea in the back of my head (it was also what lead to me making pendants) of making really tiny art as a sort of add on to a purchase of my bigger paintings as well as maybe something to share with anyone who wants to trade something good for it.

Otherwise I haven't though much beyond - oh I can make tiny versions of all the things I've always wanted to try. So without much more ado:
I've already made 7 and I've only had the cards since Saturday. They've been a wonderful recharge for my painting inspiration to know that I can create an entire piece of art in an hour or two instead of over a few days.

And that's all I have for new paintings now as my creative energies are being channeled elsewhere for now, hopefully I don't wake up tomorrow and suddenly feel like having green walls or I shall never get anything accomplished.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

The Sundermount Letters

As part of a contest I entered I got to try my hand at creating even more backstory for the videogame franchise (does one and a bunch of DLC make a franchise? Eh by next March it will be so good enough) Dragon Age. 

If you haven't played Dragon Age it's a fantasy type game based upon not just killing big scary orcs and other fantasy creatures but formed from a lot of Medieval history. The basic premise for the main land of Ferelden is what if England had after a century thrown off the Norman conquest to reclaim back their lands. There are other obvious homages to France, Italy, in some ways Germany to give it a much richer background than the typical videogame.

I decided to try my hand at crafting a letter paying homage to a classic horror story at the same time building upon the already fairly well laid land.

The story after the jump.

Monday, July 26, 2010

iRiffs take 2

I've been curled up in my workshop cranking out various creations for this, that and one of those.

One of those are a couple of shorts mercilessly torn to shreds and restitched into some sort of lumpy football.

The first is called Make Mine Freedom a 50's cartoon about the horrors of communism in the form of a blue giant. 

It was sort of hanging in there, not really getting much attention til late last week when on the main sight I saw this:
There in the featured Rifftrax selections is our goofy little short!

You tolerate me! You really tolerate me!

As a Thank You, Yay, and Late Birthday Present my husband and I put together a short 6 minute Riffed short that's completely free.

If you want to listen to us crack jokes at the extent of very serious 50's extended commercials for free here's your chance.

Tomorrow I got lots of paintings to share and at some point a story I've been noodling on for the past two weeks. In the mean time Keep Watching the Skies!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Hellish Birthday

It was my birthday yesterday. If you're wondering why this is usually greeted with much less pomp and circumstance than say a monthly hair cut it's because Fate has had it out for me since Day 1 (I must have stepped on her giant eyeball one of the thousand times she had it out to make her horrible "I see you" pun).

There's a general acceptance from me that anything that can go wrong will. It's normally background levels of bad, a stubbed toe, death of electronics, that sort of thing. But when something good happens to me or say I revel for even a second then Fate swoops in a cruel smile carving her face to bash me on the head.

Case in point, yesterday birthday on a wednesday so there were no plans to go anywhere, no major meal made, not even any presents opened. But, I did make a wacky avatar for the twitter/facebook crowd and had a surprising number of Birthday Greetings on the tweetbook.

I suspect that's where I went wrong, letting other people know it was my birthday.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The day didn't actually start out too bad, I got some painting done and made what I think is a really cool pendant interpretation of the moon:
On the pendant scene I also got a series of three listed for sale as well:
But my hubris had not yet caused my downfall. It was around 3 or so when fate began the unraveling of sanity.

While taking a picture of my ice cream cake (the only indulgence I allow myself on my birthday) sitting in the freezer waiting for consumption (not the TB kind) I dropped my camera breaking the lens cap and sending the piece flying under the stove sure to be never seen again til we find some way to cook food using plasma engines.

Annoying certainly, but nothing too dire, at least not yet.

Fast forward and somehow I managed to make it through dinner preparation without setting my arm on fire. It being in the 150 degree range outside but us having a puppy with energy sparking off her I think hey wouldn't it be fun to go out to the lake. It should be cooler and swimming (generally) wears her out faster.

There were so few people there Es practically had free range on the beach and dry off grass area.

All happy idyllic times, or so we thought.

Now that Fate's had some time to ponder just how to make sure and put me in my place she savours it, salivating over the pain she can inflict with barely anyone noticing.

On the drive back we notice some darkening clouds in the distance, rain again. But it rains about every other day so no one gets too excited about any of it.

While sitting down savoring the crunchy brownie middle bits of the Dairy Queen cake we hear the first crack. The storm is upon us and more violent than we suspected.

Watching the vertical rain and flailing trees I decide hey wouldn't it be kinda fun to film a bit of it just to show the rest of the world our crappy weather.

Here's what happened.

It knocked over our damn fence, on my birthday! A fence we desperately need whole with a dog who demands backyard ball throwing for at least 2 hours everyday!

You win again Fate, I have been cowed into my box of "expect nothing good and pray for nothing bad."

Thanks to the fence taking a giant crapper and smashing up Essie's dog pen as well next year I shall pretend that I was never born instead I was fashioned out of various body parts found in a graveyard. Oh and I also got a charlie horse and the dog threw up this morning from eating random crap in the garden again but mostly the fence thing.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Essie and the Magical Mystery Cups

We here at Black Lab Puppy Institues are always hard at work trying to come up with new and different ways to wear your impossible puppy down to the point energy only sparks of here everyone 20 minutes or so instead of the usual every 10 seconds.

Walks are a rudimentary approach any Institute will try to sell you.

A long swimming session is only good for the summer unless you're good at picking YMCA locks.

That is why we have invented a new system that will kepp your dog busy in both body and mind.

The Magical Mystery Cups.

All you need are three (preferably plastic) cups and a box of treats. My subject will now demonstrate the correct procedure for how to play the Magical Cup Game.



Note - side effects include cups jammed under fridges and counters, a gassy dog thanks to all the treats digesting in their gut, and the propensity of your dog to try turning over every cup in the house to see if there's a treat there or not.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Outta the Workshop

I hope everyone had a relaxing and unproductive fourth.

Mother nature kept up her never ending trend of making sure to destroy every holiday imaginable by dumping another  20 gallons on us during the fourth but amazingly lightened up as it started to darken outside so we got to watch some neighbors shot stuff off.

As for me, I had a fairly productive last week or so. Lots of paintings jumped out of my brain and danced across the canvas.

This one was just a random idea of a melting sunset with a single tree illuminated on the horizon:
That I actually got listed and up for sale. It's pretty and all but oh another tree, ho hum. All I make ar e trees and water type things.

Why don't you try something different, reach out a bit. Take some chances?

Fine you pushy little brain worm, shesh. Try this on for size:
I have a deep fear of having to paint noses, well noses and fingers, but I'm slightly fascinated by eyes. So I thought, hey what if I make just an eye picture. And there you go, something a little more pop arty than usual.

But because it's still me, here are two pendants both with water themes and both mythological in some way.
And that's been the fruits of my painting fervor as of late.

Oh and we made another iRiff, sample down below.

Air Flap Bladder everyone! Air Flap!