Drawing on March

A lot of exciting things have been suddenly falling into place. Somehow 2012 is already shaping up to be a better year than 2011 was.  Things are just sort of happening or maybe I'm just finally ready to see them happen, either way it's amazing. More on these things closer to their actualizations...


I've done two more dog portraits since my last posting in January. Here are Dakota and Libby
   
4X6in pencil on paper portraits of Dakota (husky mix) and Libby (small dog mix)


I painted some cookie tins, to reuse as storage bins.

     
Bailey was sick the other night (she's fine now but kept me up all night going outside) and this was only like two days after catching a tennis ball with her eye. I thought she was going to have to go the vets for some serious eye healing but she was fine the next morning, that girl is made of rubber! It got me thinking about a comic... Actually I've been thinking a lot about getting back into writing and comics again.  (and sorry for the terrible-late-night-indoor iphone pics of the drawings)


We ran out of the real thing at work (we use them as late passes for the kids), so I improvised! Ceci n'est pas une Red Clip! I love solving problems...

Mail Call

At the end of January I decided to take a challenge to send mail everyday (that the post is in service) for the month of February. I'd say that I probably usually send more mail than the average person in the US (even with doing my bills online). I really like sending mail. Even for me, this was a still a big challenge. I found that in the day time I was at work and didn't have time to make mail, write letters, draw envelopes, or put together packages. So I would usually end up doing this at night and send it the next day. I had an arsenal of stamps (thanks USPS online shop!) that I tried to sort of match the stamp for the recipient like a steamy Gregory Peck for my lady friends, Pixar character for the little kids and so on. After the first week or two I quickly got behind, so I changed my rules to sending an equal amount of letters (to postal days) by the end of the week so my weekends were spent putting together little packets of sunshine. I found this worked best for me and I often went over my number of letters that were supposed to go out for the week.

I think in total for the month of February I sent 36 pieces of mail. I tried to document both what I made and sent (I didn't keep up with that as good as I should have) and what I received in the mail. We are now in March, and I'd say I am still sending about 1-3 pieces of mail a week still. I really got into drawing envelopes, I am thinking this might happen on a grander and more thought out scale eventually. And one day I found a bag of googly eyes, and this amused me more than it probably should for a 26 year old adult. Sometimes I am easily amused.

Here are a few pieces of mail....

 
front and back of one of my favorite envelopes I drew (and it even made it through the INTERNATIONAL POSTAL SYSTEM which was the most shocking part)

This was probably my favorite envelope.

 
I haven't sent this one yet, but I think it'll be great. The return address will go on the girl's bow and the address between her eyes.

   
Some quiet encouragement.


Gone fishing, the address goes on the back of the bear.

  
Happy Valentines and what not, you know just the usual unicorns and dogs riding oriole birds type of greeting...


   

Some good things in small packages.



Clear envelopes... my mail man laughed at me when I asked him if he thought they'd make it through and his face said "no" but he only said "maybe". They arrived and were well received in a few days time.

     
Sent a lot of postcards, and made some mashups of my own postcards.

   
Sent some care packages to my grandparents.

     
Got some cool mail too, including a wood box that I've started storing my envelopes in.

Snow Day, Catching Up

Well, we finally got a bit of snow this season. Not much, more than anything it was wet and icy; but it is a good excuse to stay inside and catch up on things. Yesterday I got my geek on and upgraded my machines installing new RAM (6GB in each, zoom zoom!) and updating to OS X Lion.

Things are mostly the same on the drawing board, they haven't changed dramatically.

 

But as of very recently I got in my head that some things would look better with a bit of embroidery on them. So I've started teaching myself how to embroider with the help of You Tube. I love the internet! Not too bad for just winging it freehand for the first time... 

 And I recently took a trip to visit my Grandparents and help them out a bit (more so than I initially thought).

Here are a few pet portraits I did over the holiday season, which I couldn't share until they made their way to their respective recipients.

And then here is some stuff from the sketchbook this fall...