Artist Privilege

"Being crazy...that's the privilege of being an artist."

From Overheard at the Museum by Judith Henry.

Happy Holidays from Fabled Earth!

Sorry–no cute small, furry animal holiday pictures this year! (Maybe for New Years?) I would, however, like to share a video of some other furry Christmas-y creatures. I hope everyone has behaved themselves...

Happy Holidays!

The Current State of Things

Now, where did I put that drafting table?

You are looking at a picture of our new studio! For comparison's sake, this is how the old studio space looked for the past three-and-a-half years. There's a lot of work to do...

Take a Break and Relax!

Artist in Residence

ImagineFX Magazine has a recurring feature called "Artist in Residence," which showcases the studios of working artists. Issue #91 (currently on newsstands in the US) takes a peek into the studio Vinod and I share in the house we rent.

Here's a little extra info that wasn't printed in the article about the challenge of setting up a shared studio :

A casualty of moving to a new state every four years for the past decade, our studio is ever changing. It's not perfect, but we have everything we need to run our freelance illustration business.

When setting up the studio we usually pick the largest bedroom in the house. Dividing a room into our own personal workspaces can sometimes be a challenge. In the past, we have experimented with different set-ups including placing our drafting tables back-to-back or facing one another. During the year that we lived in an apartment in Wisconsin, we each had a studio in a separate room, but that wasn't much fun because we'd have to yell across the apartment while we were working to talk to each other. 

Bonus photo!

Random toys, my dry erase schedule board that I try my best to keep up with, and a drawing by my niece:

Toy shelf: required for every art studio.

  

Two minor corrections to the printed article: Vinod is currently a senior concept artist at Motiga–no longer with Monolith Productions. We also haven't lived in an apartment for about eight years now. There appears to have been some confusion in the article when some of the text we provided was edited for space. (The latter correction is obviously not a big deal, but I'm a perfectionist.)

Flashback

As our fellow work-at-home artists would probably agree, an art studio can get pretty messy. I always do my best to clean up the area around my desk after each project, but rarely do I have the time to tackle the entire studio. One of the goals we had been wanting to accomplish for the past several months was to clean up and re-organize our studio supply closet. 

Even more junk lurks behind that door.

We finally got the chance to begin the task during the holidays. We made an even bigger mess dragging everything out of the closet and stacking it into piles in our workspace and hallway which forced us to finish the job quickly if we wanted to reclaim our home office.

We pawed through big cardboard boxes full of unused canvases and drawing pads, old paintings, scraps of matboard, and various other odds and ends. We also looked through a half-dozen old portfolios of artwork to see what was worth keeping and what wasn't. There were product design drawings from our time at The Franklin Mint and concept drawings Vinod did at Ravensoft. There was a lot of my student work from Ringling. There was also artwork from my childhood, some of which was close to 25 years old. We pulled out drawing after drawing, sharing (and laughing over) our old artistic triumphs and failures.

When I was taking my first art classes as a child, for some reason drawing with colored pencil on black board was all the rage. Maybe the cool effect of the bright colors standing out against the dark paper gave kids like me a greater sense of accomplishment. I had a bunch of these old colored-pencil-on-black drawings including this totally rad name plate I made, probably circa late elementary–early middle school:

I think maybe this belongs on my new business card...

*So who remembers the video game Flashback?  I didn't have the right system to play it on, so I rented a Sega Genesis solely to play that game. I guess my love for Flashback hinted that Blade Runner would eventually become one of my favorite movies.

Happy Holidays!

Best wishes for the new year! See you in 2013!

Make Your Holidays Cuter!

Shameless self-promotion alert!

The holidays are fast approaching! Looking for cute greeting cards to send the family? I've got your answer...

...right here!

These holiday greeting cards featuring a Pancake Glider from The Explorer's Guide to Drawing Fantasy Creatures are available as single cards or packs of ten or twenty at my Etsy shop, Fabled Earth Art. And, if you don't mind waiting 'till almost the last minute, they'll be on sale for 20% off starting Friday, November 23rd through Monday November 26th!

If you're looking to do some easy online holiday shopping, I also offer prints, blank note cards, sketchbooks, and original art at Fabled Earth Art, and signed copies of The Explorer's Guide to Drawing Fantasy Creatures and my volume three sketchbook Journey are available to purchase through my website.

Postcard Illustration from the Suffragist Era

Today is Election Day in the United States. Yesterday, I came across an opportune article about the Suffragist movement in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the illustrated postcards that argued for and against women obtaining the right to vote. It's interesting (depressing) to note that some of the arguments haven't changed much over the past hundred years when it comes to gender roles and issues that affect women.

I love the idea (still alive and well today, especially on cleaning product commercials) that certain tasks are dismissed as "women's work" until men do them. Then they're suddenly soooooo hard!
Palczewski, Catherine H. Postcard Archive. University of Northern Iowa. Cedar Falls, IA.

Rose O'Neill, the illustrator famous for creating the Kewpies, was active in women's fight to win the vote.

"Give Mother the Vote!" women's suffrage poster. Chromolithograph published by the National Woman Suffrage Publishing Co., artwork by Rose C. O'Neil, 1915. Missouri History Museum Photographs and Prints Collections. Women's Suffrage. N20256.

For more about the postcards, check out the Palczewski Suffrage Postcard Archive.

If you live in the United States and haven't already, don't forget to go out today and exercise your right to vote!

No Reason

Election season is upon us in the US. For the past few days I have been mesmerized by this video. It. is. so. weird.
(More substantial posts coming soon! Promise!)

Abandoned Savage Dragon :(

Adopt me!

Someone came by my table at Gen Con and asked for a sketch of Savage Dragon on a blank sketch card. I obliged (he is lucky that the random artist he picked to draw this character actually knew who it was and could draw him without reference) but then he never returned to pick the card up. Poor Savage Dragon! I didn't want to throw him out since I did spend time sketching him, after all. Would anyone like this abandoned card? Cover the postage and I will happily mail it to you!*

*Edit: The card has been spoken for and is being shipped free of charge. Thanks!

Help an Artist Bring a Dragon to Life

Between working on projects that are under non-disclosure agreements (which means I currently can't share them) and my preparations for GeekGirlCon and Gen Con, I haven't had much time to devote to my blog in the past few weeks. But I do have time to bring the cool artwork of a fellow artist to your attention!

Gunter Reimnitz is a talented sculptor we met during our trip to Vashon Island earlier this year. He's hoping to raise the funds to turn his fantasy of building a one-ton fire-breathing metal dragon sculpture into a reality. Wouldn't you like to help him solve the riddle of steel by contributing to his Kickstarter campaign?
Check it out!

The Bumpy Landscape of a Typical Comic Con

David Apatoff of the blog Illustration Art describes the variety of art that was on display at San Diego Comic Con this year.

First Anniversary of Fabled Earth!

I just realized last night that Wednesday marked the first anniversary of Fabled Earth! Thanks to all of you who have visited, followed, commented and otherwise supported this blog and my artwork over the past year!

Best Video Ever

Giving Thanks

Happy Thanksgiving!

No reason...

I never get tired of this joke.