Oh man, today was beauuutiful. It was about 90 in the sun and cool in the shade, not a cloud in the sky, and I went to G-ma's and laid out by the pool after a bit of swimming. I am just slightly burnt, where the heat is kind of radiating off my skin still and it is awesome. I love swimming and I love summer and YAY I will be tanner by the time Portus rolls around, lol.

Aaand I did terrible this time for Hogsmede! I only entered one thing :\. But it's ok because I was working on commissions instead lol. I have an almost finished Snape Mix though that I'll post here anyway.

( lucissa doodle )

( Got some more buckles left! Brass and silver finish.... )

...for the artist types out there.

Do you ever think about drawings while driving? I visualize a lot about building a picture, forming it in my head since I'm lacking a sketchbook/place to draw/time. Pretty much "drawing" a full image in my head to store it until I have the time. It's a dangerous thing, but I'm totally focused on driving, but today I was visualizing...and somehow I got from the store to home and I can't remember the drive. It's happened before. I need to stop doing that...but I'm paying attention, but I'm also thinking. Weird.

Kinda like getting the best ideas in the shower and having to cut the shower short to get the ideas out.

(Picked up a much better sketchbook and it's helping so much. Paper that actually picks up pencil. No longer am I trying to draw with a rock on a rock!)

Also, thanks to karn! Some amazing stock reference places on DA:
http://double-crow-stock.deviantart.com/ - Costumed poses (great for fabric)
http://felixdeon.deviantart.com/ - Nudes, classical poses
http://jademacalla.deviantart.com/ - Action poses!
http://lastdarknight.deviantart.com/ - Not sure if this is stock, but has some good reference material also.

Just some good stuff to really study when life-models and actors aren't readily available.


I also need photos, photos of spiderman character reference. One character per comment. Throw one at me on a whim. I'm picking and choosing with no promises (and I should be in bed for work, but fuck work.) :3

These socks were originally started for my mother, but after getting sidetracked watching LOST, well they were a little too long for her and I couldn't resist trying them on to see if they fit me. They did and I just couldn't frog them back for her! ( See the socks! )

( leather and brass buckles... )

I’m in love with it the weather right now. It’s really feeling like summer. It’s so warm and sunny and the air smells wonderful, like fresh cut grass and flowers. This morning we made a yummy breakfast and sat out on the back porch just enjoying the weather, the sprinklers came on and they made a nice misty breeze that felt like the coast. Helps that I don’t have to go back to work for eight whole days. Mmmm. I plan on spending lots of time enjoying the heat. And working on art.

So have some more Celtic knots:

Hi everyone!

I have two brand new original paintings to show you, as well as BRAND new Canvas prints & Sale Prints!

First off is the new big framed painting! Having just come back from the Caribbean myself (I spend a lot of my time playing pirate!), I was inspired to create this new series of Pirate Girls. Please meet the first - "Captain Molly Morgan" - very feisty, a little tough, and absolutely adorable - she stands on a beautiful Caribbean beach, a little upset about something! Framed she is quite large - 30" high by 26" wide. You may notice her traditional nautical tattoos - an octopus and an anchor. There are a lot of small details in this piece - a tiny Jolly Roger flask at her waist, a sword at her back, intricate outfit, hairstyle, etc. Very cute! And guess what - she is FRAMED! Yes, you get the FRAME too - and it is gorgeous! "Captain Molly Morgan" is an original acrylic painting on a 16x20 masonite panel and it has been framed in a GORGEOUS open-wood antique style ornate golden frame - about 2" deep and over 5" wide! I have finished this piece with a glossy varnish and it looks amazing! This piece is 100% ready to hang on your wall, and so cute! She is up in my eBay store until either somebody buys her or else she's coming along with me to Dragon*Con!! Click below to see her:



Click HERE to see my new magnificent "Captain Molly Morgan" FRAMED ORIGINAL PAINTING

If the original painting of "Captain Molly Morgan" is not in your budget, don't worry - I also have gone ahead and put up the Canvas Prints as well as the 8x10 and 12x16 glossy SALE prints up already!

Next up - the prints for Captain Molly Morgan! First I have the Hand Embellished Canvas prints up in my eBay store - the next best thing to owning the original painting - each is one of a kind - hand embellished by me, signed & numbered. You can find them in my eBay store below:

"Captain Molly Morgan" 11x14" Lt. Ed. CANVAS PRINTS

I also have her available this week as SALE prints!

To see ALL of my current sale prints (suggested!), visit the SALE section of my store HERE

or individually, click below:

"Captain Molly Morgan" 8x10 SALE PRINT $9.99

"Captain Molly Morgan" 12x16 SALE PRINT $20

Next up is an adorable little witch painting on wood! No, it's nowhere near Halloween, but I'm one of those people who can appreciate a good dose of Halloween cheer at any time of the year, so I thought I'd paint this cutie! It is called "Turned You Into A Frog!" - it features an adorable wide eyed little Halloween witch with a pointy hat and cute orange & black outfit. She's in front of a night sky, clutching a big green frog! This is a very cool painting because as I mentioned - it is on a piece of wood! A slice of log, actually - environmentally selected basswood - with the actual bark & lichen still intact! It's an oval slice, measuring about 12.5"x7" an original acrylic painting on a wood - ready to hang with a hanger on the back and a nice glossy varnish - and she is up for sale on eBay - a ten day auction starting at ONE PENNY with no reserve - ending on the evening of Wednesday, May 28th at 6:41 PM CENTRAL TIME and you can see her here:



Click HERE to see my "Turned You Into A Frog!" ORIGINAL PAINTING ON WOOD

And to see any other available ORIGINAL Paintings - click below:

Jasmine's Original Paintings

Enjoy the new art, and the rest of your weekends!

I keep starting to post, but never do.

We've had a new HP Officejet 6310 scanner/printer/copier/fax for a while. It's a decent little thing for a decent little price, main gripe about the hardware is that the color cartridges are so small. HP has just about the best support under Linux, too. However, whereas other people have gotten their 6310s to work perfectly or nearly so, I cannot get mine to scan anymore: after the first two scans, it stopped working. Still prints fine, but that's why I haven't had any hand-drawn art posted in a while. I've tried just about everything I can think of, from getting the latest driver (HPLIP 2.8.5) to resetting and unplugging and all that good stuff. Everything short of installing the newest Ubuntu operating system, that is.
I give up on fixing it myself and will just have to wait for somebody in the Ubuntu forums to help me out, I guess. Maybe I can get John (the guy who put this PC together, big Linux-head) to fix it if that doesn't work. While I'm at it, he could also help set up my wireless router. Haven't been able to configure that properly, still.
My job and my place of employment are more and more disgusting to me every day. My usual department hasn't had any work for more than a week, so we've been shifted around to work on whatever other jobs need doing around the plant. Monday won't be fun, especially since I've managed to thoroughly bork my sleep schedule today. Also, my whiz-bang MP3 player stopped working, so I'm back to lugging around a bunch of CDs for music on the job. I really want to quit. In fact I have a very decent financial buffer if I do so, but I'd like to have some idea where I'd be in the next month if that happens.
I'm supposed to get a call from somebody about a side job fixing up people's computers (though this printer thing shakes my confidence a bit, it would almost be entirely Windows stuff I assume). I'm also looking into those A+ Certification courses from the local tech college, but it seems they may have changed the format on those and gotten a new instructor. Perhaps the courses offered one county over might suit me better, and this college is supposed to look better to employers.

Stimulated the economy a bit: bought two artbook/retrospectives of Frank Frazetta, a used ELO best-of CD, a new Trans-Siberian Orchestra album, and signed up for the Books-A-Million membership special discount card thingy. Buying those two Frazetta books covered about half the cost already.

My older brother is back in jail for another six months: still isn't paying his child support. We were called upon to clean out his apartment a couple of weeks ago. Among his possessions were a bicycle with a broken front brake and a pair of those Perfect Pushup swiveling handles. I just might make use of those while he's in the big house. Other stuff included a small, crappy-looking flat screen TV, an old Xbox, plenty of videogames (including duplicates of the same game, some still shrink-wrapped, some for the Wii or 360), two cigars' worth of tobacco, unrolled, and the remains of a bag of pot. So apparently he's still doing drugs and stealing, but not working.

I didn't realize that the logic for the EMG-Zine archives was slightly garbled. It worked great the first few years, but year three apparently gave it some fits and it would think that articles in particular months of particular years were still future articles and you weren't allowed to read them yet. Woops. I tried to figure out why it was thinking such a ridiculous thing for a little while, but it's Sunday and my brain is tired from all this relaxation, so it was easiest just to bypass the access permissions and open everything up non-registered-wise. It may return to the usual archives for registered members only, but for now, it's a free-for-all.

If I were very good, I would go fill orders for a while, or work on labels, or something worklike, but I'm taking a weekend. So, there. I think the remainder of my weekend may involve a sketchbook and some StarGate. Already, it has involved hanging a cabinet above the washer, which makes a WONDERFUL difference in our kitchen, and going for a 2 or 3 mile walk in the woods with husband and dog.

Alas, I got the quantities available for the tea (note to self, verify hold order on Monday!) and it's grim. Only 25 of the Shoggoth and Kachina, 50 of the Breakfast Blend, and 100 of the Odd Fish. Merp!

*plunges headfirst into finals*

Ten days and I'm done. This is the time I worked so hard for, on one hell of a rough road with all my family happenings. Let's finish this job and prove myself!

Superwintertransformation GO!

There’s a tiny Great Tit in my bedroom inside a plant incubator. Cat brought it in and I found her looking very disinterested while it trashed about between her feet and a plant pot, really crying out like a fledging does. Probably not long out the nest though it has full feathers. I thought I’d lost it when the dog moved in. He’ll snap up anything in true terrier fashion, and he has in the past.

So I have a cat by the scruff in one hand, the dog by the other, both going wild, and I’m calling for help for ages until someone drags themselves off the sofa to see what the fuss is. Then instead of helping out, I get questions like “what is it, what is it? Show me? Point it out.” I can’t point, I’m holding down a crazed pussycat and a salivating dog.

Eventually both are taken away. I emptied the plants from the incubator and popped the poor thing in there on some sawdust and paper. Dropped in a few meal worms, water and left it in the bedroom where it's dark and quiet. If did flutter about a bit, and it felt like everything was intact. No blood. But as soon as it was on the sawdust it shut its eyes and started nodding off. Poor thing may well be dead from shock already, but I’m not going to disturb it for a good few hours.

If it dies I will have to hand over the next gloomy task to someone else. I’ve buried enough animals this last month.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/05/literally-last-minute-doodle-reminder.html

Just a reminder.... the National Doodle Day auction has an hour to go. Quick! Bid for a good cause!

(Last year, Barack Obama's doodle went for $2075... I hope we can get some of the high scoring doodles up to those kind of figures. Please don't make me run for president. Of anything.)

The National Doodle Day auction has begun. Proceeds will benefit Neurofibromatosis, Inc. (nfinc.org).

To immediately access the eBay auction --
http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZnfinccharity

Direct Links to Neil Gaiman's doodles plus his fave doodles on the auction block:

Ebay link to doodle #1

Ebay link to number 2

Kendra Stout: Ebay link here

Cat Mihos: Ebay link here

Fred Hembeck: Ebay link here

Sergio Aragones: Ebay link here

Gahan Wilson: ebay link here

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

The background for Hesphaestus is finished, and as I had hoped, it's a little dark and brooding. It will serve to highlight and frame the part of him which I make beautiful.

I was nervous when I began painting today. I planned on including a volcano in the background, but once I had finished working on it I discovered that I didn't like it. *sighs* I hate losing time, and I hate having to begin again even more, so it is during moments like this when I realise just how lucky I am to be using acrylics instead of watercolours; a few coats of paint later, and you would not have guessed that the volcano was there in the first place.

So tomorrow -- or should I say later today -- I will paint Hespaestus himself, and then the second last card will be finished.

But for now, I need sleep.

Phim this is your fault. You and all your strange talk of chest hair nests and little birds.

( lululul internet quizzes )

OKAY WOW REDEEMING FAILPOST IN 321
Combichrist - Tractor
_{I am like a tractor, I am slow but I am fit. And eventually I'll find you. And crush you like a little shit.}
Wolfsheim - Heroin, She Said
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood

Mood: busy
Location: at home



http://khaosdog.deviantart.com/gallery/#Digital-art

No internet connection yet. Anyway, here a couple of pics of magazines featuring my artwork. First one is from the Realms of Fantasy, second is from Fees Divers magazine (in French).



And a online article about me and my work » http://www.textyladies.com/?p=66#comments

( comic page )

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080518/ap_on_re_us/train_derailment;_ylt=Al.OEQUQMb6hRA5JpgK7W1xH2ocA

Read about how a city extremely close to mine gets poisoned and the folks are forced to evacuate! WWwoooOoo yay Louisiana!

I knew out roads were shit, but evidently out railways are too! I hope our planes are functional at least..


Oh, and in other news I got FLIGHTFORMFLIGHTFORMFLIGHTFORM

Went out to Chen's for some Chinese. Once we got there the car we parked next to had the license plate 'ghsthntr', and you damn well bet I was looking at all the tables when we got inside. Sadly it turned out to be a pudgy goth chick and her ridiculously skinny boyfriend. :< Oh well. Hot and sour soup made me ick afterwards too.

This week is making me feel oh so poor. I realize that AC happens after my loan payment is due for June, not BEFORE where I could you know, use my profits to pay the goverment. No, I have to make an extra $100 before AC now. Or recycle all my mats from older art, don't order any new ink, and walk from the airport to the hotel...