Life

Odds And Ends

These are pictures that don’t quite fit into any particular category. Most of them were just for my own amusement, not for any book or project.

I drew this during one of my annual visits with Dani; I think she was living in Texas at the time:

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Tyleet was one of my favorite characters from the comic book series “Elfquest:”

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A whimsical “self-portrait,” just for fun:

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My horse Stormy, my half-wolf Lakota, and my iguana Khismet all made it into the scene.

I did this one just a few weeks before I met Steve for the first time. Foreshadowing?

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This next one was a paid job…sorta. One of Steve’s friends opened a bar (of course) in Anza called “The Wild Rose Saloon.” It had kareoke and a dance floor and sometimes a band, and that was our hangout on the weekends, for the several months that it stayed open. Steve’s friend’s bar did a hopping business, but he was a little fuzzy on that whole paying-his-bills-and-rent issue. Anyway. Right after it opened I was asked to design a logo, and I came up with this one:

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By way of payment Steve and I each got a free tee-shirt with the logo on it. I still have mine.

Here’s one that I did for a friend of my sister who was into gargoyles:

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And one of the very few projects I did after Elizabeth was born:

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And I think that’s about everything blogworthy from the “Miscellaneous” file.

Wordless Wednesday and Love Thursday are coming up, so I’ll probably get back to the retrospective on Friday.

I wonder how much it would cost to install a skylight in my bedroom and make a little art studio area in there. It’s like one more part of my brain just woke up. That’s been happening quite a lot since the separation.

Categories: Animals, Artwork, Dragons, Friends, Horses, Life, NaBloPoMo | Leave a comment

But First….

So, remember that miscellaneous artwork I was going to post today, before getting to those horse portraits I keep going on about? I’ve gotten ahead of myself again, there’s something else I want to post first.

When I first learned that the machine shop I was working in was going to close down, I decided it was time to kick-start my art career. I did a bunch of small horse-related pen-and-ink drawings and submitted them to two or three horse magazines that use just those sorts of illustrations.

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I got back form letters saying that their files were full at the moment and that I should try back in a few months. So I did, and added some breed pics to the submissions.

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I got the same form letters back again from all the magazines. I concluded that there was no shortage of hopeful equine artists out there trying to break into the industry, and I decided to look in other directions for my big start.

Categories: Animals, Artwork, Horses, Life, NaBloPoMo | 2 Comments

Greetings

I was digging through my old artwork looking for those horse portraits, and I realized that there’s some other stuff I want to post first.

So today we have greeting cards. I started making homemade birthday cards for close friends, and then got into mass-printing my Christmas cards. I still have a few copies of designs in various stages of completion; I’ve posted them here in chronological order:

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This was a card I made for Steve, of course:

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And here’s the first horse portrait I ever did:

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Duchess was the horse Steve was riding at the time, before he got Sam. I gave him the original painting for Christmas that year, and printed some smaller copies onto Christmas cards for him and his family.

This card has a special place in my heart:

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It was the first commissioned-and-paid-for picture I’d done since I’d moved to Anza. A couple I occasionally house-sat for wanted their pets immortalized in pen and ink. I felt like my True Calling was finally getting back on track!

More Christmas card designs:

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I have one more batch of miscellaneous artwork to post tomorrow, before I get to the horses.

Also I’m suddenly feeling the urge to go out and buy art supplies.

Curse you, NaBloPoMo!

Categories: Animals, Artwork, Birthdays, Christmas, Friends, Horses, Life | 4 Comments

Today’s Special Moment

Brought to you by Stil Vodka:

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Categories: Humor, Life, Marriage | Leave a comment

Sampler Saturday: Special Edition

I know I promised horse portraits today, but I want to share these.

Elizabeth’s room hasn’t had a good cleaning in months…I think it was last spring sometime, pre-separation…and the mess was getting positively epic. So over the past week I’ve been going in there for a few minutes every day while she’s at school, just shoveling trash into a trash bag and toys into toy bins and so on, trying to find the floor.

I did eventually find the floor. I also found a few things that amused me.

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This is a pic that for whatever reason never made it into the book, but I love it! That’s Elizabeth in the front car, Buizel the Pokemon right behind her, Dragonite (her AdventureQuest character) next, Yoshi in the fourth car, then Thorn and Dart (both dragons).

Beneath the track is Prizabeth, Elizabeth’s Evil Twin, up to no good as usual.

Then we have this one…

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…which speaks for itself.

And then I found this, which just cracked me the heck up:

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Indeed.

Categories: Artwork, books, Comics, Dragons, Family, Humor, kids, Life, Sampler Saturday | Leave a comment

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