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:
Tyleet was one of my favorite characters from the comic book series “Elfquest:”
A whimsical “self-portrait,” just for fun:
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?
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:
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:
And one of the very few projects I did after Elizabeth was born:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
This was a card I made for Steve, of course:
And here’s the first horse portrait I ever did:
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:
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:
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!


























