Dragon Tamer . . . Again

Housewives didn't kill me last weekend.  But this past week has been really difficult for a number of reasons that I don't want to get into.  Still plugging away at DT.  I have piled masses of color on it in Photoshop and I think I've found something.  I hope.

Where Dragon Tamer is now.  

Where I was going originally.

This is a little too dark, I think.  

But I have a tendency to leave my pieces too light, so . . . 

There are still a lot of aspects that I am struggling with, but I am happy with the overall values and I think that pushing the dragon back a little as far as value goes is going to work.  Hopefully the final wont be the riot of color that you see here.  I'm still not as comfortable with Photoshop as I should be.  But I think I have enough here to make informed decisions about my palette.

As you can see, I am no where near where I wanted to be by the end of last week.

1. Dragon Tamer: new color comps and start on the final again.
2. Clean my room (this is an epic undertaking, I may not survive, so if you don't hear from me again, that's why).
3. Sketches for the New Commission - send them off for approval by the end of the week.
4. Help my mom set things up for the Garage Sale this weekend (Again, I might die . . . or get mauled by housewives.  Whichever comes first).
5. Review and edit my summary of the steampunk Little Red Ridding Hood story and lay it out in the format I am going to print the booklets in.
6. Outline my plans for teaching art classes from home.
7. Continue to revise, edit and research painting for sister and FBIL.
8. Not die cleaning my room or setting up the garage sale or participating in the garage sale.
9. Wash my dog . . .
10. Start assignment for LPG class.
11. Email sample images to art directors.

Some Truth for Today - And Some Whining

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you an episode of drama.

I don't know why I am writing this here, other than it has to do with art and I feel the need to get it out.  I am disappointed, again.  I told y'all that I hadn't been accepted in this year's Spectrum, that it was disappointing.  And it was really, really disappointing.  Not crushing; it's a waste of time to let something like that crush you when there's paintings on the board to be finished and ideas in the sketchbook to be processed.  But, still.

And I had another one today that I don't quite understand.  I am on the verge of tears (quite annoyed about that) and I don't know how to process all of this.  I mean, disappointment and still plugging on despite it - that's part of life. Even more a part of being an artist.  But that thought really doesn't comfort you in the midst of the disappointment.  I feel like I've made strides - I am certainly a better artist than I was at this time last year.  But obviously I still have a lot to learn.

You know on this side of disappointment, when there's nothing to balance it against, I am in danger of loosing perspective.  That's the real danger.  That's what I have to walk (or run) away from with intention.  Because really, I'm only disappointed that no one recognized what I feel I've gained over the past year.  And while recognition is important, it's not the most important.  Art needs to be made for it's own sake - whether or not someone's there to applaud it in the end.  Because I enjoy making art.  I enjoy telling stories.  And if I let external things start dictating where I find joy in this process then I might as well pack in the bag now.

The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.  --C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

There's a story that I really love about the composer Bach.  He had composed this new piece of music, practicing it over and over with his musicians until it was absolutely perfect and had scheduled to play it at a church.  Well, the day came, and Bach and his musicians had shown up to put on this concert when the caretaker had walked up, mortified, and said to Bach:

"I'm sorry, sir, but no one has come to hear you all play."

But Bach (oh, how I love Bach) just waved it off, and said, "we'll still play," turned to his flustered musicians and said, "get ready," and Bach filled that empty church with his music.  

Now I first read that story here (and it's a great article, you really should read it, the story is told much better by Ms. Clarkson), and something written there has really stuck with me and I've been thinking about it a lot, lately. Bach "understood that the music you make carries a beauty that is meant to be given, played into the world regardless of audience or recognition. It wasn’t about him. It was about what God had given him to create. He played it because it had to be played whether anyone heard it or not."

So I guess in the midst of this, that's what I need to hold onto.  

Though it would be nice to be making money with art at some point.  

A Much Needed Update

My dog got bit by a snake last week.  That was interesting, for lack of a better description.  The vet said all the rain we've been having has flushed the sankes out; he already had three other dogs come in with snake bites.  She has cancer and she's blind, so I think we need to start adding "the indestructible" to her name.  She's been such a good girl though all of this, no complaining at all!

So, updates.  I'm trying out Glipho which is a social media site that's compatible with Blogger, Tumbler, and a bunch of other sites.  As of right now, it looks like I can't set a time and date for the post to be published, but I might be able to work with that . . . I'll let you know how it goes.

I entered Spectrum, found out that I didn't get in which was a let down, but I'm moving forward.  

Haven't gotten the new cards yet - they should be here by Thursday.

Justin Gerard, Cory Godbey and Chris Koelle's Lamp Post Guild is up and running, I am taking one of the classes with them.  About to start the first assignment later this week - again, I will let you know how all that goes.  

I have a commision (my first one! (Save the Dates for siblings don't count)) which is exciting.  Starting work on that this week.  

I also, in conjunction with the postcards I ordered last week, have been trying to figure out what I need to do for future promo pieces.  I've come to the conclusion that I need to do something that really exemplifies who I am as an artist, something that shows where my passions and interests lie.  

Defining my passions and interests was easy: story.  Working out how that can be developed into a tangible mail-out or email isn't as straightforward.  But I think I have decided on a place to start. Maybe.

I'm going to take some of my stories and some other people's stories (public domain) and create a small series of ilustrations and spots for each.  I'll create a summary of each of the stories and lay them out with the illustrations, print and bind it in a booklet to mail to publishers.  Hopefuly it will show that I have a concept of narrative illustration and layout, etc., etc.  

Now part of the problem is that a lot of art directors seem to want emails - but maybe that's not a problem at all.  

I'm going to start with my Steampunk Little Red Riding Hood, maybe Dragon Tamer (when I'm finished) and then probably something by Dickens - Tale of Two Cities or Christmas Carol, I think.  Eventually, I want to take a public domain book, fully illustrate it myself, hand-bind a few copies and self publish.  Tale of Two Cities is where I'm going to start, I think.  But that will be a project years in the making, so we'll see.  But that's potential-future-maybes . . . 

In the meantime I am also trying to get set up to teach some art classes from home . . . And then there's the gift I'm painting for my sister and future-brother-in-law . . . Yeah.

Right now, my goals for the week are . . . well, it's me, so there are a lot of them:

1. Dragon Tamer: new color comps and start on the final again.
2. Clean my room (this is an epic undertaking, I may not survive, so if you don't hear from me again, that's why).
3. Sketches for the New Commission - send them off for approval by the end of the week.
4. Help my mom set things up for the Garage Sale this weekend (Again, I might die . . . or get mauled by housewives.  Whichever comes first).
5. Review and edit my summary of the steampunk Little Red Ridding Hood story and lay it out in the format I am going to print the booklets in.
6. Outline my plans for teaching art classes from home.
7. Continue to revise, edit and research painting for sister and FBIL.
8. Not die cleaning my room or setting up the garage sale or participating in the garage sale.
9. Wash my dog . . .
10. Start assignment for LPG class.
11. Email sample images to art directors.

That's enough.  Right?

Some Truth for Today

This is an excerpt from one of my favorite books.  It is the last book in a series of three stories that started with a retelling of Swan Lake.  All three are illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg.  I love them.  They resonate in a way that I still cannot define.  So I thought I'd share this piece:

"Though once I was a singer of tales, they were not very good, for I always put too much of my heart in them, and never enough (I was told) of calculation.  Where others would captivate and entertain, I would only sing a simple song that bent its head as if in prayer before time and truth and love.  It was all I  could do, and all I wanted to do, and I don't know why.  I followed nature's wild rivers and God's glittering lights, and they led me into a land where I was alone.

. . . Long ago, in the time of the old emperor, I was young and just beginning in my profession.  The usurper was there, and one could not escape his evil presence . . . there was a struggle between what was, in the main, good, and what was, in the main, evil, and that time after time the good prevailed made the children born in my time believe that this was the natural order of things, that even if it took a great deal of effort, effort would always find its reward and the just would triumph, as would the innocent.  

I still believe, which is why I am on a hillside waiting.  And I certainly believed then, even as the usurper began to gain the upper hand. Surely, I thought, the crimes that bring him power will soon bring him down . . . I did not change my songs, as did the other singers who listened carefully to everything that was new, and soon I found that I was nowhere, they were everywhere, and the usurper had taken the throne.

Can you imagine my surprise the day that he sent for me? Why would he bother with a singer of the old songs?  Why would he bother with me?  But he did bother.  He cared inordinately . . . I was so afraid that my heels shook as if in an earthquake.  As soon as he began to speak, however, I realized that I need not have feared.  Either he would kill me, and I would have eternal peace, or I would beat him with courage alone.

. . . I was expecting to die right then and there, but he said, "I order you to unravel your singing."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Unravel it!"

"Meaning, sir?"

"Your songs," he said impatiently.  "Undo them."

"I can't. The're already sung."

"Then sing them again, differently.  Sing them so that they are about me.  Sing them so that when people hear them they will weep for my sacrifices and admire my powers."

At this I laughed, which must have astonished him, knowing as he did what he had in mind for me.  "I would not laugh if I were you," he warned.

"Why not laugh?" I asked.  "I know how you will torture me, but I know that I will not sing the songs as you would have me sing them.  You might as well try to burn water, because I'm water, and water doesn't burn."

I spent then the next years of my life - the longest years I remember - in the deepest torture chambers underneath the loftiest prisons.  By some chance or interference I refused to die, day after day, until finally the armies of the young queen captured the city and freed us all.  No longer a singer, and fit only to be a soldier, I joined the victorious armies just as most everyone else was leaving them.  Of low rank, broken memories, and no prospects, I knew nonetheless that a new struggle was inevitable.

 . . . "Why didn't you simply alter your songs?" he asked, gazing at my scars, of which there are so many that even to this day I can be only a man alone.

"I couldn't."

"Why?"

"They had already been sung.  They existed."

"But why not change them as requested?"

This question puzzled me.  "Never was there the possibility that I would do that."

"Why?" Notorincus pressed.

"I suppose it's because they're like people," I said.  "They may be like dumb or ugly people, or people who are deformed, but I couldn't just take their names, annihilate them, and issue new ones, could I?"

"I suppose not, if you think they're like people but are they really?"

"Yes," I answered, nodding.  "They have in them something, sometimes a great deal, of the people I love, some of whom are lost forever.  Therefore, I could not have split them like wood, or carved them like stone.  It would have been a betrayal, and it would have corrupted the world."

"The whole world?"

"Just my part of it," I said, "but this is, after all, the part for which I am responsible."

"You would have died rather than abandon the old songs?"

"Yes."

"But life is so precious."

"Yes."

"It is paramount."

"No."

"No? Then what is?"

"Love," I said, "and honor."

"Excellent!" said Notorincus. "Excellent! . . . And you?  Can you still sing tales?  The queen loves the singing of tales."

"No," I answered.  "I cannot.  I have in me only one more tale, and I must wait to see it before I can sing it.""

The Veil of Snows, Mark Helprin

Contact Cards and Postcards

Just put in an order for new contact cards through Moo.com, along with a set of postcards.  I love the quality of the paper they use!

Also, your first order through them is 10% off . . .

Sorry, I've been so bad about posting.  I will try and keep you abreast of developments, but other than working on postcards, Dragon Tamer, and another project I can't tell you about, I haven't been doing much of note.