Bark Like A Fish, Damnit!

Art Dump!

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:33:18 GMT

It is a painfully glorious day. I highly recommend the pink pepperbush to any native gardeners--or gardeners in general. For awhile it was just a reasonably generic foundation shrub, but in the last few weeks it popped with pale pink bottle-brush spikes, and it's lovely. And the bees can't get enough, when they're willing to abandon the liatris for 'em.

Yesterday was a lazy day. I gardened, Kevin and I hung a lot of art--Kookaburra! Steampunk octopus! ADORABLE CRAB! and we generally hung out and played video games and amused ourselves.

Today I am wallowing in the joy that comes of knowing that somewhere, people are in church, and I'm not one of them. (Years--decades!--since my somewhat vague Catholicism lapsed, and I still enjoy this.) Time to scan some doodles from yesterday...apparently I'm in a serious rabbit mood at the moment. (I'm also feeling more like doodling...something about Cons gets me doing little sketchy pieces happily for awhile. Also, there's a couple from AC in there too.

Grumpy Bunny
Rabbird
ACEO--Black Bunny
ACEO-- St. Wormulard
ACEO -- St. Snailius

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:32:47 GMT

So yesterday I'm driving into town to pick up art supplies and meet Carlota for lunch, and a trucker honks at my car.

Crap, I think, do I have a flat tire?

He pulls up alongside me and I lean over to see if he's pointing frantically to my rear tires and making throat cutting gestures or something like that. He begins waving at me and grinning.

Crap, I think, do I know this guy from somewhere?

My car is, it must be said, a bit of a generic Nissan beater, but I'm probably the only person in North Carolina with a "Ganesh is my Co-pilot" bumper sticker, so one could easily identify it on the road. Also, I recently added a sticker with a big turtle and a PASS WITH CARE sign--part of the zoo's attempt to raise awareness of splattered turtles on the road. Maybe the truck driver was Hindu. He didn't look it, but I don't either, god knows. Maybe he just like turtles. Maybe I knew him from somewhere. Does Kevin have any friends who are truckers? I waved back politely and dropped back behind him. He began waving into his driver's side mirror and grinning cheerfully. Well, he seemed friendly, anyway...Digger fan? Remote possibility...huh, maybe I should check my tires, just in case...

At this point in the recitation, Carlota put her head in her hands and said "No, he was trying to flirt with you."

"...what?"

"Happens to me all the time."

"But--how can he even SEE me?!"

"They can see boobs and thighs, and I think that's enough."

"...."

I took this anecdote to Kevin, who gazed at me with the same expression that Carlota had worn, which is pretty much the one you get when you see a particularly dazed looking kitten trapped in the couch cushions. "Yup."

"WHY?! I mean, in the history of the world, has honking at random female drivers EVER worked!?"

"Well, if you read Penthouse..."

"Penthouse isn't real!"

"No, but still. There are women who try to pick up guys on chain gangs..."

I examined this situation from all angles and came up with "So basically, the take-away is that I shouldn't have waved back."

"No, that probably just encouraged him."

I slumped down on the bed. "The problem is that I've never figured out the point where being friendly stops and encouraging them begins. As far as I can tell, if I don't run you over with a car, I'm encouraging you."

Kevin considered this analysis and failed to refute it. "Well..."

I'd checked all four tires for flats when I parked, too. Sigh.

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 02:17:20 GMT

I rediscovered my love of brown sketchbook paper at the con--saw some gorgeous stuff done on it--but when I went to find a sketchbook, bugger if I could locate one with the brown paper! (Another artist warned me that it was hard to come by, and turns out she was right.) Three art supply stores, and all I could find was a pack of fifty bookmarks. (Now I see why she was doing those neat originals in bookmark sizes--necessity! Still, it's a fun size to play with...)

So, you get bookmark-sized doodles from this afternoon.

Little Brown Sketches 1

Little Brown Sketches 2

Pileated Phalloipecker (MATURE)

ETA: Non-DA link

And in the course of fooling with my sketchbook, I discovered the sketch for this, and thought it'd be a fun quickie:

Blue Tang Bunny

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:56:27 GMT

Well, it may not be the New York Times, but according to my editor, Dragonbreath is going to be appearing (at #13) on the IndieBound children's bestseller list, which is a listing for independant bookstores across the country.

And they're reprinting.

And that's a lot more bestseller action than I expected. (Previous expectation: None.)

At last, indie cred! I haven't had that since...um...wait, did I ever have that?

So, um....

HOOOOOOOOOOOYAAAAAAHHH!

(ahem)

I'm fine.

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:20:21 GMT

Alllllso! Volume 4 of Digger is NOW AVAILABLE!

Order Digger 4

A limited number of signed copies, however, will go on sale next Wednesday, at 8AM and 8PM Central (they want to make sure people in different time zones have a shot at them) I'll post the link to that next Tuesday.

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:15:17 GMT

Yesterday was awesome. Went to the zoo with friends to sketch, got the behind the scenes tour again, so I got to pet the lame ocelot (very friendly, missing part of front foot, so can't be bred or introduced to other ocelots--she can't defend herself--but loves humans to death.) Getting licked by an ocelot is possibly the best thing ever. Plus, while the ocelot is a serious show-stopper--her purr is this yowly growly noise that Ben would only make if someone was about to die--they also had baby Gila monsters, and those were also adorable in a snappy poisonous kinda way.

It's really funny to see zoo animals when the zookeepers are there. Since they rarely react to people, you just assume they're oblivious to whatever goes on beyond the glass. Not so...have somebody they recognize walk by, and suddenly they're alert and paying attention. (Not unlike me at a con, for that matter...) The roadrunner, Carmine, is a particular example...he has a serious vendetta against the friend who was showing us around, and he would follow her along the length of the cage, eyes fixed on her as she walked out of site, just waiting for her to get into beaking distance. (Apparently roadrunners are bastards.)

We also spent some time in the aviary--it's hard to sketch there, the birds move too fast, which is why my zoo sketchbooks tend to start with scrawled lines that might be the backs of quail or bobcats, and end with pictures of turtles and sleeping lizards--which was very Zen. There was a grey-headed kingfisher that stared at me for awhile which made me very happy. And the golden-crowned manakin was a teeny tiny black bird with a shocking yellow head and a voice completely out of scale to its size.

It was when the massive Victoria Crowned Pigeon strolled into view along the walkway that Otter threw her hands in the air and said "Is everything in the jungle designed by Dr. Suess!?"

Came home, ran errands, and then I spent much of the evening curled up on the couch playing Zelda: Twilight Princess, with Gir next to me, Ben in my lap, and Angus behind my head. Which was an excellent end to a pretty awesome day.

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:38:15 GMT

I have primer in my nose. (I wasn't huffing it! I don't think you can even huff latex paint! It was just on my arm, and then I sneezed and...well...mistakes were made.)

On the one hand, I am perhaps the only person I know who can paint a chair and wind up priming their nostrils.

On the other hand, if I ever get the urge to redecorate my mucus membranes, it's ready for a second coat.

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:23:16 GMT

Whew. Okay. Con is over, Con recuperation is over...time to resume Life As I Know It.

This is always a little difficult for me after cons--it's not exactly let-down, per se, it's more like I've been working towards this one event for a month, and now it takes a bit to slide back into normal day-to-day functioning. Lord knows, I have plenty to do--there's the small matter of all those illustrations for Book 3 of Dragonbreath!--and I always find cons rather inspiring, so there's art I'd like to do on my own, it's just a matter of getting out of event-prep-brain and back into normal-brain.

Meanwhile, the garden continues to grow--I've got a weed infestation in the middle, some kind of nasty matting grass, but it's a lot easier to de-weed a garden than a reef tank, so it doesn't bother me that much. (At least grass can't retract into the dirt!) I've been yanking chunks out every time I water, so it's slowly diminishing. The black-eyed susans on one side of the yard have popped, as have the liatris, and the pineapple sage are huge and torso-sized. The garden looks a little ragged and fallen over--everything's kinda leaning to the right, owing to the way the rain hits it--but next year, when I actually put in cages and everything's more established, it's gonna be awesome.

At least one of the trumpet coral may actually survive--it perked up after the feeding, and even had a tentacle out this morning. I'll give them a day and then do another shrimp feeding tomorrow, see if I can coax them back from the brink.

Anyway, the other thing that comes with return from the con is the post-con art dump, so let's kick it off with what turned out to be one of my two big sellers!

Blue Otter Triptych

Back From AC!

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:01:50 GMT

Whew, what a weekend. Great con, very profitable--unlike every other con I've done this year, AC has not suffered any apparent economic slowdown (thank goodness!) so I actually turned something like my usual sales. Bit more in the art show than usual, bit less at the table, but it ultimately balances out to the same number.

We have returned home, laden with art and Fiestaware (our drive goes by a wholesaler, and I have this serious Fiestaware habit) and everybody is fine--cats, dogs, Crab Bob. The sole exception is my candy-cane trumpet coral, which is bleaching and probably on its way out. (A coral "bleaches" when the live polyps are retracted or have vanished, leaving the stony white skeleton behind.) Being a complex, if tiny, system, it's hard to say what might have caused the coral to die off--I gave it a good feeding and I'll do a big water change this afternoon, but it could be anything, from angry chemicals put out by another coral that made it unhappy to Crab Bob taking up drumming. For all I know, it's pining for the fjords. It is unlikely that my presence would have prevented its distress, so that's something.

So many people to give a shout-out to at this con! Lord. I shudder to even embark on the list. I picked up some great pieces of art--a flute-bird by Tyrrlin, a teeny adorable crab by Meg Lyman (Kevin also got her Steampunk Octopus!) and a clock by Jill0r. Hung out with the incomparable Miss Monster, who is the purest of pure awesome and with the shadowy, mysterious furry artist cabal that rules the world (okay, maybe we just stayed up until stupid-o-clock in the morning working on sketchbooks, but they know who they are...) had a great dinner with the Sofawolf guys--who managed to get Digger 4 out for AC, saw a lot of copies go by, thank you to all the people who picked one up! Plus all the other nifty people I ran into or hung out with--the Steins, Blotch, Tango (Kevin left him to watch me at a very drunken party, while he ducked out for a cigarette. This was perhaps a cruel thing to do, but both of us survived. My liver may never recover.) Crimson, Fiawol, Waarhorse, the Jaegermeister man--he threatened to pour Jaeger in my wine, and I now run if I see him holding any object that might contain liquid--Susandeer, Den Mother who gave me a serious awesome little squash-phalloi, Tashabear and her husband, Psuedo...christ, I'm forgetting people, but...um... There were a lot.

Also, there was absinthe. You can't expect me to remember everybody when there was absinthe. Multiple kinds of absinthe. Absinthe martinis. I believe I was hugging random security guards and art show staff. Hopefully they were also too drunk to remember.

There were also some very nice fans, who got some nifty sketchbook commissions, and who it was fun to see--couple people who were at their first furry con, and hopefully were not too traumatized and will come back again.

It's also seriously awesome to do this Con with somebody who does not view it as a traumatic duty but as an awesome, if exhausting, adventure. Kevin took wonderfully good care of me, went to all the parties with me and quite a few on his own while I was burning the midnight oil on sketchbooks, and generally had a great time. He's still adjusting to the fact that when he says "I'm Kevin...Ursula's Kevin?" a disturbingly high percentage of people at this con will go "OH! I've read all about you!" and often hand him alcohol. (I warned him that furries were incredibly nice and rather tightly knit, but there's a difference between knowing and having random strangers prove it.)

And now I am near death and the house needs cleaning in the worst way, because even with people coming over twice a day to let the dogs out and check everybody, the beagle is incontinent as hell, and there are too many cats, so the rest of my day will likely be spent cleaning and trying to recuperate a little.

Slice of Life -- Early Morning Division

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:34:44 GMT

One of the fundamental differences between Kevin and I is that I get up in the morning and go "Aaaaargghghhlllbleggghfuckit," and Kevin gets up in the morning and goes "Arise, my Weasel Queen! Today we conquer!"

Fortunately, we rarely have to get up at the same time, or this might be problematic.

"I'm really not a morning person," he said apologetically, as I snarled my way into consciousness this morning. "It's just that I've been up for an hour already."

"So you say," I growled. "I know the truth. You were raised by mornings."

He paused in the middle of making the bed. "Is that like being raised by Mormons?"

"No, it's like being raised by wolves. The mornings take you in and raise you as one of their own. It's tragic, really."

"I do occasionally get this urge to run westward over the hills, painting things orange."

"There, you see? How many times have I caught you leaping over the hills, whooping, spray paint in one hand--"

"--trying to paint the clouds pink and orange--"

"--yelling "Shine, you mutha, shine!"

There was a lengthy pause.

"We're not right."

"Not really, no."

Anyway, Anthrocon! On the road today! Tomorrow, con! Come by! Say hi! (Buy art!)

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 21:05:18 GMT

A day of wild pre-con prep, which included doing page 600 of Digger. (Good god. Just...good god.) I still have to stuff print books, mat one last piece of art, do a water change in the fish tank, and pack.

Tomorrow, we hit the road!

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:49:34 GMT

It's been two and a half years since I separated from my ex-husband, two years since I had a bit of a nervous breakdown (which some readers may recall!) and to say that I am happier now is a laughable understatement. My life is so much better now that I lack adequate vocabulary to describe it.

Still, I have to wonder how long it's going to be before I stop having nightmares where I'm yelling at my ex. (This last one was particularly obnoxious, because I was sleeping with my mouth open and my tongue had dried out, so in my dream, my mouth was full of something--cookie dough, I think--and I was trying to scrape it out, while yelling into the phone. The tactile vividness of the dream was almost as bad as the emotional content.)

I guess it's really not that long in the grand scheme of things--it blows my mind a little that it was ONLY two years, it seems like something that happened so long ago, in another country in another language under another sun--but it throws my whole day a little off-kilter when it happens, and I spend the morning grumping around trying to get back.

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:41:17 GMT

Okay, super-sleuths, I have a question for you.

What the heck is this?

Supposedly it was filmed in the sewers under Cameron Village, a shopping district here in Raleigh, but bugger if I know what to make of those things. (Let me state categorically that I can't rule out viral marketing or anything else, and I know no details, although I will say that A) strange living sewer blob is not exactly the marketing system that yuppified Cameron Village would go for, and B) Raleigh seems like a weird place for viral marketing to start.)

Obviously it's alive. The third one seems to have some kind of slender, rigid thing sticking out in the upper right, which it retracts--reminds me rather of the siphon on my Nassarius snail, but could be anything.

Mostly I'm just wondering what they ARE. It moves a little like my soft coral move, so if there's some kind of freshwater anemone-ish sort of thing, I could see this as a tightly closed version, except that I've never heard of such a thing. So I appeal to you, O vast network of knowledge...what could those BE?

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:57:30 GMT

The signing went great! We had exactly the right number of books--we sold out ten minutes before the end--so it was awesome. Thank you so much to everybody who came out, and for everybody who couldn't, it's okay, no worries--there will be other signings, and I hope you or your cars feel better!

Also, I had no idea that so many of my readers had inner eleven-year-old girls. Apparently I get a virtual turnip everytime somebody signs up on Howrse and says Wombat sent them. (I did not realize that at the time.) I now have 115 of the things. You people are awesome and you scare me and I will try to respond to all those notes. (By the way, in case you haven't navigated the FAQ successfully--starts a little slow with a foal, but the game picks up after about a week, or if you forcibly age your horse with aging points. Also, you need the preventative worm medicine, not the deworming medicine, which confused the heck outta me at first.)

It's a gorgeous day out, I feel pretty good despite killing a bottle of wine with Kevin's mother last night, and there's a hummingbird on the lantana and doves in the birdbath, and once I'm done with virtual horses, I get to play Might & Magic for a few hours, so life is good.

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:52:02 GMT

I will not wallow in neurosis. I will not wallow in neurosis. People will show up. Even if it's just my usual posse--and god, someday I'm giving you all originals in sheer gratitude for always showing up to these things--there will be people there.

(To recap--Chapel Hill Comics, 1-3 pm, Dragonbreath signing.)

To distract myself, please allow me to reveal my secret shame to the internet--for the last month or so, I've been playing Howrse. Yes, it is a virtual pet sort of thing, although in this case, it's virtual horse breeding. It is terribly girly of me. My inner 11-year-old-girl gets ten or fifteen minutes a day to play at breeding virtual winged Fresians. (Hey, it's free. You don't have to judge me, I'm already judging myself.)

However, since I know nobody on there, and it's always nice to know if one's shame is shared, I'm Wombat, so if you find yourself in that direction, drop me a line! (Or tell them I sent you if you sign up!)

And now, back to neurosis...

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:16:27 GMT

Yep, it's con-prep time.

Where is the thing!? The thing! I need the thing! It was here yesterday! Without the thing, my plans are useless, I might as well just stay home, life without the thing is not worth living--aha! There it is! Great!

...okay, where's the other thing?

Rinse, repeat as needed.

I'll have like twenty-odd pieces for the show, most of them teeny, and I need to go get mats cut for some of 'em today. And order ink. And make an appointment for my brakes to get new pads.

All of which keeps me from worrying about the signing tomorrow, so that's something!

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:12:56 GMT

For once, I might have more than enough art for AC...yet I keep on painting more. It'll be mostly small pieces--I have nearly a dozen teeny little 2.5 x 1.5 portraits, and only a few larger ones, mostly in the 8 x 10 size range. (I'll also have a panel in the adult show for phalloi. Madness!) We'll see how it goes.

Meanwhile, I run mini-prints. Saints, saints, more saints...

As a reminder, there's a Dragonbreath release party/signing at Chapel Hill Comics on Saturday, 1-3! Be there or be...err...elsewhere, I guess. (Oh god, no one will come, it will be horribly embarrassing, or one fan will show up and feel cheated because it's just me and Kevin staring at our shoes...)

Okay. Got that out of my system. I do that every time. I will do that every time until the day I die, unless I somehow become as big as Neil Gaiman, in which case I will begin to fret that there will be too many people and they won't all get their stuff signed and they will feel cheated because they stood in line for six hours and then I fainted of heat exhaustion before meeting them. I don't see a middle ground on this one.

Time to drop Kevin's kilts at the dry cleaners and get lunch, I think.

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:29:41 GMT

It was a dumb joke, but I thought it'd be a great painting.

Then I went on-line and discovered that approximately ten thousand people have made that joke before me. But heck with it, it was too potentially cute NOT to draw.

Warhamster 40K: Black Templar

(I figure it's a crapshoot--either all the 40K fans go "Aww! That's so cute!" or they go "Well, you got the sigil wrong, the Black Templars don't have the pawprint, they've got a..." and then I have to explain that yes, I KNOW, but it's a HAMSTER and eventually drink myself into an early grave.)

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 14:59:39 GMT

Whew. Okay. Not quite as wrecked today from the con-hangover. There may even be productivity! (Madness!)

Unfortunately, I have retained one of the worst bits of the con...the earworm. Otter started singing "Strangers in the Night" behind the table sometime on Saturday, and it evolved horribly, until I began making up my own lyrics in the shower, much to Kevin's dismay.

Wombats in the niiiiight--
Exchanging glances...
Pooping cubicallllllly--
Good thing they don't wear pantses...

Pest Bobs in the niiiight--
Reproducing...
I kill them on sight
It's time for juicing...

Etc, etc, ad nauseum.

The garden bloomed in our absence--there's little green berries on the holly, the anise hyssop is going gangbusters, and the bee balm is covered in deep magenta flowers, with hummingbirds zipping around them. There are buds on the black-eyed susans. The echinacea appears to be dead. (I'll try again in fall--maybe it just needs a chance to establish the roots.) The giant rudbeckia has a spectacular flower, which would be even more spectacular if it hadn't fallen over and deposited the flower somewhere in the lawn. (Next year, cages.)

And now, time for running prints. And if I become particularly ambitious, I will go strip another chair.

Also, check out this awesome sculpture! The artist wanted to do a 3-D piece based on my "Orandas on a Wire" painting, and her blog has the step-by-step process. It's really cool!

Well, there goes MY indie cred...

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:43:25 GMT

So apparently, after years and years of doing a webcomic, of slaving over a hot script, polishing dialog, honing my art style to a vague linocut-like edge, it's all payed off.

I've finally broken into mainstream comics. That's right, y'all, the real deal. As good as it gets. The big time. The hallowed halls.

We're talking Marvel.

Obviously I am far too cool for all of you now, and also for my pants, which is why I am going on to head to glory alone, in my underwear. (My Bettie Page shirt can stay, and my socks are tie-dye and thus can come with me as far as the bus station.)

Behold! A panel of issue #3 of Marvel's Destroyer.

...okay, well, I probably can't parlay that into a lucrative superhero-drawing career--not unless they do a reboot of X-men that involves everybody turning to mutant hamsters, and I think they tried that in the Eighties* and it didn't go well--but I gotta admit, I stared at the computer while my eyes popped and then started laughing hysterically for several minutes.

Sure, I'm a weirdo indie comic maker doing wombat stories and kid's books about dragons and mutant potato salad, but my friggin' PEAR gets into mainstream superhero comics. *headdesk*

My thanks to Heli and gamergrrl for sending the image and confirming the source, respectively--god knows, I'd NEVER have tripped over this one on my own!--and to whoever the penciller is that thought the Biting Pear needed to be in this issue--you made my day.

(No, before you ask, I'm not suing, as I feel they're not making money on the Pear per se--it's like drawing a Punisher shirt on somebody in a crowd scene, and I've done THAT--it's just a pop culture background reference, and I think that's fair game. If they started putting out issues of Pearboy, that'd be another kettle of worms...)

So there's my big mainstream break. You saw it here first.

...man, they're NEVER gonna let me into Small Press Expo now...

*Everybody who had an issue of Hamster Vice, raise your hand. It's okay, you're among friends here.

Vampires Under The Floor

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 01:25:00 GMT

I am extremely tired.

Con accomplished. And I am exhausted.

I don't know why I'm so tired after this one compared to all the other cons I do. This one destroys me in ways that no other con does. I've decided that it must be vampires under the floor. I've done some that are bigger, plenty that turned even more dismal profit, ones longer, ones with concrete floors just as hard, ones with drives just as lengthy, my corsets are no tighter, my boot soles no thinner, and for some reason, after Heroes, I'm so tired I'm practically weeping with exhaustion.

Last year, I got to Kevin's from the con--I hadn't moved in yet--and he flatly refused to let me keep driving, because I was at the point where I was so tired I might as well have been driving drunk, and even though I haven't been spending the night while his kids were there yet, and we were trying to be circumspect, I fell into the bed for four or five hours because I was physically unable to keep going. Which is kinda funny, in some regards, because Kevin and I were dragging our gear out--he was half-dead too--and we were saying "you know, humans get sent on forced marches, for DAYS, and I mean, sure, they're awful, people drop dead, it wasn't the Bataan Fun March, but they can go for days and days and most of them manage, so why the hell are we whimpering and limping and light-headed after maybe five hours spent mostly sitting down?" I mean, seriously, we were wrecked and we weren't even drinking heavily at night or anything--we were in bed by midnight or before both nights, I had a single rum and coke one night, and just...my feet are about to fall off, and my powers of concentration are badly degraded.

I dunno. Vampires under the floor, maybe.

It was good to see people, run into some old friends, we had some great food, it wasn't a bad experience by any stretch--thanks very much to the people who came out, it was really good to see you (and it would have been much more exhausting without people to comedistract me!)--but I am inhumanly tired.

I go die now.

Heroescon Prep

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:21:35 GMT

Today's dedicated to con prep for this weekend's HeroesCon in Charlotte, and lord, is there a lot of it.

I did most of my printing last week, so today is all jumbo prints. Then I pack up Sir Printy and my art equipment, pack a suitcase for suitable Con dress-up (Leather Saturday, vaguely Ren-Faire Sunday...Friday is set-up, and I prefer not to wear corsetry while lugging heavy objects.) transfer all the new images since last Anthrocon to my portable harddrive (unnnghgghgh....) do a water change in my fish tank and pack my car.

And buy a timer for my tank lights.

Whew.

Come out to Heroescon! This may be my last year doing it--I'll have art and Biting Pear soap and do sketchbooks and I'll have a few (very few) Dragonbreath on me and Lord willing and the creek don't rise, a bunch of Digger, and Endangered Ark Cards and all kinds of stuff.

Meanwhile, have some art!

Iguana Triptych

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 22:43:27 GMT

I am marginally more cheerful this afternoon, my natural ebullience having overcome my gloom. If I have a raspberry chair then so be it...I'll paint the other three in their respective colors, and then if it's still eating at me, I'll repaint it.

Meanwhile, I have been amusing myself before the con with teeny tiny paintings. These are 2.5 x 1.5, inspired by some clayboard cut to that size that I picked up on a whim. I have done several phalloi (it's not the SIZE of the phalloi that matters...) and a couple of other random things, including a few birds.

Teeny Snowy Owl
Teeny Red-Bellied Woodpecker

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:16:33 GMT

Hmmm.

The color swatch of this paint looked a lot more fire-engine red in the store. I hope it dries darker, or the lighting has a serious effect, or something...or else I will have just painted a defenseless chair a really intense raspberry pink.

Nothing that another can of paint can't fix, but the difference between perception and actual color is rather shocking...

ETA: Now I'm wondering if the lighting at Lowes, or the printing on the swatch, is to blame. I checked the swatch on-line, and while computer monitors are not terribly trustworthy, the color swatch was much lighter and much bluer than it appeared in the store, where it was darker and had notably more orange. This was supposed to be fire-engine with maybe 4% more blue, not...raspberry.

ursulav@metalandmagic.com — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:07:51 GMT

Reading through my flist today was like the hit parade of links to articles about people doing stupid things...small children flushing puppies down the toilet,* elderly Christian activists suing a library for the right to burn a book about homosexuality because exposure to it caused them lasting emotional harm, etc, etc ad nauseum.

What a world.

My faith in humanity is at a low ebb. Perhaps I will go put a coat of paint on this chair that I am repainting. Of course, it's pouring rain, which means that it's going to take a year to dry (I'm painting it on the front porch) but I wouldn't have time to put a second coat on until tomorrow anyway.

*The puppy lived--it was a heroic-rescue-of-animal-in-drainpipe story. My primary takeaway is not heartwarming, however, so much as a desire to beat the children involved, and then beat the parents much, much harder, for allowing four-year-olds around a one-week-old puppy unsupervised.