Illustration HW

I should be working on my Illustration homework (as I work all weekend and I also have to find time to do touch-up work on my still life painting) but the internet has dragged me down yet again. I feel like I can't be productive until 9pm. Ug. Gotta figure out a way to get better working habits.

Anyway, above is the value study done digitally for my last illustration project. Huzzah.

Additionally, my good buddy Patrick from Greyspace has made the first purchase ever from my Etsy sho (thanks again dude) and a nice woman from Canada has made the first purchase by someone I don't know personally. Thanks!

On a side note: now that I sold a button set to someone in Canada, now can I claim I'm an internationally recognized designer/artist?

Anyway, time to start work I guess.

Check out my Etsy Shop!

After slowly working on this between homework, life in general, and work, I have finally opened up my own little button shop at Etsy.

You can check it out here at www.RiSK.etsy.com

I've got my buttons up and running. Hopefully I'll eventually have some illustrations, chapbooks, comics, clothing, and more up, but that's all for now :)

And if you spread the word, I'd be most grateful :)

Oh yeah, and I finally got some art to put up.

This is my first oil painting EVER. Well, the first one I actually tried on. My first ever oil painting was with Eve, and I did a little 3x5 canvas board in about 10 minutes. This one took about 6 hours.This one is my second oil painting, but the first one wher I actually had to mix colors myself and not rely on shit that comes out of the tubes.

Eh, the drawing is kinda off in em, and the colors/values could be better, but for 6 hours each, I don't think they're half bad. And excuse the bad photo quality. I'm still working on that.

stockton is lame-sauce

So I was totally going to publish my first oil painting* ever, but I can't find the cable to hook my camera to my computer, and it's too large for my scanner. Poop. But it's in B&W and it's decent (kinda). Anyway, for never taking an actual painting class before, I'm pretty proud of it.

My classes are cool. I can already tell homework is going to get pretty frickin' bananas later on, but for now, I can at least breathe. The worst class is my online one, cuz I feel like I never remember to log in and do all the reading until waaay late. Sigh.

Illustration 1 is pretty cool so far, but we shall see how things go, as the assignments are only going to get crazier.

Also, I totally voted for neither Obama nor Clinton, as I hate the electoral college and believe in voting for who I would actually want to win. That said, I do kinda hope Obama takes it, as I figure the guy (although not that great on policy) can whip up an emotional fervor, which most Americans care about. People too often vote by who seems the coolest or who seems most likely to beat the Republican, rather than by who has the better policies.

I'm still waiting for a queer woman of color to become president. A guy can dream, right?

Anyway, I was checking out Diana's blog, and found this in an older post:

"Forbes’ Misery Measure determines the most miserable cities in the US. They are

1. Detroit, Michigan
2. Stockton, California
3. Flint, Michigan
4. New York, New York
5. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
6. Chicago, Illinois
7. Los Angeles, California
8. Modesto, California
9. Charlotte, North Carolina
10. Providence, Rhode Island"

Now you ask why I'm always a bit sad to tell people I'm from Stockton? And that is why I now live in San Francisco.

No new art, just projects

So I haven't really been working on anything decent to put up here recently, but I have been sticking to my "draw every day" routine, so I'm at least still working.

However, I'm currently working on a variety of projects while enjoying the last fleeting days before school starts up again:
-The Yet-as-unnamed-collective: a bunch of friends and I meet biweekly in order to kick around ideas, show mock-ups, and eventually we hope to start up a business!
-The Zine project: Eve and I are holding each other to two-week deadlines for the major steps of making a zine, in the hope that we'll both have zines to distribute in 10 weeks.
-52 cards: I'm working on redesigning all 52 cards of a standard deck of playing cards (it's still up in the air if I'll end up doing the jokers as well). I'm aiming for completion in January of 2009, so I'll average one card per week. Sadly, I'm slacking and only have really even started with one card so far. But hopefully I'll get into the groove of things, as this is my experimental project. I really want to use different styles and techniques to showcase all the different subject matters and styles of art that I enjoy creating.
-Etsy: I also want to get up on Etsy and finally go about making an account. I figure it's the next best thing until I get off my ass and finally finish the webstore/website that I've been talking about making for the last year.

I think the major holdups on the website boil down to 2 things: a)not knowing which style I want to focus on (cute vs. scary vs. realistic vs. cartoony vs. political) and b)not having enough material to put a site up. Sigh.

Anyway, keep on rocking, and hopefully I'll be back with some art soon.

Return from Seattle

So we're back from Seattle. Over the course of the trip, E and I both got colds, which are lame, but we gained craploads of information. I managed to bug Jason Chan about classes at Academy to take, the art directors from Wizards of the Coast on how to go about priming my portfolio to get a chance to paint Magic:tG cards, and learned buckets full of information on the industry, concept art, and techniques on digital painting.

Overall, it was too much to process while I was there, and I'm just beginning to process it now. Also, my fingers are cold so my typing is getting really slow.

Anyway, I'm working on a 6 month artistic plan of goals to accomplish. I'll post that and some new sketches I'm working on later this week.

Seattle, here we come

So after an exhausting but fun New Year's, the Seattle Concept Art.Org/Massive Black workshop is upon us. One day for sightseeing, 4 days for the nonstop pure synthesizing of energy into art. Hells yes.

Also, I made a News Year's Resolution to draw every single day, no matter what. So far, we have kept ourselves to this. Just 362 more days to go :D

Eh, I kinda like the old one better

See below for the O.S. (original sketch). Any suggestions? Anyone?