Octopus’s Garden

Here’s some art:

I started this piece several months ago. Somewhere along the line I went mad with power and blacked in way too much, and once I realized it, I sort of stopped liking it. I’ve been trying to use more contrast of both black vs white and texture vs space, but I think this one would have been better sticking to the texture play. Now it’s a bit too heavy, but it’s still technically worth showing I suppose, so here you are.

I could probably help the balance of this piece by putting a bit more black in the white areas of the top right quarter, but for the moment I’m sick of looking at it, so I’m calling it done.

Rescue

If you’ve been following my twitter stream you’ve probably already heard that one of my cats is diabetic. She’s fine, never actually got to the point where she was acting weird (which made figuring out what was wrong a bit difficult) but my brain has been pretty cat centered last couple weeks.

Chyna is the cat with diabetes. We’ve got her on special food and we’re giving her insulin injections twice a day (which I mind much more than she does). The vet shaved a patch on her back to make it easier for us at first, so now she looks like she’s got a sunroof. We couldn’t help laughing at her for the first couple days.

The drawing below is of Tricky, the other cat (because she’s the one who was finally willing to look at my phone and give me a good face photo). She added to the sick cat confusion by puking all over (just hairballs) just as Chyna got her infection so we took the wrong cat to the vet at first.

This week’s Illustration Friday is “Rescue.” The first thing I thought of was rescue animals, cats and dogs. (And since I’ve been sick this week, drawing a cat was an easy option.) Chyna was a rescue cat, Matt got her from a foster program before I met him. Tricky was also I suppose, just not officially. She was a pregnant stray when she adopted us.

We’ll probably always go with rescue cats, I’ve never really understood why so many people pay hundreds from breeders when there are so many unwanted cats in shelters. My friend Kim got a beautiful kitten from a shelter last year (Olive is lovable, though bitey, but that’s cats for you).

I kind of get it more with dogs. Breed plays into personality quite a lot, plus, no matter how much the experts say dogs are never too old to be retrained, it’s obvious early habits make a much bigger difference with an animal that can rip your throat out if it gets too scared. Abuse and poor training can really screw up a dog, while with a cat the worse you’ll get is a nuisance.

Rescue dogs can be a bit of a gamble, though the rescue dogs I’ve met have been wonderful, including a shepherd mix that probably saved my niece from a coyote when she was three (nope, not exaggerating). When we went to get Kim’s kitten, she was thinking she might get a dog instead.

We found an absolutely sweet 9 month old dog, a Pharoah Hound mix (I’d never heard of them) that was quiet and friendly, and seemed like she’d be a great pet for Kim. We asked at the desk if they thought she would make a good first dog, and we were told, regretfully, No.

The dog was “trained” on puppy pads, which means it had learned to go to the bathroom right on the floor, which is, you know, fantabulous. Also, the dog had chewed up every bit of wooden furniture in the house, while left alone all day as the owner woked.

That’s the tragedy of rescue animals. You get a fair number of animals like Chyna and Tricky, born strays from stray parents. You’ll find animals that are left behind when an owner dies, or becomes homeless, or just gets too old to care for it. Too often though, the pets you find in shelters are animals that are abandoned, or returned, because the ownder simply doesn’t want them anymore.

The cat isn’t as cute as it was when it was a kitten and it scratches up the couches, pees on the carpet. The dog is too much work, and it hasn’t been trained, so now it’s unmanagable, even dangerous. Sure, those that are abused or starved, those animals are far sadder. It’s so easy to justify taking back a “bad” animal. We forget that animals are living beings and not toys. Someone else will take them.

I have been a bad pet owner. Now Matt and I have cats that are such prizes it makes me cringe with regret. The drawing I did of tricky doesn’t express what a sniffy cat she is. If you’ve ever had a sniffy cat, you know what I mean. When we first got her she couldn’t figure out how to sit on a lap and now she’ll run to curl up with you as soon as you sit down. When I pick her up, she meows and struggles in complaint, but the whole time she purrs so loudly you can hear her across a room.

Chyna does everything timidly, primly, as though she’s made of glass, and you feel a bit like she is when you pick her up. When she’s upset she hides her face against you. At night when I brush my teeth, she likes to attack my socks. She is always utterly happy to be in the same room with us. It takes my breath away.

Fast Drawings

For this week’s Illustration Friday, “Fast” I thought I’d do a set of quick sketches.

Click on any image to see a larger version. Everyone knows cheetahs are the fastest land animals:

According to wisegeek, cheetahs run up to 70 mph. I run about 0.70 miles per hour on a good day.

The fastest water animal, I had to look up.

This is a sailfish, which I had heard of but had never really thought about much. They’re actually pretty cool looking, like a dinosaur mixed with a swordfish. Like the cheetah, sailfish travel 70 mph, so in a triathlon I suppose they’d be about evenly matched. Until they got to the biking portion, because everyone knows fish can’t ride bikes.

Finally, the fastest animal of the air is the aptly named Sir Not Appearing in this Film. Wait. I mean the aptly named swift.

Swifts fly through the air at 106 mph, making them the fastest animal in the world (probably not great in the triathlon though).

I’m pretty happy with how the sailfish and the swifts turned out. I got the cutout effect by reverse selecting the subjects, and darkening the paper grain to add in a more noticable texture. The cheetah is ok, but I always have a tough time with cats for some reason. This one looks a bit like a monkey or a hyena, but as my cats go, it’s acceptable.

Frozen

On September 29th, a U.S. District Judge dismissed Janice Langbehn’s lawsuit against Jackson Memorial Hospital.

(click for larger version)

In February of 2007, Janice and her life-partner Lisa Pond were beginning a vacation with three of their four children when Lisa collapsed on the deck of a cruise ship. Lisa was rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital (Florida) and Janice followed with their children as quickly as she could.

Half an hour after arriving at the hospital, a social worker went to Janice and told her, ““you are in an anti-gay city and state. And without a health care proxy you will not see Lisa nor know of her condition.”

Janice, a former health care worker, responded quickly, having her legal Durable Powers of Attorney faxed to the hospital. In spite of this, Janice and their children were left in the waiting room with no information for several hours. Eventually a surgeon told her that Lisa had suffered an aneurysm and would have no recovery.

A priest came to give Lisa last rites, and Janice attended with him, seeing her life partner for the first time in five hours. After the rites, Janice was ushered back into the waiting room.

Lisa was in the trauma room for 8 hours, but Janice was denyed the comfort of being with her during her final hours, minutes. Their children, legal children of both Janice and Lisa, were not allowed in to say goodbye before their mother died. Jance continued to wait in a non-informational bubble until Lisa’s sister came to the hospital. At that time, Lisa’s sister was told that Lisa had been moved more than an hour ago. They had not bothered to tell Janice or their children, waiting in useless space. The blogpost explaining the case can be found here.

In some ways, this story has nothing to do with Same Sex Marriage. Power of Attorney is exactly the legal protection someone is told to get if they want to make sure they’ll be allowed to be present in the event of a loved one’s deathbed. This is the power that allows you to make medical decisions for someone, to stay informed on their condition, to be allowed to visit their bed if it is medically possible. If a gay woman with Power of Attorney was denied those rights, there is no reason to believe she would have been given information and access even if she had a legal marriage. There was NO legal basis to keep Janice away from Lisa as she lay dying. As for keeping out the children, there is no human explanation. It’s nothing short of hateful.

The dismissal of the case is an endorsement for Legal discrimination based on sexual orientation.

This is not being overly dramatic. If there is no other legal basis for the decision, it can only be legal discrimination. My concern, beyond the obvious unfairness, is that if it is “ok” to discriminate based on sexual orientation for ignoring Power of Attorney, perhaps it is also ok to discriniate for treatment. This may seem like a stretch, but the precedent has just been set. I only hope they appeal.

In other ways of course, this is entirely about gay marriage. I have never understood why people who feel it is “wrong” for gay people to marry, think their belief entitles them to make the marriage illegal. Laws are meant to protect us, not to cage us, at least in this supposedly free country. Having same sex marriage in no way harms those who feel it is immoral. Keeping it illegal on the other hand, harms many.

I do not however think that legalizing gay marriage is the solution. Rather, I think all “legal” marriage should be abolished. Too many people of this country have proven that they are incapable of understanding the difference between legal marriage and religious marriage. Here is the point: the rights given by a legal marriage CANNOT be determined by religious standards. It doesn’t matter if we call it a marriage or a bunny rabbit; the only thing the STATE can grant two people, any two people, is a civil union. Currently, most states call this civil union a marriage. A few states call civil unions a marriage when it is between a man and a woman, but a civil union when it’s between two men, or two women.

It’s idiotic. Let’s just call them all civil unions and be done with it. If marriage is so loaded a word that we automatically attach religious meaning to it, the state has no business granting it, any more than it should start baptizing babies, or mandating fasting periods.

It is as problematic to have the state grant marriages as it would be to have the state tell churches who can marry. If the idea of having two men marry seems wrong to you, imagine having the government tell your church that they must allow men to marry each other.

Leave marriage where it belongs: In church. It should be up to churches to decide who can and cannot marry. If your church says it’s a sin for a woman to love another woman, that is their right, no one can force them to allow it. That’s what a separation between church and state MEANS. Meanwhile, if those crazy Unitarian Universalists start marrying Jane and Jane, WHY SHOULD YOU CARE? Please. I am begging. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Let them live their lives freely.

Flying

I haven’t even gotten around to drawing last week’s Illustration Friday theme, “germs” (I really wanted to do that one but I probably won’t) but I’ve got something old-ish for this week’s theme, “flying.”

Probably a better title would be falling but…I drew this image after reading Rogue Planet (a Star Wars book) by Greg Bear. Anakin is about 12 or so, getting sort of bored with the Jedi life, and seeking adventure. In one of the opening scenes he finds out about an underground race that takes place I think in the sewers of Coruscant, using these sort of winged jet-pack things. It sounded like super-enhanced hanggliding. It really just needed to be drawn.

I went for a sort of Icarus feel for the composition, and I was happy with the result, particularly the perspective. Unfortunately I rushed the background and kind of ruined it. It does have a nice raw feeling, and there is a sense of motion, but it’s just too messy to be very effective. Maybe some day I’ll cut out the surviving sections and start over.

Fan Girl (me)

On Sunday, Matt and I went to see Neil Gaiman reading at Cleveland Public Library. Amazingly, this event was free. I mean, I would have paid to see Neil read, but free is fantastic. Our libraries rock.

Anyway, Matt is wonderfully supportive of my fan-girl-ness. It probably helps that he is also a big fan of Neil Gaiman’s writing and comic books.

I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of crowd. I figured either, yeah, it’s Neil Gaiman, so they’ll be lining up around the block (this is what actually happened) or this is Cleveland, so no one will find out about it, and there will be fourteen people in a huge auditorium yelling, “we love you Neil!”

There ended being over a thousand people, all radiating happiness and hero worship. Neil’s fans are an odd assortment of hippie-craftsters, goths, metal-biker types and general misfits, most of which are much friendlier than they look. The book worm connection probably helped. Matt, who is usually by far the social one in our pairing, accused me of being a social butterfly for once.

It’s just easier to talk to people who are a bit batty over fantasy and such. Cult audiences are so much fun. Also, yes. A real bat got into the building, which seemed fitting.

Neil is super friendly, which didn’t surprise me, but he is also rather adorable, which did. The grim visage he carries around doesn’t really translate in person.

We got to hear the first ever reading (I think) of Odd and the Frost Giants, a short novel he wrote for World Book Day, which I’d never even heard of until yesterday (the day, not the book, but actually, I’d never heard of either).

Apparently authors and publishers put out 100 page books for free, children are given book tokens and get to choose from (I think) 9 books. I’d never heard of it because it’s the world OUTSIDE of the US. Shame, it sounds like a good idea.
Neil and his undead army. Actually they’re Oberlin students, and I had a brighter picture, but I liked the zombie look.

There were enough people that not everyone fit in the main room, which I think held about 700 people.

Another few hundred peopel were shuffled into an overflow room across the hall, where I suppose they watched on TV screens. Still more were turned away entirely. Matt and I got there just before noon, and managed to get great seats in the middle. During the question and answer section, Neil made sure to gett a couple questions from the overflow room, which was cool of him. He also took a few questions from kids, (there were quite a few in the audience) including “do you remember signing a girl’s foot in Portland?” which was pretty entertaining.

He got a standing ovation, which is predictable these days, but I’d say he actually deserved it, which is less common. He’s a fantastic speaker, and of course most of his fans already know he’s a wonderful reader. I’ve listened to his audio books before, but I was still sort of amazed at his vocal range with characters, particularly reading Odd and the Frost Giants. I really did feel as though I were a little kid again, listening to the bear voices in a faerie tale. Afterwards he signed books and possibly feet.

Actually he’s a saint. He signed for everyone that wanted something. I’m not sure what time he left, but Matt and I finally made it out with our signed books at about 6 pm, and I know Neil was supposed to leave to catch a plane at 4:30. So yeah. Saint.

In high fan-girl fashion, I drew Neil a picture, hoping I’d have a chance to give it to him. I’d planned to draw something from one of his short stories, but I couldn’t settle on anything so I ended up doing a caricature of Neil. As he put it: “Oh it’s me! Beekeeping! With a 3 headed Cabal!” So I think he liked it, even though my friend Jack told me I was being creepy.

I made his head too big, and the dog’s body is a little confusing (but I suppose it would be) and actually the front dog head looks like a Corgi, which Cabal certainly is not. And don’t even ask about the futuristic bee hive.

I wanted him to be grabbing something out of the air, and I eventually settled on star anise. I tried to think of what an idea might look like, and this seemed like a good representation: half seed, half star.

His cloak of course is a nod at the Sandman’s getup, and I was trying to make his hat look a bit like Odin’s cap, but honestly that’s pretty much what beekeeper’s hats look like anyway, so I’m not sure I succeeded.

It was an amazing day and I got to give Neil my drawing, and we got some books signed, and hear part of a new story, and get a teaser about what he’s working on now, and generally hear him talk about what he does and what it’s like. It was an unbelievable way to spend a day, especially sharing it with Matt. Even if I didn’t get to eat more than a cookie and a half between waking up and 7 pm dinner. I’m still a bit giddy, and emotianlly drained from being giddy all day yesterday. Totally worth it.

Pattern Recognition

This week’s Illustration Friday is “Pattern,” and I had an old piece that fit too well to resist. I’ve never posted it on this blog, but I posted it last year some time on Living in Space.

The title I gave this at the time was EmpTV. The style is much more simplistic than I usually do, playing more a comic-y effect, and appropriately, experimenting with pattern. I like the result, though I probably won’t repeat it often, since I’m sort of obsessed with line and detail. Another piece that I found a bit more interesting was this one:

The theme for this was “zoo,” can’t remember if it was for IF or something else. I was especially happy with the squiggly patterning in the bushes in the back, and this piece, far more than the TV zombie piece, ended up being a directional piece for my style. The blog logo for example, was absolutely drawn with this piece in mind.

Finally, since both these pieces are old, I figure I’ll give you a sketch I did this week: (don’t have a scanner, so a photo is the best I can do)

This was drawn yesterday at a Caribou in some Chicago suburb. Not exactly sure where we were, but you can rest assured, if there’s a Caribou in the area, Matt and I will find it.

Normally when I sketch in public I concentrate on people, but since I’d like to do more finished drawings involving cityscapes, industrial pieces, and in general, less organic subjects, I took the opportunity to make myself draw the whole room. It took a shift in perspective to say the least. I started with the fireplace, and though it was relatively easy to estimate the size on the page, I was surprised at how small everything was. I’m hoping this will also help my background staging in general illustration since one of the criticisms I’ve received with my artwork is that backgrounds are a bit stiff (I AGREE). You can see what I mean here:
This is part of a comic I created (ignore the implication that I finished it, I only inked 5 pages) called Messenger of the Gods, to show at Wizard World a few years ago. (More Messenger of the Gods pages in my Gallery)

I’m hoping if I keep practicing drawing settings they won’t feel so much like, well, backgrounds.

(Note RE: a couple other crits I got on these pieces – The character looks like a boy because… he is a boy… who happens to have long hair. The character looks like he has a black eye because he… wait for it… has a black eye.)

Infinite

When I heard the Illustration Friday word of the week, “Infinite,” the first thing I thought of was the silly philosophy question “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?”

I’m pretty sure at least one of the answers that came out of that was “infinite,” but I could be thinking of “is Hell endo or extothermic?”

Of course there are other ideas about the pin question…

“Firstly, angels simply don’t dance. It’s one of the distinguishing characteristics that marks an angel. They may listen appreciatively to the Music of the Spheres, but they don’t feel the urge to get down and boogie to it. So, none.

At least, nearly none. Aziraphale had learned to gavotte in a discreet gentlemen’s club in Portland Place, in the late 1880s, and while he had initially taken to it like a duck to merchant banking, after a while he had become quite good at it, and was quite put out when, some decades later, the gavotte went out of style for good.

So providing the dance was a gavotte, and providing that he had a suitable partner (also able, for the sake of arguement, both to gavotte, and to dance it on the head of a pin), the answer is a straightforward one.

Then again, you might just as well ask how many demons can dance on the head of a pin. They’re of the same original stock, after all. And at least they dance.

And if you put it that way, the answer is, quite a lot actually, providing they abandon their physical bodies, which is a picnic for a demon. Demons aren’t bound by physics. If you take the long view, the universe is just something small and round, like those water-filled balls which produce a miniature snowstorm when you shake them. But if you look from really close up, the only problem about dancing on the head of a pin is all those big gaps between electrons.”

- Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

I haven’t decided yet whether to develop the sketch into a portfolio piece… I like the concept but I’m not sure if I’m actually managing to draw the pins successfully.

Tangled New World

I don’t post on Sugar Frosted Goodness nearly often enough, but this week’s theme (and last) was “New Work” and I realized I DID actually have some things that might sort of qualify. In fact, I realized that my favorite portfolio piece (which does not yet appear in my online portfolio because I have not yet gotten around to updating it) has never been online.

As I was working on putting together all the odds and ends of graduation this spring, the Editor of the Vindicator asked me to do an illustration for an inhouse ad. She left it pretty open, but asked for something that illustrated diversity and interconnectivity. This is what I came up with:

They ended up flipping the image for the ad. I’m not sure why I decided to center the image around knitting, but I liked the idea of having all the cables work as yarn, and, you know, the craft movement is HUGE right now, so it kind of works. For any geeks out there, take note of the OLPC.

This is sort of the direction my style has been tilting lately, with the interplay of color and lots of white space. It’s far more contemporary than the stuff I did in college, but still lets me focus on my technical strengths (I think). That’s not to say I’m not doing any more black and white, but I’m trying to incorporate a similar feel in my new ink work. Anyway, comments and criticism welcome. Sometime soon I really will redo my website, and there should be a couple new things in there.

Close up:

Mech Tree

I know, it’s been weeks since I’ve posted, and now I’m just giving you another drawing, but this is all I’ve had time for lately!

The most recent Sugar Frosted Goodness was “sketch” and I was excited because I figured even when I’m busy I can find time to do a sketch. I was mostly wrong, the category was last week’s, but I figured I might as well finish it anyway.

*I’ve been interested lately in steamer-punk art and sculpture. I realize I’m coming a bit late to the trend, but I’m completely intruiged by the combination of industrial elements and victorian ornament. I’ve been wanting to do some kind of drawing in the style, but the elements of steamer-punk; archetectural and mechanical, are exactly the kinds of things I don’t have experience drawing. I’m far more comfortable drawing people and organic objects, so I figured instead of leaping straight in, I’d take a lesson from Mattias and steampunk up something I was more comfortable with. (If you haven’t seen Mattias’s Baroque Star Wars I highly recommend it, particularly the Death Star.) I’ve done this before on a small scale with a metal lobster (not to be mistaken for a rock lobster), but a tree was a much larger undertaking.

It took for freaking ever, possibly nullifying the time benefit of doing a “sketch.” Most tedious were the “leaves” which were inspired by Solio portable chargers, which are sort of flower or leaf shaped, and being solar chargers, do in fact serve the same purpose as leaves.

For some reason I wanted the roots to include wheels, and they are therefor obviously not rooted at all. Matt insists that the wheels make it a car, and he’s probably right, but I don’t see why it can’t be a tree as well. Now that I’ve got it on the computer I can see that I’ve left a few areas unfinished (trailing wire, needs extra wheels, etc.) so maybe I’ll post the final version once I finish.

The visual charm of steamer-punk for me is that it has aspects of both design and art. Steamer-punk drawings remind me of the da Vinci sketches of crazy flying bicycles.  At some point I’d like to start making show type art (as opposed to illustrative art) which exploits that design visual. It probably won’t be steamer-punk, but playing with that style is a nice way to stretch my skills, and also much more satisfying than other kinds of practice, like say, still lifes. Bleagh.

*Click on main image for larger version.