I’d like to point once again to my tumblr, where I attempt, although not always successfully, to take one picture every day.
On February 28th, I went to a RAW art show at The Act nightclub. Great fun was had. I met lots of awesome artists, and support my friend Carrie. I bought several nice things for myself while I was there.
2012 was a good year for me. I can hardly say I’ve had a bad time since the middle of 2011 to be honest. Life has been rather good to me. I’ve received many gifts and opportunities particularly in 2012:
I’ve revisited the convention scene, getting more acquainted with those in my town.
I’ve received opportunities to show my work in other places.
My day job has been steady and enjoyable, my coworkers fantastic.
The love and friends in my life have been good and reliable. And I hope they believe I have been as well.
2012 has also been a year of revisiting. I’ve gotten in touch with people I’ve fell out of touch with. People that have been great influences in my life, and may continue to be.
I have great hopes for 2013. Great plans. Projects. Reconnecting with people that have influenced me, and connecting more with the new influences in my life. Going to more conventions to show my work, and enjoy the work of others that are local. And First Friday! First Friday is a terrific monthly art event I’ve longed to be more a part of.
With that, I welcome the new year, and I hope the new year is a bountiful time for all of us.
Namaste and well met,
~Erika
I’ve started the 365 Photo Challenge and created a Tumblr for it.
The challenge consists only of taking a photo everyday for one year. It sounds like it would make a very interesting journal to page through once it’s done. You can read a little more about the idea over here.
The picture to the left is the first photo. It is of the World Market Center in Las Vegas where I attended a friend’s graphic design presentation. The Tumblr for photos is over here.
Anyway, I got things to do now. Thank you for visiting!
Goooooood Morning,
For a while, I tried to update every week, however it seems once a month is a lot more comfortable for me.
The last month has been lovely. Las Vegas Comic Expo was AMAZING. I sincerely hope they have it again, and I was pleased with the Riviera convention space. I did VERY well, and already have ideas for next year. I spent a week in Maui Hawaii on vacation with my fiance and his family. It was a lovely slow moving break from the fast pace my life has been gaining. And this last weekend was Anime Vegas. I usually go for Saturday and Sunday, but I could only make it to Sunday. I’m not sure how I feel about Cashman Center, but I did like that it’s more space than Alexis Park.
In site news, I updated with a new page, a portfolio for Graphic Design. I’ve been meaning to do this for… well, years now, and finally just collected the work and threw it down.
In art stuff, I’m working on a few projects that I actually can’t show the progress on yet. A graphic design mascot, some concept art for a potential comic, and some scripts for hopefully my own novel/comic. I do have some art in the Gallery at EMG-Zine this month though, so have a looksy.
That’s about it for the time being. And now, I have an abysmal email pile-up I need to clean…
One of my favorite celebration type days.
I made this kind of scrapbooky card for two friends at work. Hope they like it. 
CHEERS!
So after reading a lot of stuff, and moping around other artists’ websites, I decided to go with a WordPress site for the next permutation of the site.
I had REALLY wanted to redesign anyway, simplify things, and integrate the blog. I had also wanted a blog I could crosspost more easily (blogger is kind of picky about sharing).
from now on, I’ll my WordPress be the blog and main site, and have blog posts mirrored on LJ and Blogger.
I’ll write about the con I went to this past weekend later. Much fun was had.
Cheers.
I got myself an easel, board and big paper last night and dicked around with oil pastels, markers and vodka. Much fun was had.
It was nice to draw in a medium I hadn’t used in a good long while, but I’m not a fan of oil pastels. They’re kind of messy, and I feel like I have to strong arm them to blend them the way I want them.
I switched to marker pretty quick. I found these big fat sharpie markers in our office. I love the bold and irreversible marks of markers.
It felt freeing to draw on wider pages, to use arms more than hands, but drawing so huge is definitely going to be a rare thing.
Ever since college, teachers and sometimes other artists would tell me I should draw bigger. I never really understood this. I like big as a change of pace, an exercise, but I’ve never been fond of large work as a finished product. I can’t work on big things just anywhere. I can’t store them just anywhere. They’re cumbersome, and all around less fun to me.
I like small. I like baseball card sizes, and art that fits neatly within 8.5 x 11 or smaller. I can store it anywhere, it’s so easy to take with me.
I think that’s enough mildly drunken rambling for now. Next post will probably be after the convention at the beginning of March.
I remember being pretty bummed out at the beginning of this year. A lot of lame things were going on. 2010 was a bad year for jobs for me. I had been unemployed for the first few months since I my graphic design gig fizzled at the end of 2009. I did a temp job and a sales job back to back, before ending up at Wells Fargo as a temp at the end of the year. I wasn’t terribly optimistic for 2011 for improvement, I really felt like I was just picking pieces back up and trying to get them in order. 2010 was a miserable rollercoaster at times. I really just wanted to get a sense of stability.
And in 2011 I got it.
I enjoyed my temp job at Wells. I indexed account documents, so I was able to listen to audio books and podcasts like there was no tomorrow. I listened to a little over 50 books I don’t think I would have read otherwise. My fellow temps were, and still are, amazing people. It was a chill gig until a contact from last year offered me a position at the casino she works at. Which was an amazing opportunity for which I am still grateful she thought of me.
My art health has been better too. I remember in 2010 having a hard time defining why I draw art when now and then it didn’t actually make me happy. I don’t think I draw as much now, in 2011, but I’m much happier with what I do draw. I’m happy with my spirituality, and how my work flows through me, however slow or fast it happens to be. I was invited to an art show called RAW, which was an amazing event, and I held a table at Animeland Makiba. I already have plans to do conventions more often this year.
I also feel I’ve become quieter, artwise and speaking. I think there is a pressure to produce produce produce as an artist. To be prolific, and talk a lot about art. “Maintain a presence,” they say. “Post art, post sketches, be active on forums, do things all the time,” they say. Which lead me to set a lot of unrealistic goals for my art, and make a lot of time consuming commitments to maintaining comments on art sites. Even now I’m doing my best to look at every single art on my devwatch on Deviantart (10,000+ pieces!). I feel I’ve become wiser by letting those things go. I will speak when I am certain I have something I want to say. And I will draw when I feel I need to finish it. My goals are to make art that’s important to me, and share it with people that want to see it – pushing art out harder doesn’t make it better. Not for me anyway. There are some pieces I never even posted… It’s just not necessary anymore to show everyone everything. I will keep some things for myself.
2012
I hope to launch a small comic project. I’ll have some bigger paintings brought back to the front burner that I left unfinished. And I want to return to writing regularly. I have a story I still haven’t decided if I will leave in novel form, or move to the undertaking that is a graphic novel.
I think this year will be a good one.
I sincerely wish everyone a happy new year.
Big update is big….!
I moved everything around. Got rid of lots of extra stuff, now only the important stuff is up.
New art will be posted to Deviantart.. and I’ll make updates on posts here on the blog so there’s always something new on the front.
This works way better than updating individual pages all the freaking time, haha.
Cheers.
