Erik the Dinosaur and Other Such Nonsense

Guys! Great news! I figured out how to make things look like stuff in photoshop! Actual painting-looking things! Very exciting :)

Also: introducing Erik the Dinosaur. If he's not the greatest gift I've ever received, he's definitely in the top ten. (He was given to me by the infinitely generous Wan-Tsunami, aka Diana Busby, artist and maker of many fantastic things)


I think I've mentioned recently, though in passing, that I'll be graduating soon. Right now, I am in the midst of applying to some grad schools (fingers crossed), but because I'm graduating in the winter instead of the spring I'm finding myself with four extra months of unstructured time. So I am structuring it! With travel! I shall be like a cartoon explorer, and Erik will be my amusing animal companion.

Partially, this is a warning for everyone: this blog will be turning, at least partially, into a travel blog. It is also partially to ask for recommendations: what are your recommendations of places in the U.S. to go? Awesome museums, passed over parks, maybe even tourist traps that are worth getting sucked into.

This will still be primarily an art blog even while I'm traveling, of course. I plan on painting as I go (and hopefully sell pieces as I go to be able to pay for more awesome traveling and also that grad school stuff that I mentioned before) so there will be that, plus if I can set up remote desktop access with my photoshop-and-every-other-useful-program computer, I'll also see if I can keep up with some digital work.

Hey, look, this post wasn't made in the wee hours of the morning! I think that's pretty good, don't you?

Digital Analog is up and ready for business!

Ok, so, I've been pretty busy lately, what with the show and impeding graduation and applying for grad schools and all that. But! I did manage to finally get my site for my side project to....function. Yes, it definitely WORKS, which is a huge improvement over what it was doing before, which mostly consisted of not working.

Anyway, a link: http://digital-analog-project.com/

I've got a few tweaks to the design planned in the near future (logo design? what logo design? pffft) and my main website needs a small overhaul too (I have WAY more paintings than I thought I would--makes the functionality...well, it's ok, but I'd like it to be as smooth and seamless as possible)

And now, back to work/sleepytown.

Still working!

Just one more week after this one and all my paintings have to be well and truly done. Then the editing out and the hanging and all other such things begin.

After that I get to take a nap for about a week before anyone really expects me to do anything again, and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that.

Anyway, I thought I'd take the opportunity to plug this interesting entry from one of my favorite people on the internet.

In addition to being hugely hilarious, Ursula Vernon is a fantastic artist and influenced, more than anything else, my work ethic. It's the 'not every painting works, that's ok, it's time to move on to the next one' attitude. Some people never figure it out, and I'm glad to have borrowed it from her.

My interest in this particular article is not necessarily the specifics. Self publishing vs traditional publishing doesn't really apply to me. Buuuuut on the other hand, I am told that there is high art and that there is low art and that selling out is, well, just that.

Personally, I can't really see the difference between the two. Illustration gets an especially bad rap, for example, but an excellent illustrative painting is exactly the same as an excellent narrative painting with added context.

Just something I've been thinking about, recently. The way this all shakes out in my own mind will greatly influence my grad school choices and career path but will have little to no effect on anyone else. So...thank you for letting me just put it all out there so that it's easier to see.

As a Function of Time

Hey, look at me! I's gots me an upcoming solo show! It is for graduating with.

Location is Kresge Art Center, gallery 114! yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! 

Ok, sleepy town now. 

Still working!

The Digital Analog project is not dead, I swear!

This is Ryan of Double Clicked Comics, which is excellent and updates MWF.

As always, if you'd like to participate in this project, send me an email with your name, country, an image of yourself, your character's name, the game they're from, an image of that character, and any comments you might think relevant to sparkselrose@gmail.com with the subject line 'Digital Analog.'

I'm almost 100% certain that I've gotten gmail to stop sending things to my spam box, but I check it pretty regularly, even so!

Proof of lack of death

Not dead! School continues to school. Did some drawering. Photoshop nearly ate my computer's face with this one. Note to self: resize down before trying to save as a gif next time.

Large

Still alive! Been working on quite a few things, so here is this quick little open canvas painting I did: