You Can't Polish a Turd...

Or even a really poopy Sunday doodle! Being without a computer when I mainly edit and produce all my crappy art digitally is really, really frustrating, embarrassing and discouraging. 

Normally when I make patterns, I paint whatever, scan my pages, fix it all up in Photoshop, rearrange the pieces until I'm satisfied and then play around with the background color. Obviously not possible when I'm putting color straight down on paper, but hey, I'm trying to get better at producing art on the spot. And... I got a long way to go. 

This older guy at work stopped me last week and sweetly said "I don't mean to be forward, but have you been dieting? You look quite slender." And I have been celebrating that compliment all week with junk food galore! Slender?! Me?! Okay! I doodled some puffy Cheetos and Cap'n Crunch because that's all I have been eating lately. It's a super healthy new diet I am trying out called IDGAF.

Anyways, it's okay to not produce awe-worthy art all the time (or any of the time in my case.) Drawing the shitty stuff forges the path to drawing the less shitty stuff which in turn pours the foundation for drawing the mediocre stuff! It's all a process and being transparent and vulnerable during that process is key.

My Week In Review

Quick, messy gouache doodles.

I've been having a weird past couple weeks. They've been really frustrating and embarrassing and awkward and... sweaty? (Sweat seems to be a strong theme, awesome.) Doodled out some of my anger this afternoon instead of taking a rage nap and I feel a lot better. Like, obviously more sleepy but not as mad.

No real way to explain the random bits and pieces I illustrated above other than to dive right in? Here are a few quick snippets of my bizarre week:

• I was driving to work at like 5 am and I pass a cemetery and I notice a lady taking a shit on a grave stone. Why? Also: seeing a middle age butt that early in the morning is not ideal.
• Talked to a jabroni at work and he said I didn't look Italian except for my hairy arms. So romantic and sweet of him. Not at all self conscious now. (Silver lining? I don't get cold easily. Also, clearly it's a conversation starter.)
• Developed a sweet sweat mustache that just seems to permanently rest on my upper lip. Thanks, humidity, you're a bitch. #realwomensweat
• Really wanted to flip off almost everyone I interacted with this week but very thankful for my self control and vivid imagination.
• Had a panic attack during work today because something triggered me and I couldn't breathe. I was cold sweating like a son of a gun and had to go to the bathroom to dry my armpits under the hand dryers in there. Side note: this was incredibly effective. Second side note: I know hand dryers are germ traps from hell but my armpits were a lost cause at this point. 

Also got called 'eccentric' today by a stranger, so thumbs up forever for being the weirdest human being alive without even trying.

A (golden) Barrel of Fun!

For the past couple days I have been spending hours at my desk painting and listening to too many podcasts. 

I am trying to come up with a few cool things for an upcoming art show and I went to the local Saguaro National Park and hiked around and took a mizillion (made that word up to convey the extreme quantity of photos I took) reference/inspirational photos! 

Saguaros (and cacti in general) are often portrayed cartoon-y (hey, I draw them that way too!) but I wanted to try to get all the weird gritty, awkward stages of cacti growth too! If you go back in my archives, you can see I made a saguaro pattern in December 2015 (cartoon-y as HECK) and way back in June 2014 but I wanted to make a fresh interpretation since I'm no longer the same person I was back when I made those! Run on sentence. 

Anyways, I had a lot of fun and filled at least 19 pages of my 2 sketchbooks up with watercolor and gouache paintings of cacti. Here are a couple untouched scans! 

My main focus this time was to represent the saguaros with a ton of arms (meaning they are older cacti) and also get them to look more proportional and tall! After I painted my heart out and accumulated enough "okay" cacti, I moved onto scanning them, which is a whole production in itself. 

After I scanned them in at super high resolutions, I brought all the pages into my trusty photoshop and started to edit the backgrounds (the sketchbook paper) out so the cactus stood alone. Above is the SUPER messy file of a million layers of cacti that I drug (is that a word?) into one single file. The reason I do this is so I can proportion the drawings and shrink them to be all the same relative size. Since I was using two sketchbooks (when one was still wet, I could still continue to paint in the other and via versa) the paintings were not all the same size. Saguaros are obviously bigger than golden barrel cacti so I had to make them that way! 

Above are some of what I painted presented in a more organized fashion. This helps me so when I am making the patterns, I could see which ones I wanted to use that fit the color scheme/space/etc.

Long post! Hope you stayed with me. I finished up the patterns yesterday and started to order a couple products I'll be selling and (hopefully!) showcasing soon! You'll get the first sneak peek here! 

Pretend I posted this on Earth Day

Earth Day was a week ago and I never posted what I was up 'cause I was too busy celebrating this planet!

How did you celebrate the Earth on its special day (and everyday?) I like to walk to the grocery store when I can, use reusable bags and bottles, shower irregularly, use both sides of my sketchbook pages, paint by candlelight (LOL, to save electricity though!)and take long naps that slow down my breathing so I emit less CO2 into the atmosphere.

In all seriousness, I do try my best to love the earth and be good to it! Hope you guys are too!

The 3 P's

Popcorn. Pacey. Pattern making.

Spending my night watching Dawson's Creek, eating too much popcorn (as per usual,) and painting lots of patterns in my sketchbook. Not making anything serious, but I had fun playing around and mixing watercolors with my new set of gouaches.

The pattern to the left is inspired by a craving for some chocolate chip cookies. *Super serious artist*