I was fortunate enough to make a little money selling some of my photographs at my day job. My rule is that when I make extra cash selling art I have to put a chunk of it into something artistic, especially when it comes to photography. There are always great upgrades to lenses, and as photography is mainly a hobby for me I can’t justify spending money on expensive equipment all the time.

This time I immediately thought PRINTER! I have access to great printers at work, but it isn’t always practical or affordable to make a lot of prints at work on the large format printers. I have been lucky this year with good Etsy print sales so far this year and it is great to be able to print on demand and be in full control of my own art prints. Now I’ll have that capability 24/7.

I chose an Epson because I am familiar with them and their papers and ICC profiles. This printer’s inks are rated to last 200 years; more if the print is kept in darkness. Coupled with acid free papers, you get a great quality print that will last.

This photo shows a print on fine art paper next to the original colored pencil drawing. Besides seeing the actual texture of pencil on paper they are very similar. It’s exciting to see them come slowly to life out of this beast.

To celebrate, I am offering 10% off everything in My Etsy Shop for a limited time. So come get your prints! The code is LARGEMARGE because that is the printer’s name, of course. We can’t wait to print something for you!

I got my first tattoo at 19 on sort of a dare. My friends and I decided we wanted tattoos, and one of our moms told us we didn’t have the guts. The next day, we were looking for shops in the yellow pages. (They didn’t have a lot of tattoo websites in 1999.) We visited a few shady places before settling on a parlor and picked flash to have put on us forever.

My first tattoo is pretty bad; a pegasus on my chest. I don’t regret it, though. When I got it, I was a shy nerd and I really think that it helped me be more social in college. No one believed that this shy person who looked like a 12-year old girl had a tattoo. It turns out that flashing people is a sure fire way to break the ice.

So how does this relate to my art at all? Well, since that first tattoo in 1999, I have kept getting more on and off, including a couple drawn by myself, and one drawn by my husband. Here is my toad tattoo. I love him. It is based on my drawing of a toad that really propelled me into drawing only toads. I am thinking about having him sitting on something, but whether that is a leaf, flower, strawberry or other I don’t know. He’s fine now, but I am addicted, so I wouldn’t mind adding to him.

Lately, I have been really looking at tattoos online for even more ideas to decorate my body with some day. I’ve been learning about tattoo styles and all sorts of things I had no idea even existed when I got my first tattoo. Of course, the first styles of American tattoos were mostly meant for men, including a lot of pin ups and naked ladies. Traditional American tattoos are enjoying a revival right now, and I have seen a lot of great examples on the Internet, and in real life.

Being obsessed with tattoos and toads, this had to happen. Here are my toad pin up girls! All proceeds from prints of these gals will go straight into my tattoo fund! They are on Etsy here!

Get it! Because I literally am BACK at DRAWING on my BOARD after National Novel Writing Month, I have dubbed this post “Back to the Drawing Board.” Nice!

Not that I’m finished with the novel, yet. Both my husband and I were able to reach the 50,000 word goal a day early thanks to some fresh hop beer and some good music. I still have about 10,000 words left in the story, I think. I would like to finish this year. I think I have a lot more 2011 goals to finish than New Years’ Resolutions at this point.

First, I needed to begin my entry into the Prismacolor contest. I re-started one of the drawings I had been working on and hid my Luminance pencils from myself. Even if my drawing makes it nowhere in the contest, I thought it would be fun to go back to using only Prismas for a change. I predict I will miss the super layering, non breaking powers of the Caran d’Ache Luminance, which will of course be great validation to buy more. Buah ha ha!

Meanwhile, have this sketch I did to try and win a commission. I never heard back about it, but it was a fun little drawing competed in a day. Toad Thinker:

Prismacolor, which is probably the most popular artist’s colored pencil  (at least here in the US), is having an art contest! I of course can not wait to enter. The winner gets to have their art piece on the Prismacolor tin. That is a huge deal, seeing as they sell millions of those things at billions of places . (Disclaimer: I may be exaggerating a little.)

Due to NaNoWriMo (28,000 words in now) I didn’t enter the CPSA’s “Explore This” as planned.  I am grinding through my novel with at least 1000 words nightly. It’s fun, and I think I have a decent idea, but it restricts time for everything else. I thought about entering “Reflection” into the Prismacolor contest, but it has a lot of Caran d’Ache Luminance in it. I thought about entering “Lipstick”, but it has been in a contest before which disqualifies it. So, I plan on creating a brand new 100% Prismacolor piece for this contest. Entries are due by January 3rd. Some great entries are in so far, and I know there are great CP artists out there getting a jump on me right now.

I encourage everyone who likes colored pencils to give it a shot. Let’s show the world wat you can do with colored pencils! But first I need to write 22,000 more words. Oh, and I also need to play some more Skyrim!

You can find the contest on Facebook here: http://apps.facebook.com/contestshq/contests/172075

I haven’t done a bit of art since I finished “Reflection.” What I have done is write 17,000 words for National Novel Writing Month so far! It is a challenge; I don’t feel like writing very much after working, driving home through hell traffic, making dinner and so on. So I have been devoting my precious art time to writing, and I do feel a little bad about it.

The CPSA has their deadline for the “Explore This!” Expo next week. I am hoping to finish “Reflection” off with a coat of acrylic  like I used to do on my first colored pencil drawings. My first favorites are a pair of Gray’s tree frog drawings that have a colored pencil base and a thick coat of acrylic and acrylic medium over them. They look more like paintings because of this treatment. But first I need to write a few hundred more words.