Ink

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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!

 

New Piece and Good News

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Yesterday as I left work, a chorus of hundreds of voices greeted me. No, I’m not going crazy; it was the toads! They were calling loud and clear in the swamp across the street. The males call out to the ladies in spring. It’s a meat market over there! Fascinated by all things toad, their mating is one of the more interesting and intense things about them. The males mob the females, vying for a chance at fertilizing her eggs. The sound makes me a little twitchy; ready to grab my camera and catch a glimpse of their fascinating behavior. Maybe I am crazy!

Anyway, I clearly am still enamored with bufo americanus, even if I haven’t been drawing all that much lately. I did finish a small piece just to get it out of my head. “Little Black Dress” is a toad in a little black dress. When people talk about that iconic piece of wardrobe that every woman NEEDS in their closet, I envision myself looking like this gal. They don’t make a little black dress for me, if you know what I mean! 🙂 So here is my toad in her LBD, looking less than thrilled about it.  You can buy prints of her in my Etsy shop.

Little Black Dress

This is my first drawing done 100% with Caran d’Ache Luminance pencils. These pencils are expensive but proven lightfast and do not have the breakage problems of Prismacolor pencils. They are worth the extra cost for that reason alone; I have never had one sharpen poorly or lead snap at all. I get down and dirty with my pencils and press hard, so a lead that can withstand the pressure is great.

My other good news that isn’t that the toads are back is that my piece “The Wrong One” was selected to be in the Colored Pencil Society of America’s 20th International Expo! It is in Covington, Kentucky which is in the greater Cincinnati area. We are planning on visiting the Artist’s Reception in August. I can’t wait to see all of the colored pencil works up close and examine the techniques and finishes used by the best colored pencil artists in the world.  They look so smooth on the internet; it is tough to get a read on what the finish of a colored pencil piece looks like.

It is a great honor to have been juried in to this show. It consistently has amazing work. I’m so excited I could sing!

She pinned me . . .

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I was minding my own business at work when I checked my e-mail and found an e-mail alerting me to an Etsy conversation. I finished what I was doing and moved on over to Etsy, figuring someone had a question or wanted one of my prints in a larger size. Instead it was someone named Heather letting me know she had pinned my art on Pinterest. Of course I was flattered; I have heard about Pinterest and joined it, but haven’t really invested a lot of time there. Looking at it now, I still don’t totally get it. It’s a lot of information all at once. I vow to spend a lot more time there in the coming days!

Back on Etsy my shop’s stats went insane. I still can’t believe it. I had a grand total of one view of my shop yesterday. It went up to 1500 in just a few hours.

I am speechless. I’m really excited. Just to think that people like my work or at least were intrigued by it enough to click through makes me so happy. A lot of drawing toads and snakes has gone by with validation coming in tiny little spurts here and there for me in the past ten years. Now I am excited more than ever to find my next amphibian model and craft my next drawing. Pinterest rules! I’ve heard that some people want to sue Pinterest for using their images without permission. For a little guy like me, Pinterest is a godsend. I hope that we can all come to an agreement that makes sharing on the internet easy and beneficial to the creator as well as those the work inspires.
I’m going to make it my mission to find other artists that make great work and pin them; pay it forward. Thanks, Heather for pinning me! I feel like a million bucks right now!

Finished – The Wrong One

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At the 11th hour, I decided to add a second arm to the captured toad. I felt the composition was lacking. Thankfully, I have several reference photos and found a suitable toad hand. I roughly photoshopped it on to my reference and then lightly sketched the new hand on to the drawing, looking at my computer screen. (Some day I will know toad anatomy enough to be able to draw a toad hand from memory!)

 

It was terrifying to go to my mostly completed drawing with an eraser and a razor blade and pull away an arm-shaped patch of pencil. The layers were very thick and the paper was rough and abused underneath them all. Thankfully Prismacolor’s Peach pencil really helped blend any parts of the hand back in once I had destroyed them. I think it ultimately worked out. Here is the .gif of the piece from start to finish.

That thumb was too much “blank” space for me. It’s my thumb, and it just isn’t that massive in real life. I am happy with the decision. It shows that a drawing just isn’t finished until it’s finished!

Now the toad looks even more resigned to the sexual harassment he is being subjected to; as if even he has accepted the cliche and it is a given that he will be snatched up and test-smooched from time to time.  Never mind that the fairy tale does not advise the kissing of random amphibians.

This drawing is 100% Prismacolor Colored Pencils – on Stonehenge paper, of course. The finished presentation will be a more vertical crop. Behold:

I am going to enter it into the Prismacolor contest right now.  Looking for a toad arm last night, I think I found my next drawing, too; another view of this guy struggling to get free. I could use the practice drawing hands of all species.

The Wrong One

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“The Wrong One” is the working title for this piece that I hope to enter in Prismacolor’s art contest. I was able to start it the other night. Looking at all of the other entries; this is going to be tough. I have about four hours into this piece so far. The .gif shows the process I take pretty well. The last frame shows where I am now. This is the part where I start losing confidence that the background is going to turn out all right. I have begun burnishing the light spots in the background with Prismacolor’s Cream.  Over the cream color, I can add back both light highlights and darker green.

I plan on finishing the background about 90% before moving on to the hand and toad. I think that will take three or four more evenings of work. It feels really good to be getting back into a drawing. Stay tuned to see if I mess it up!