Dive on in!

I'm looking at possibly joining as an artist and am currently struggling a little with the fill out form, deciding what I'll do and all. The timing seems spaced out enough. I'm not very familiar with this fest or Beltane or any of the other stuff listed that the fest is about, so I'd definitely have to do research (lol, after the fact because I'm lazy).

I had just been talking earlier about how much I am missing doing Snarry (even with all the stress, I still loved it!). Right now I'm doing two original artworks -- one of which is stuck, but is supposed to be a man sitting next to a wild cat (possibly a leopard, I haven't gotten there yet), and an old man and a dog. I'd been watching One Man and His Dog 2009 this week and had the irresistible urge to draw an old British man in a tweed cap and coat and a border collie or whatever. Don't ask me why. After watching Autumnwatch earlier this year I'd had this urge to draw two stags locking horns, but I managed to refrain from doing so (though not for long, I think).

Oh, and I got my books! The Paul Cadmus book is wonderful. There's several pieces I'd love to do Snarry versions of. And maybe a delve into another fandom (only maybe, so no getting hopes up). I admit, I did kind of think of doing Merlin fanart. I might still, but it all depends on what else I'm doing.

I'm also waiting for the HarryPotterBang writer to send me the updated copy of their story so I could start on the artwork for the story. It's Ron/Harry! Amazing! Maybe someday I'll unstick from the Snarry fandom enough to allow myself to do more artwork of other HP pairings.

It's *finally* done! You cannot imagine the huge sense of relief I have now that I've finished it. Now I don't have to keep working on it anymore~~~~

I feel so much better now that I've gotten that out of the way. It was just taking such an unbelievably long time and I'm still not sure why. I've spent whole nights just working on one character's hair and some other coloring. That seems insane. Where does all the time go? I start at 11 p.m. and when I look up it's 4:30 a.m.! Gah!

But now I can decide on the other stuff to do and what all to work on for SeverusBigBang. I also must start my Snarry Swap picture asap, too. I have an idea what I'll do for that already, so I sincerely hope it won't go the same way the Snarry Holidays piece did.

It is 11 p.m. now and I just found out I had two commission orders. Wha? Whatever happened to letting me know these things on the same day they're made? And of course they're both traditional art. Geh.

I can't tell you how insecure I feel when trying to do traditional art. I think it's only through sheer tenacity that I manage to finish any traditional paintings. They just intimidate me so, so much. But the cheapest one will be $400. It's money... and I do need it. *sigh* There's so much to do and it all seems like it's piling up on me all of a sudden.

Of course, if it were digital stuff I'd feel fine. I'm confident with that. It's easier to fix a problem with that, so I don't have to feel anxious when I work. With painting, if I mess up and I try to fix it and mess it up more somehow it makes me very depressed and it causes me to come to a complete halt. It saps my courage to go on for a bit. I can't allow that, but I have to find a way to fix things myself without running to the other traditional artists around here. It makes me feel like such a kid. Which isn't helped by the fact that I'm the youngest member in the Friday meetings.

Well, I've gotten Snape's pose largely drawn out and I'm satisfied with it. What's bothering me is how much time this has taken to do. It's just been so difficult finding the right ideas to come together in the right perspective. How to illustrate an idea in a way that's sexy and tells a story? It doesn't always come together right away for me. I tend to jump in without a thought and just draw, draw, draw until I get where I want. Unfortunately, deadlines freak me out a bit. I always want to be done well ahead of time. So I want to finish the rough sketch tomorrow and be working on the colors right after so I can go back to my Severus Big Bang works that aren't finished yet.

It's raining here, and I'm planning to spend the rest of the day on my Snarry Hols picture. Hopefully I'll finish it soon, but I do have to save it at regular intervals because for the past three days in a row the power has been going out every once in a while. For Louisiana, this isn't unusual, but I bet anywhere else it would be. Yesterday the wind was gusting so violently it pulled of some pretty big branches from the trees. Our cypress in the back looks like it's going to have a tough fall this year. It hasn't really had a good year since the last hurricane nearly destroyed it. I hope it doesn't die, though. I really love cypresses.

Anyways, I'm feeling a bit depressed at the moment. I was doing a acrylic painting and I decided to work on it when I was feeling really bad. Bad idea. It's not ruined, but it is a mess and now each time I look at it I can't help but feel a bit despairing. I know artists say "you can paint over it, don't worry!", but it's trying to figure out HOW to paint over that part that's bothering me. It's now darker than the rest of the area and I'll have to do several layers to lighten it back up. First I have to finish correcting the subject matter. *sigh*

Well, now I know not to work when I'm feeling very sick. It does seem to affect my work a great deal.

Oh, darn. I have a doctor's appointment today and I got no sleep last night, lol.

Anyways, started on two new Snape/Snarry drawings. I'm working on backgrounds for them both. And I've gone through several incarnations of the Snarry Hols artwork. Gaaah. I'll try and drop everything else and work exclusively on that today or tonight when I get time. Right now I can't seem to get it quite right. Hmm.

I should post more artwork soon, but so far everything's either incomplete original art or will likely go towards one of the fests I'm working on. I just really need to get my Snarry Hols assignment done before I feel like I can devote more time towards extra fanart.

Last night I started/finished my first completed Severus Big Bang piece. One down, at least two more to go. I've got several other unfinished pieces as well to work on. I don't know how fast those will go. I expect to successfully complete my assignments for that, but I don't know if I'll be able to post anything really great. Sometimes being rushed helps, other times it just makes the pictures that much more unsatisfactory to me.

I've got a lot more work to do today.

Hopefully my headache will be gone by then. I have a killer headache right now and so far the medicine I've taken hasn't done much to make it any better.

I'm working on a new commission (traditional media/acrylic on canvas) again. I'm also working on my SnarryHols and SeverusBigBang pieces. I'm very unsatisfied with my current SnarryHols piece, so I might make a style change and jump to a less realistic style to get what I want done or just change the piece altogether! I really thought I had something there. At least for research I'm going to spoil myself by cruising the Japanese Lamento fansites. That'll be fun.

I've also got a piece I'm iffy on. Do I *really* want to do a Bellatrix portrait? Or do I want to turn it into an original piece? I'm torn. I kind of want to make it an original piece, but I had in mind a rather sinister woman like Bellatrix when I started it. Decisions, decisions. Maybe I'll make two versions to satisfy myself. Even if I don't like Bellatrix, I'm tempted to do it.

And a reminder: new art soon! But it's a surprise. And tomorrow I'll e-mail where I am currently to the SeverusBigBang mods. I have a few half finished pieces, some concept fanarts, and some pieces that are really new. I may have to just pick and choose two or three. I don't know if I have the time for more than that.

I need to hurry up and put together some more art for my other fests, but right now I'm trying to get the stuff that's due sooner finished. I've had trouble getting started, probably because I never use references, but also because I'm easily frustrated. Still, I'm working on a piece that I've started to really get into. I hope it'll come out like I want it, because if it does it'll be so awesome. I also have another idea to do, but it'll depend on if I can get to it in time. I'm hoping at the very least that this piece will be enough.

I don't think I'll have to wait too long for the reveal, but then again, considering all the closing games drawbles and drabbles, it may be as late as next month! At least I can link to the drawbles I did for the closing games. I hope everyone'll like them. They were all done in such a hurry.

I think it's a bit weird though. I really must have some form of background noise to work or I get annoyed. I often listen to music or videos or tv when I do my work. For all my drawbles and even my latest work I mentioned above, I've been looping Agatha Christie's Marple. I actually prefer Poirot even though Geraldine McEwan and Joan Hicks are both the best Marples. Somehow Julia McKenzie doesn't make me feel it. She's a fabulous actress, though, and she's still very enjoyable to watch. I really love the 30s - 50s styling. Especially in Poirot. It's always really captured my imagination.

Oh! Today I got my issue of ImagineFX. It's the faerie issue and it's pretty much completely unhelpful, lol. Well, not completely, but it was mostly stuff that didn't fit my style or that I'd seen before and had seen done better. I was really hoping it might give me a little bit more insight into what to do for the snarry holidays piece. I already had an idea inspired partly by of a Japanese fantasy novel series I'd read. Mainly just the cover art, actually. It gave me a fantastic idea, but I'll have to work it in with some other stuff. I hope I can sort it out soon. I'm actually pretty upset I haven't started on it yet. I want to do something very special for the person who'll receive the artwork.

Man, I had a rough night last night and this morning, too. I'll have to get some prescription refills Monday.

Still, I did manage to finish a few things. Too bad none of it's fanart, lol. I need to get to work on the Severus Snape Big Bang stuff. I'd planned to do two pieces, but if I don't start soon I'll be well behind. On the other hand, I *have* finished the actual design and layout for my website. I still haven't gotten in writing in, so it's just a blank page right now and I haven't uploaded any of it because it's not yet finished.

I've also gotten an unexpected commission. I've already started planning how I could do it digitally (I don't want to use traditional methods for this particular one because I know I'd be asking for trouble) and I hope I'll finish it this month even though it'll be large when printed out.

Well, I never got a reply from Corel, but I did get the help of some other artists who recommended some stuff for me to do to get it back up and running. And it worked! Yay!

So I'm back to work already. On top of that I really should get started on my Severus Snape Big Bang Bash artworks. I've had a few vague ideas of what to do, but really I haven't decided on anything yet. I need to hurry up. The sooner I start, the sooner I can get it done.

I haven't done any fanart for obvious reasons. I might find some time to do a few sketches this weekend in between work and designing the website (ugh, I've gone through three different design styles and NONE of it is appealing to me at all). I'd like to finish the latter before Friday, but I don't really hold much hope that I'll manage it.

I'm so, so pissed off. I just finished working on one part of my snarry games art and the power goes out before I can even save! ARGH!! I hate living here. The power goes off at unpredictable times practically every second or third day. It's enough to drive anyone who does art on their computer nuts! *cries*

And I *hate* rebooting this piece of crap. It's a NEW computer, but it's still a piece of crap because of Vista. Each time the power goes out it asks me to start it in safe mode and most of the time even when I choose safe mode it decides to "repair" itself so I lose a lot of recently saved stuff that way. It sucks soooo bad. I've had to install opencanvas 4 plus TWICE because of that.

I can't work on this anymore right now. I was about to go to sleep and I was really happy I'd finished up this one part right when that happened. Now I'm tired, really unhappy, and I've got to completely redo all the work I just did.