It's too late this year, but I had brilliant idea for something I want to do NEXT year for Halloween for you guys. So now I just have to sit on it for a little longer...

Halloween is my favorite holiday. Even though it's no longer as popular or widely celebrated as it was when I was a kid, it still hasn't lost it's shine for me. I love the background to it, the old myths and legends that surround it. The festivals, the stories. I love the commercialized side of it too: haunted houses, plastic pumpkins, synthetic spider webs. There's something about walking into the Halloween aisle at my local Target and looking at all the witches hats and fake rubber hands and gravestones that makes me into a kid again.

So, for the month of October, I think I'll feature my favorite spooky pictures, and costumes from around dA.

Next weekend I'll be attending Dragoncon in Atlanta, Georgia. No, I don't have a booth, and I won't be in the art show. I'll mostly be wandering and attending sessions and workshops and stuff. However, I will more than likely be one of the participating artists in the Monster In An Hour session (Sunday at 1pm). So if you'll be attending, drop on by and make sure whatever I draw is ridiculous... or rescue me and request monsters that are hot naked men with horns.

Other places you might find me: Ellen Million Graphics booth in the exhibit hall , Meredith Dillman's art table or Jessica McDouglas's

And now, for a feature from my recent favorites:

If you have ever wondered how I worked, ever wanted to watch me paint something from beginning to end, in real time, now's your chance. Today I spent about three and a half hours working on a new painting over on my Ustream channel. The first part is about 2.5 hours long, the second about an hour. It cuts off a little at the end because we were having storms here.

(updated)
BUT it's not done. I'm planning on working on it some more tomorrow (Friday), starting a little earlier than usual. I'm thinking around 12pm EST. If you'd like to watch, ask questions, etc. I'll be going for several hours so feel free to drop in and do so. I'm planning on completing the entire painting on Ustream so you'll be able to watch a painting develop from a blank canvas to a final product.

Part One is here: [link]
Part Two is here: [link]
Part Three: [link]
Part Four: [link]

and the rest of it will be here, tomorrow: [link]

and the WIP as it currently stands:

As many of you know, art was not my first career choice. Wasn't even my second or third or fifth, if I'm going to be honest about it. My first career choice, for a long time, was theater, and I spent many years studying, interning, and working in theaters.

Almost seven years ago, I worked at a small community theater. Our end of season play that year was 1776. I'd seen the movie in school before, and I remembered that I'd really liked some of the music, but I didn't recollect much of it beyond that.

For a musical, 1776 is a bit of an oddity. It's based on historical events, namely the events in the Continental Congress leading up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It varies from history in many ways, but sticks close enough to it that you get a good sense of what our forefathers must have gone through (only with less singing, probably). The play doesn't glorify these men. They wear frock coats and stockings and wigs, and sit around complaining about the heat and the flies. They argue over EVERYTHING imaginable. They fight and bicker and scheme and bargain and plead and miss their wives and yet... you still get the sense that those among them who lobbied the hardest for American Independence knew that what they were doing was making history and they took that responsibility very seriously.

Stories and plays when done well, allow us to get a sense for times, places, and events we'd be unable to understand or experience otherwise. They put us there in the room with these incredibly brave, intelligent, hardworking men who fought on pen and paper for what others would later bleed for, and what today we struggle to uphold. Their time was not our time, their era would have been unable to comprehend the enormity of our country today, and the multitude of topics and struggles we face. Or maybe they could have done. But they recognized that tyranny was no way to live, and that freedom came at the cost of compromise.

That play remains one of my favorite that I've ever worked on. I have very fond memories of building the deceptively simple set during long, sixteen hour days with few breaks. Even the day of the dress rehearsal when I sliced my index finger open with a utility knife in a moment of stupidity, then passed out at the sight of my own blood on the workroom floor is made fonder by remembering the concerned faces of twenty-odd mostly gay men in white wigs, stockings, buckle shoes and boxers standing over me when I came to and asking if I were diabetic. Even my college director who was playing the gouty Ben Franklin, and who couldn't remember his lines most of the time, made me smile when doing a kick line and singing about sexual combustibility.

But my favorite memory of that play, the one that sticks in my mind, is the ending. When they've finally resolved the issue of Independence and have agreed to sign the Declaration. When they approach, one by one to the desk, presided over by John Hancock, to put their names on that single, closely written piece of parchment. When they freeze there, as a scrim descends over the stage to the ringing tones of the Liberty Bell marking a moment in history, and the words of Thomas Jefferson stand for a moment alone, spotlighted on the stage.

"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal..."

No matter how often I saw that play, night after night, the moment that bell began to toll I felt an almost overwhelming pride in my country and gratitude for the men who made it possible it to exist. Whatever our differences, when it comes down to it, we're all Americans and we all owe those men a debt of gratitude that can only be repaid by struggling to uphold those ideals that they fought for. Freedom, liberty, equality among men.

Happy Independence Day, my fellow Americans.

If (and this is a big IF, because historically I've not been fond of parting with "Original" work) I were to consider selling original, hand-drawn or painted artwork, would you be interested in purchasing such a thing. Keep in mind, it would be similar in style to the things already in my gallery. It would not be fan art. Prices would depend on medium, canvas size, etc. I would more than likely NOT do commissions in traditional media. I still prefer to do those digitally. What I *am* considering is original artwork on functional items. Wooden boxes, sketchbook/journal covers, that sort of thing.

So, hypothetically--while prints may not interest some of you, would originals of my art be worth paying for?


So, my Ustream sessions have been pretty successful so far. And the more I look around, the more I see other people doing them. Okay, fair enough. I can't claim solo usage of live drawing sessions. That'd be silly. Not to mention hypocritical since I ganked idea off of Dani Jones.

So what can I do that would set my sessions apart from the others? I do work mostly in Painter, and I have no problem demoing things in that program.

My other thought was: live paintovers.

You know how sometimes you get stuck on an artwork and need advice and so you post it up and ask other artists to take a whack at it and show you how to fix it? Well, that's not hard to do, and I do paintovers over at Epilogue all the time. The trouble for me is trying to explain what I did afterward in forum format. So what if I let people send me their problem pieces, and I poked at them live on my streaming session and showed where and how a piece could be improved? Would anyone be interested in something like that?