Artistical Exploration

Photoshop Warm Up With a Faerie

2011-08-25T07:12:00.001-07:00

I don’t know about most digital artists but when I’m working on a digital piece I typically need to work on some kind of warm-up with photoshop before I get skull deep into a more substantial project, say a commission piece or a uber planned out monstrosity. Granted, if I wasn’t a clumsy chick with lousy hand-eye coordination and crap handwriting this sort of warm up might be more optional skill practicing than total necessity for me.

I started working on this sunset faerie back when I got my glorious pen & tablet set from my sweetie for Christmas (complete with a better version of photoshop than I had). A few steps into this illustration I realized hey maybe I oughta try my hand at doing this up as a tutorial while I’m at it. This will eventually wind up as part of a tutorial [which will link from here when done]. Too bad when I started it I didn’t have or know about a proper screen capture tool; and I didn’t know what the multiply layer in photoshop was actually for (coloring line art), despite fiddling with that extensively over the years.

Since I didn’t know how to color line art properly back then I opted to ultimately do this one up as a digital painting. Hopefully I finish this thing up in the next couple of weeks.

One of the nicest things about calling an art piece a warm –up is that you feel more free to really experiment with the thing. The feeling of figuring little things out and working faster than normal is pretty cool, and sometimes you end up with a much cooler piece of art than if you had approached it more seriously at the start.

Who else loves doing digital art? Do find you work better if you do some warm-ups first? Have you ever made your own tutorial, or thought about doing one? Do you prefer coloring your line art or digital painting?

Emerging from Cave of Silence

2011-07-09T15:09:00.001-07:00

Wow, I mysteriously felt severely quiet for a few months there. I suppose I’d allowed myself to get burnt out on the internet over the year preceding my silence. Obviously I shall now have to be more vigilant on avoiding that situation now that I‘ve known such silence.

Silence has an unnerving effect on me. And much to my frustration the quiet feeling even extended to my creativity. It was like being a shell of myself for awhile there. Hopefully it will not take too Herculean an effort to bounce back.

Sorta feels like I’m waking from some strange millennial death sleep. Like I should be in the depths of some magnificent beast of a glowy cave.

Naturally this forced me to re-evaluate the ways I’ve been spending my time, and ways I’d been planning to spend my days. Certain areas of my endeavors now seem unnecessarily cluttered. For a bit now I shall run around my online stuffs with some scissors.

Snip. Snip. Teehee hee.

Gimme a Dictionary, Yo!

2011-02-10T07:02:00.001-07:00

My kingdom for a good dictionary! Ok, maybe the inner drama queen is acting up this morning. Just a little. But a good free digital dictionary with related resources is a pretty invaluable and crucial resource for a writer.

My personal favorite is the very awesome and useful Dictionary.com. It’s handy for looking up all sorts of things - dictionary stuff, thesaurus, flashcards, quotes, reference, translator and now even a Spanish learning resource. Plus, it’s so simple to use on the fly while toiling away at the computer, in the throes of the muse. Or her sorta hot cousin – the faux muse (“your muse is on break so my analytical ass came to work instead, I’m so gonna make you do math right now”).

They’ve really improved the holy smurfs outta that site since I 1st began using it regularly - back in Spring 2007 when I started my Decadent Angels series. It was dang useful even then though.

When writing hot on a fast paced rhythm, word selection or meaning can sometimes become a hindrance. A burst of what freaking word am I thinking of can quickly unravel into a lost hour of 1st class space cadet proportions, as them pretty word magics suddenly irrevocably drivel out into keyboard drool. Being able to bust out a quick comprehensive reference source, type in a couple of spastic but educated guesses and move about your writing should never be underappreciated.

Of course there’s always the useful Wikipedia. But come on that’s more of a - hey I’ve got an hour block of deep, heavy research time right now - kind of resource.

What’s your favorite online dictionary, thesaurus or reference for quick look-ups while writing? What’s some of your favorite free online reference sources for heavier research modes?

Finding Balance in Discussing a WIP

2011-01-15T07:00:00.002-07:00

As a writer something that always makes my brain hurt is trying to figure out just how much to talk about when discussing a WIP (Work in Progress). It may seem like no big deal to discuss it but talking about it could easily take the steam out of the writing. Or make you look like a flake when you have to put it on the backburner for a little while.

It’s not hard to imagine
that regular non-writer folks have little understanding of the backburner or other things that are part and parcel of being a writer. At times even my own fiancé goes - wait what you’re a writer?! Which makes me nuts because he’s actually read some of my Decadent Angels series. He’s even been told that one of my poems had been published. His memory slips in and out at times. Plus, I do the bulk of my writing while he’s at work. Then there are the times I’m hard at work on a story but it just looks like I’m doing dishes. Guess he doesn’t much notice the times I run for a pen & paper. Other times he’s less stubborn about acknowledging that all it takes to be a writer is to write, and that I have the means to put my stuff in front of readers as soon as it’s finished.

I find myself wanting to talk about my WIPs with him, on my Facebook page and in my blog. It’s hard knowing what the balance is for that, especially on posting stuff about them. Getting people interested in a project when it’ll be a long time before it’s ready for release could definitely be dodgy territory.

Of course there’s also the question of how do you describe certain things about it without getting into spoiler territory yet still sounding coherent.

I bring this up because I’m to a point where I really want to start talking about my WIPs in my blog.

In browsing other writer’s blogs I see that it’s not unusual for a writer to go ahead and do just that. They find ways to work it out. In my case, balance is always very important but too easy to topple over. Just kinda the way my life works. Oi, don’t even get me started about the bit where I just plain think too much. The tendency to get overly analytical is rampant, though oddly wasn’t as useful as it should have been back in school.

For the past few years, I just went with a hardly ever talk about my WIPs because before that I talked about them all the time and it wound up feeling very off. Now, I’ve reached a point where not talking about them hardly ever feels just as off. So talking about them too much or too little relegates my projects too much to the back burner.

Lately, I’ve been noticing all these writing sites where they promote being more social with your writing as a great tool. Some writers are even going as far as posting drafts for people to give feedback on. While I could never get into going that far, I do see the benefit of chatting with others in the same boat and of sharing a bit about a WIP. It can help you work through writing technicalities & story issues, and it can help you stay excited about a project through the different stages of the writing. It also can help you stay motivated to do your regular writing sessions.

So I’ll probably be bumbling around for awhile as I find my balance in talking about my WIPs. Of course the ones I’ll talk about are the ones that have some release plan, because realistically I have well over 100 WIPs in varied stages of development. I started having WIPs as far back as 1993 so that number is not quite as mind melting as it sounds.

I expect much of this also applies to any other creative endeavor.

Does talking about your WIPs too much take the steam out of your writing? Does not talking about them put them too much on the back burner? Have you found a balance in talking about it? If so what is it?

2010 in Review

2011-01-13T07:00:00.003-07:00

First, yes I am aware that this post probably ought to have been done about a week ago. Now if we’re done shaking fingers at me and tsking, on to the look at my 2010.

January 2010

Started up my website
Started my Facebook page
Posted my 1st few items to my old etsy shop
Posted my 1st items to my zazzle shop
Generally started trying to do this Bent Realm thing full time.
Started doing some art I’m really proud of, for Bent Realm.
Set a plan for the year that was too ambitious & not very organized.

February 2010

Tried out that Link Love thing on Facebook, but ultimately decided not to get too heavy into it.

Discovered ArtFire and opened a shop there.

Got mad at myself for still not having posted 12.2 of Decadent Angels

Generally worked on stuff…

March 2010

Got stressed out by costs related to having a car.

Was disappointed by my less than encouraging art posting rate.

Was realizing that this online shopkeeping & full time art & writing thing was taking more time to adjust to and find my directions with than I liked.

April 2010

Tried to prepare stuff for National Poetry Month but didn’t get very far.
Had our home life situation become more tricky.
Began getting extra frustrated with etsy.
Opened my zibbet shop at the end of the month
We finally got a new scanner/printer (scanner is crucial to what I do) (unless I’m remembering it wrong & we got it in March)

May 2010

That month was kinda hard & frustrating.

And I don’t remember a lot about accomplishments then.

June 2010

Our home life situation became less tricky towards the end of the month.

However the finances took some hits from the trickiness, hits we’re still not totally recovered from.

I think this was when I finally started listing stuff in my ArtFire shop.

My art pace picked up during the last week.

Writing was still not happening often enough for my satisfaction.

July 2010

This was the highest output level of art for the year, managed to sustain an art routine for several weeks in a row.

At the end of the month I won a free for life premium seller account with zibbet which really gave me the courage to stop using my etsy & artfire shops like I wanted.

August 2010

Gradually emptied my etsy & artfire shops into my zibbet shop.
Reduced the number of blogs I was trying to maintain.
Generally spent the month trying to simplify things.
Some personal woes that started in January came to a head, though I still don’t know the results of that, cuz it’s just hard to face and outta my hands anyhow.
I received a jury summons for Arizona. I live in Illinois. *shakes head at flawed system*

September – November 2010

These months flew by so fast I still got whiplash from the time whoosh.

Generally just trying to find my footing or direction for Bent Realm, and working as best I could at the time.

And earned some extra income cleaning the unit next door, so the landlord can rent it out, took longer than I would have liked but finished in early November.

Unfortunately the house cleaning gig wrecked my rhythm & momentum in creating stuff for listing in my shops. So that slowed.

Failed at NaNoWriMo. Pout.

December 2010

Had a major break through in my organization process

Had a decently productive month.

Had the highest number of shop visits to my zibbet shop of any month in 2010. which meant I was doing a better job at promoting & more consistent status updating.

Got a pen & tablet for Christmas. Best. Present. Ever.

So that’s about all I can remember worth putting in the review. I’ve got big plans for 2011. Sure again I’m being ambitious, but I think the better organization makes up for that. That and my routines are picking up. Just plain have better tools & equipment at the start of 2011 than I did for 2010.

How was your 2010? Do you think 2011 is starting off better?

Yay Little Drawings

2011-01-11T07:20:00.000-07:00

Oh my. 2010 is gone. Best get the small drawings from then posted. I’ll put up half of what’s left now, and the other half next Sketchbook Sneak Peek. Hope you like them.

Skeptical Geisha. June 2010.

I’ve long been into Asian culture etc. Especially Japanese.
[the original available for sale here | stuff featuring this art available here]

Zombie Guy. June 2010.

Will you be ready when the zombie apocalypse comes? Hmm, maybe shirtless hotties are hard to resist even if they’ve half their face blown open & have eyeball noms in their hand.
[the original available for sale here | stuff featuring this art available here]

Angel Nigh. July 2010.

This angel wound up having some steampunk flavor to her. Which is great!
[the original available for sale here | stuff featuring this art available here]

City of the Sea. July 2010.

Sketching this underwater city in blue ink really was a blast. Took the casing off of the pen which had an interesting effect on the way it could be moved/handled. [the original available for sale here | stuff featuring this art available here]

Lady of the Sea. July 2010.

Drew this little red-haired mermaid with colored pencils. She’s a bit more detailed than showed up in the scan.
[the original available for sale here | stuff featuring this art available here]

Distant Gaze. July 2010.

I went pretty detailed & ornate in this small drawing of a lady. She’s got a bit of fantasy look to her. I actually grow to like this picture more & more each time I see it.
[the original available for sale here | stuff featuring this art available here]

The links to the stuff featuring the art or a version of this art will be put in as they become available, which hopefully will be sooner rather than later.

So the other six will go up in about a week. Remember you can order custom little drawings & mini sketches via my services page too.

What do you think? Which of these do you like best?

Evaluation of Doom

2011-01-08T16:00:00.003-07:00

Trying to balance home life, art, writing, online shopkeeping & maintaining an online presence is definitely an exercise in lunacy most days. Fortunately, I’ve plenty of experience with madness. And thankfully this is what I’ve wanted to do since the onset of teenager-y trauma dubiously known as puberty. Not that I knew of the interwebs back that far but I knew that somehow a way for me to affordably do all this had to come about elsewise I’d need to start plotting apocalyptic type things as a coping mechanism.

At the start of this year I’ve been just taking some time to look back at what it is I’m doing, and be extra thankful it’s all come within my reach now. Took the 1st week to really evaluate the different aspects of Bent Realm Studios.

It’s bound to be a quarterly occurrence too. The things I looked at were: each of the shops, active & not, that I have, my blogging, my project development, my scheduling process & so on.

Making sure not to neglect too many of my regular duties, I threw a lot of time and thought into this seven day gauntlet. Much to my irritation certain decision attempts wavered back and forth. How I loathe being a waffle. However 2010 was largely about finding my direction & footing with this whole living my dream scenario.

And without further ado here is much of the results of the evaluation-

Dropping oDesk as a provider (keeping account in case I want to eventually hire there)
Keeping my stupid myspace to give the new format a chance to do stuff for the entertainment aspect of what I do (that & the fiancé still has one, not about to let anyone else be his #1 friend on there whether he uses it or not, grumble grumble).
Not bothering with my Deviant Art Print Shop for the next few months, but gonna try to show up on the site more.
Dropping the Facebook page for Indy Shopkeeper Chat but keeping the group just started for it.
Dropping my Fiverr shop, there just isn’t time for a $5 micro task shop in my life, especially since, my cut is significantly smaller than that.
Dropping the Studio Supply Shop aside from needing more time than I can devote to it, I’ve made zero money with it, and the notion that promoting it may detract from the other more important stuff I’m doing – the amazon associate program may be discontinued for Illinois residents soon if a certain law is signed by the governor. To me a sign to drop the shop portion of what I’m using that program for.
Etsy – Keeping the account til next eval, but not using the shop.
Same for ArtFire
My frustrate-y blog situation – Dropping Bent Realm Chronicles completely, moving some categories to the help topic blog. Dropping the Indy Shopkeeper Chat blog, will re-route that url to a landing page for the project portions of which will be on my RedGage profile. Resume using the Samples From Bent realm Studios blog as a portfolio but approach it a bit differently. Try to post to Artistical Exploration at least 10 times a month for now. Make a posting schedule for my Poetry. Increase my Decadent Angels efforts.
I will also up my production for both my zibbet shop and my zazzle shop since I’ve found them to be so enjoyable.
Make writing for my projects a much more habitual thing.
Make improved efforts on my current alpha projects as I call them.

Well, hopefully all that goes well. Definitely more focused this week as a result so far.

What do you think of my mad plots? Have you done any kind of similar evaluation process on your creative & related business (if you have one) recently? Have you had any similar decisions giving you a hard time? Have you found a solution?

Where the heck is part 2?

2010-12-21T07:30:00.000-07:00

For those of you who read my post The Art of Sleep part 1 back at the end of October, you may be wondering where part 2 is. Well it’s been awhile since I wrote the 1st one, I fully expected to write up part 2 within the next week. Due to being crazy sleepy when I finished writing part 1, no notes were written on what I’d intended to put in part two. I sat down to write part two on more than one occasion since, but have not been able to pull outta my head what in tarnation I’d originally had planned for it.

So now if I’m going to do a second part I will have to come up with it from scratch. I fully intend to brainstorm some notes for it after I finish writing this post. Who needs a whole blog entry to say just that?!

Patience my turtle friends. My point is that various things can cause disruption to plans for writing a second or subsequent parts of a series of entries. It’s common enough for sleepiness or a crazy busy day to make you lose sight of such intentions.

It’s not a great idea to title a blog post or even a novel part 1 if you don’t have at least the barest bones of part 2 written down. In the case of a blog entry it is advisable to have the whole series of entries already written or at least outlined before even posting the 1st one. In the case of a novel if you aim to do a series you’d be shooting yourself in the foot by telling folks hey a second bit is coming, without having written any notes on subsequent entries in said series.

And that is my writing tip for this fine but cold day.

What’s your method for writing a series of blog posts or novels, etc? Have you accidentally left floaters in your blog by titling something part 1 without immediately notating what you want in the next part?

Why oh why did I call you turtles? [Meh, it was a spontaneous choice for a term of endearment. I like the word turtle.]

Organization Beat Down & Muse Housebreaking

2010-12-17T11:31:00.005-07:00

Been having a hard time getting into the rhythm of posting regularly. While it did help immensely to stop posting stuff that seemed to belong in here to several separate blogs, I have surprisingly still felt really held back. It has finally dawned on me what it is. In addition to needing to have an organization process & schedule that works for me, I must settle into a balance between my need to talk shops and my need to yammer about creativity, while still having regular output of projects.

Artistical Exploration is what I named this blog & that’s what I want it to be about - exploring artistry in it’s varied glory. At the same time I have a great deal to say & contribute on the business end of things for artists, writers, & online shopkeepers. The trick is to figure out how to properly balance that in. It’s far too easy to get carried away talking shops. Too often I’d sit down to write about something specific, only to find my mind playing this cruel game where it likes to plague me with thoughts on stuff not relevant to what I’ve sat down to write about. That isn’t too bad when working on fiction projects because the deadlines on those are less daily centric in nature. When blogging however it can downright screw my days blog work, especially when I feel it’s time to whip up a post on artistic matters. Which it has many times.

This past year I’ve been discovering that with my projects I need clearly defined goals and some kind of standard operating procedure. Yet at the same time, I need major flexibility to deal with random unpredictable life bits and a disobedient muse. She shows up fine, it’s just she usually shows up confused about what’s due when. So scheduling has been a dastardly affair. I fully expect my muse is trainable, however housebreaking her this year has been rough. Suppose it helps to now realize this is in fact what I’ve been trying to do. See clearly defined goals.

The goal of attempting a proper wordcount regularly has thus far helped since deciding to go for that. It’s not yet where I want it to be, but the improvements are manifesting. Yay!

In my silly ambitiousness, I attempted to cut the business angle out of this blog as well as out of my Facebook page, via starting a new blog & facebook page for that. Wow, did that get time consuming fast!! I wound up not having time for anything else for a few days. * I went into the process of shutting it down. That project will not stop haunting me, though. So I'm trying to figure out how to find the right balance for it. It's called Indy Shopkeeper Chat [the column on this blog | the FB group | more content will be available on my RedGage account] Putting more on my plate than I currently have balanced out can tip the sucker over. One Twitter, one FB page, one main blog (I say it that way cuz posting things like help topics, my poetry, & Decadent Angels or any webcomics, should have their own bloggy homes not diluting what I’m trying to achieve with this one), etc. is a great goal to shoot for though not always as cleanly practical as I'd like.Wisely I did not attempt that extra blog & FB page in that same way for more than those few days. Unfortunately, about the time I started that extra blog my ability to add or edit the gadgets in any thing I have hosted via Blogger vaporized. That bug better get resolved soon or I may pop a blood vessel. [I'll have to test it in different browsers etc.]*

Now the plan to balance in the business junk consists of:

-The intent to post an indy shopkeeping column as close to weekly as I can make happen. Said column may be a highlight round-up of Indy Shopkeeper Chat activity. *
-Re-purposing & changing the way I handle the Indy Shop Chat on Facebook *
-The intent to host a semi-regular chat about that stuff on Twitter – using the #indyshopchat tag (yes I made that up) in conjunction with the beautimous tweetchat app
-Occasionally haunting the various relevant forums (not done much of that prior).

“Haha! That’s all well and good smartypants but what’s to make us think it’s enough to bust outta this bloggy rut?” you might say. Fair point. Over last weekend I had a serious break through in my epic war against my disobedient organization process, and my productivity in the days since that have been most pleasing to little old me. Granted this break through has been building for awhile, small battles have been won by me regularly for the last month or so.

These small battles have been things like -

Useful databases
I setup to help me keep track of what I should be on top of and how on top of it I am.
More are needed but it’s a good start. One of these databases tracks my blog posting. With categories like date last updated, name of blog, blog host, general topics & motivation. It disturbs me that there are 11 on there AFTER the great trimming I did. But this will reveal what ought to go into each blog and which ones won’t make it through the next round of cuts. Most of those blogs are the stuff that comes with accounts like Facebook & Myspace etc.

Proper shop tending logs.
These help me keep track of what I’ve done & when in a particular shop I manage & what needs to be done in future shopkeeping sessions, also it’s a good way to notate what kind of art I need to be working on for them.

There were of course many other small conquests, however it’s the big ones I ought to talk about now. There were 2 huge battles totally trounced last weekend. And they were such simple changes, I can’t help but feel the words “stupid oversight” creeping through me brainmeats.

Epic Victory #1

Through the course of my work day I frequently come up with some little important bit that needs to be documented for handy reference. Formerly this consisted of tons of looseleaf sheets scattered about my house as I’m butt-deep in a project, things get re-shuffled constantly as I work on different stuff. Hunting down the correct notebook or piece of paper I need would eat endless hours out of each week’s work and often put the Muse down for a nap. Granted this would not have been as large of an issue if most of my life had not involved frequent moves.

So there I was trying to sort out a bunch of these papers & file them. Many of them were not practical to be filed since I need to access them instantly on the fly without breaking my train of thought, rifling through a file or stack of random papers looking for a frequently used reference sheet or for my time sheet when trying to create is detrimental at best. Suddenly I remembered I have an empty binder upstairs. Audible forehead smack follows. I ran up there and snatched it outta my art studio. Next I began putting the most hunted for sheets in there.

Then when there was enough sheets in there to warrant it, I labeled some generic post-its and sectioned it off, sure the post-its are less elegant than separators, but I needed it organized right away. I don’t even want to get into how much time that has saved me this week alone. Epic. Victory.

Epic Victory #2

My OS is Windows 7 on this cheapy laptop we have (we have my 6 year old computer too, but getting on & off it takes too long & it’s hard disk space & RAM are too low for practical everyday use). With Windows 7 came a simple but great little program called Sticky Notes. Basically it’s like post-its for your desktop. I use them regularly with several useful things stuck to the desktop.

It suddenly occurred to me this weekend to start one for “what I’m doing right now!” Major. One of the biggest problems I’ve had is: more often than not it’s far too easy to get distracted, lose focus, or just plain forget what the crap I’m doing. There is a bit of a need to jot down stuff more specific than what is practical to put to paper, plus I want it in order but it needs to be able to be easily moved around. Regular files have been less accessible for this purpose, they lacked any sense of immediacy, and it’s far too easy to bog regular files down, etc.

Of course the list started to get long pretty quick so having a second “soon” sticky note to transfer items back to the Right Now file as time becomes available, and for any goal type thing that wound up in there (as opposed to actual task). Again epic victory.

Questions

Who’s already doing some of these things? What works for you in keeping your creative & related business efforts in check this way? What’s been holding you back with a project lately? Have you had a really simple change have such a huge effect on your process? Did it make you smack your forehead when you finally realized what simple change would do that?

To Catch a Pixie, pencils, binder by bentrealm
More To catch a pixie Binders

* indicates areas updated due to a major change the next day in what I'm doing that caused the original info to no longer be valid or accurate. Strike-through& re-write looked too messy. Updates done on 12/18/10 &1/14/11*

NaNo Fail

2010-12-07T07:30:00.000-07:00

Ok so I attempted to do NaNoWriMo this November [read previous post about it], and it was an epic fail! Waaaaahhhh!!! Pout! I was pretty bummed.

I just could not for the life of me figure out which project to spend a whole 30 days of being insane with! Trying to pump out 50,000 words of one rough draft in only 30 days is definitely a commitment to crazy. Or in my case, crazier. The thing is I have tons of projects, most involving writing, for me picking which to ride for that long proved to be more difficult than I ever thought it would be.

It turns out that sticking to the same writing project for more than a week consecutively is an extra level of crazy for me. Somehow I need the freedom to bounce into which ever project is occupying the most of my brain space that day. That’s a bit discouraging for the idea of finishing a whole novel in a reasonable amount of time. But then again it’s not unusual to hear of people taking two years or more on the same novel.

Naturally, all this leads me to wonder if NaNoWriMo is going to ever work for me. Then I wonder, well, hey maybe if I select a project & do a little bit of prep work on it in October, so that my first 15 days of November aren’t spent trying to pick something out. The preparations should help me get off on the right foot and invest me in that selection as the one I’m actually going to do, get my head in the game, so to speak. It’s probable that I’ll try that next year.

It’s also a good idea to spend this coming year being accustomed to achieving a word count goal regularly. Say a minimum of 250 words of blogging and 250 words of story-writing most days to start with and then increase from there. I’m not used to paying any attention to my word counts, nor holding myself accountable for specific length goals. In fact the idea of keeping track of my word count goal during the writing of the draft, rather than ignoring it completely (or just checking it between edits which seems a less neurotic approach), used to piss me off quite a bit. I’m only just now beginning to have a begrudging tentative acceptance of the concept of word counts. Could have something to with most of my writing until recently being only in notebooks (never gonna hand count ‘em, no freaking way). In theory it should be beneficial to start tracking the stupid word count.

But will it be enough? That I cannot predict.

I suppose I’d be happy enough to just make a little over half of the 50,000 words on the next attempt & then increase each year from there. Better than less or not trying.

Another thought plagues me though. Another very large problem I faced when attempting this year’s NaNo was that all those other writing projects my mind kept wandering to were not novels, they were my Decadent Angels series (which is an ongoing horror story-poem I post online), and several of my comic book projects. How does one devote a whole 30 days to knocking out the rough draft of a novel when all they can think about is comic books & a serial story-poem? Would it be too much of a deviation if I were to do the rough draft of a script for a graphic novel? Or the roughs of several episodes of Decadent Angels, or of several issues of a comic book series?

That’s definitely something I’ve got to get some feedback on before October.

Also, I realize that 50,000 words is a proper & reasonable size for 30 days, but I cannot for the life of me imagine ever writing a novel only 175 pages long. Couldn’t imagine being very satisfied reading a novel of that small size. It’s definitely been said that a writer should write what they like to read. I love big, grand epic-y stuff. So the question there is – since the goal is to write a completed novel weighing in at 50,000 words, is it too much of a deviation to have 50,000 words but not a completed rough of a novel? Sure this paragraph may be putting the cart before the horse, but I can’t help it, my mind does love to torture me this way. Besides, when writing hot I never know how much I could churn out. My record on that is one time in the space of about a day and a half I pumped out 90 pages handwritten in a notebook of a comic book story arc. My hand hurt for days. Pretty sure typing hurts less…

At any rate, it seems I am left with more questions than answers. Too bad I didn’t have the presence of mind to pose those questions to the NaNo forum during the challenge. It’s not a total loss though, since it vigorously renewed my resolve to get more writing done this year and at a steadier more measurable pace.

Who tried out NaNoWriMo this year? How did you do? What discoveries did you make? Who’s going to try it next year?

Yay it’s National Novel Writing Month

2010-11-01T10:49:00.001-07:00

It’s that time of year. NaNoWriMo. For those who don’t know NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, every November a bunch of crazy writers challenge themselves to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Obviously this doesn’t include editing or writing stages.

I first heard of it a few years ago and have always been interested in trying it. Usually there is some thing going on in my life during that month that puts up excessive road blocks to that. For example, last year during November I had to paint the interior of my house, it had to be done entirely in November in order to get December’s rent waived, we would have been badly behind on bills due to a rough few months before my fiancé got transferred out here last October.

This year seems much better for trying it. For one thing I actually remembered it on the 1st of November out of nowhere. So assuming I can figure out what I want to try writing by the end of today, I’m going for it. It breaks down to about 1666 words per day, assuming you write all 30 days. If you only write 20 of those days that would be 2500 words per day.

I’ve just signed up on the NaNoWriMo site and am pretty excited. If I miss more than 10 days writing in the 1st half of the month I’ll just try again next year, it’d be a bad idea to stress myself out cramming during the last half of the month.

I really hope I can figure out a starting point by 5 pm, I really want to get the writing started today. Wish me luck on this!

Who has heard of NaNoWriMo before? Who is participating this year? Who’s thinking about it? Any of you won it before?

I’d really love to have a 1st draft of a novel finished by November 30th. It’d be so sweet and would break a lot of walls for me too.

The Art of Sleep part 1

2010-10-26T06:06:00.001-07:00

It’s official. I’m on a daysleeping schedule this week. Trying not to be frustrated with the schedule flop around currently. It’s a recurring cycle. Believe it or not my natural sleeping rhythm is to be awake days (daywaking) for a week or so then flip around to sleeping days (daysleeping) for a week or so, it cycles this way. I’m a lot better off obeying it trust me. Been down the fighting it road, not pretty.

It is vital that I get sleep with in every 24 hour period, and also that I get enough sleep. This may sound overly dramatic. It’s not. If I don’t get enough sleep I get hospitalized. I lost my early twenties to not being able to avoid the hospital due the results of not getting enough sleep. I have permanent damage from all that.

It’s easy for people to say just get some sleep. It’s just as easy for those same people to wake you up and demand that you not be asleep when you should be, with zero regard to what that in fact does to you.

What’s this sleep stuff got to do with art and writing?

When I was going through the hospital system, etc, for it they kept putting me on zombification medications. For me those had side effects like making it impossible to write or draw or otherwise be creative. My creativity is the biggest part of who I am, when I was artificially impaired from doing my creative things I was dead inside and way suicidal. But I don’t want to get too deep into all that, but it definitely is an artistic issue related to sleep I need to not repeat. And I’m not the only one.
Day & Night are suited to different things, as well as very different atmospherically. As any creative has experienced atmosphere makes a vast difference in what you’re doing. So a schedule that works for one probably is not ideal for the other.
Quality & Quantity of creative output suffers when one doesn’t get enough sleep.
Other people in your house affect your schedule. If you sleep days and they work days then your most convenient hours for really getting knee deep in a creative project are being slept through. If you then sleep when the other people in your house are sleeping then they’ll be getting up and doing their morning thing which sorry to say will throw your optimal morning routine way behind and much of what other people do when they wake up or get home is not conducive to your being in the midst of some creative project. Much of it is unpredictable for the purposes of accurate scheduling.
Suddenly you get sleepy and wake up later to discover you’ve drooled all over your project or keyboard.
You fight the sleep too long and wind up with nothing of value to show for your time.
If your sleep schedule bounces between day & night like mine naturally does, you may discover there is stuff you are supposed to do regularly that can only really be done on one and not the other. Obvious things like going to the post office calling your utility company or going to the bank, which are clearly daytime activities. Then there are not so obvious things. I have come to discover that writing blog entries worth a darn is more attainable at night…though this may go for most real writing (as in working on a draft as opposed to background things like making a character list)

I’m sure there’s more but well I’m starting to get tired since it’s now early morning.

How does sleep affect your art, writing & creativity?

Love Drawing Dragons

2010-09-07T08:28:00.001-07:00

There is just something about drawing these fierce majestic creatures, I can’t help it, I love drawing dragons. Gotta say though I haven’t drawn nearly enough dragons this year, let alone thus far in my lifetime. There are 3 of my dragon illustrations hanging in my parents home and I really don’t think this is enough. Two of them are large and I wish I had proper pictures of them to show off here. But then I think, eh well, they are more than five years old anyhow.

Before I tried drawing dragons for the first time I imagined they would be extremely difficult to draw. Then I got my hands on an art book full of sea serpent illustrations. I studied it and then dove right in trying to draw dragons. They turned out to be a lot less tricky to draw than I expected, especially when ya sketch in the frame lines first. Which of course didn’t fully occur to me the first time I did one. It turned out fine but once I started sketching in proper framelines first they got easier.

Realistically though I haven’t drawn very many dragons at all, despite how much I love it. Maybe only 10 of them, a few of those lower level sketch attempts. So come to think of it, I’m doing a lot better at them than I would have expected at them, for that many. Guess that means I ought to draw a bunch more. Heh.

Oh no I feel a self challenge coming on. Something along the lines of doubling the number of dragons I’ve drawn before years end. Wonder if I can snap that out with little schedule troubles.

Do any of you really love dragon art? Who likes drawing, painting, illustrating, writing about, or creating crafts involving dragons? What is it that makes this mythological creature so interesting?

Been Doing Lots of Re-organizing

2010-08-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

Oh my goodness, I have been busy making lots of changes around Bent Realm Studios during August. One thing is I’m trying to do is simplify the way I have things set up around here. Now since I’m kind of a spaz, naturally I had many things set up more separate and complicated than they ought to be. Ok, sure some of that was simply because I wasn’t yet sure what would work best for me and my endeavors, some things I was just guessing and others I was trying out different venues. One of the things that was in need of major simplification is my blogs.

So over the next week or so both the Bent Realm Chronicles and Samples From Bent Realm Studios blogs will be combining with this blog.

I kept feeling a need to mention posts from each of these 3 blogs within each other then forgetting more often than not, and the efforts began to seem redundant to the point of pretty much halting them to a stand-still. This will be a lot better than trying to direct traffic through 3 different blogs that I now realize ought to be only one. I’ll simply index it as needed and update the other parts of my website to reflect the change properly. This will free up the time spent having a headache over managing the excess ones, for more productive things. It was splitting my focus too much. And well this blog is definitely my favorite of the three to write.

I had good intentions and solid reasons when set these up as three separate blogs, most of them involve indexing issues, and an attempt to make browsing my art samples and Bent Realm news simple. So naturally it came out all complicated, and along the way I figured out a better and genuinely simple way to address those things. And yeah it was one of those things that make ya go duh.

Sorry for any inconveniences. This change should make things a lot simpler for everyone. Plus it should relieve the tension I’ve been feeling when I sit down to write a blog entry past couple months. Wish me luck and a smooth transition.

Questions? Thoughts? Diatribes about ninjas?

Some shots of some of my fan art

2010-06-21T06:00:00.001-07:00

Now before anyone says a word, I’m aware of the not stellar quality of these photos. My camera is just a an old cell phone that no longer is attached to a service and has a usb port, taking proper pictures is difficult at best given it’s screen display issues when the sun is out and finding the right lighting in this house is an ongoing quest. Some day I will be able to get a proper digital camera but until that day comes, meh, this is what I got to use. Some of them I cleaned up in photoshop.

All the pieces in this are several years old. Several. I’m not so very into doing fan art so this is likely going to be the last time I put fan art up. I much prefer creating my own characters, and working on art that is not based on some one else’s. Please note these should fall under fair use as I mostly was doing them to learn how to illustrate and they are just fan art.

This was 1 of 3 pieces I did for my godson’s 1st birthday, somewhere around 2001 or 2002, the originals were sent to him & his mother (Grasshopper!). Above is Superman done in watercolors and india ink.

Here’s the second, done with watercolors, india ink and a touch of white out, I also applied some special glow in the dark paint which had a little glitter in it. SpiderMan at the extreme front, on top of one building is Black Cat (her hair was done in white-out) and atop another is the Punisher. Figures can be seen inside several windows on the original as well, and I included a window washer on his rig.

Here’s the third of those for my godson, done in charcoal with a little of that glow in the dark paint applied, Batman.

Above is Roman Dirge’s Lenore, in ink, done 2002. The 1st is taken directly from my sketchbook and Jhonen Vasquez’s Happy Noodle Boy can partially be seen next to her. The second image I cleaned up in photoshop, and enhanced the name.

Above is Spawn in pencil & charcoal, perhaps 1999. Drew him maybe twice. This one is a 12’ by 18’ I do believe.

My one playful attempt at Harley Quinn in 2000.

The above is based on Anna from Shaman King in 2004.

The above was loosely based on a figure in a Brom painting. I want to say 2007.

The above was my first real crack at a manga style drawing, about 1999, based on some random manga character, not real sure who, I am sure some of that is my own embellishments though.

Love making up my own characters way too much to spend much time dabbling around with fan art. Anyhow hope you liked them. I might bother to get higher quality photos out for these but then because they’re fan art, might not.

Who has ever drawn fan art? Did you enjoy that? Who’s your favorite characters to draw? Do you ever make up your own characters? Who among you has big plans for your own illustrated characters?

Slave to the Music

2010-06-18T06:00:00.010-07:00

How in the crap did people survive without music in their daily lives?!! Music is something I love beyond reason. It has kept me sane in moments where madness seemed the only possible result. In moments of madness it still gave me something to hang on to. I genuinely believe mp3 players should be developed as therapy devices, covered by health insurance, and allowed in the work place as an assistive device. Aside from music helping me to concentrate when I feel like my brain is trying to make a run for it, it also helps me fight stress, keep my mood on an even keel and helps me keep track of how long I’ve been at a task I might otherwise be at too long. In my writing and art, oh please, it is, forgive the pun, instrumental.

Sure some may need the quiet to write or make art, etc. Silence is more than a little horrific to me, and never really all that quiet. For me in particular it is an essential ingredient to the art and writing process. Even if only some days to keep me from spacing out or losing my train of thought.

There are moments where the music runs through me and I realize, ack I have been still for way too long. So I’ll get up and take a dance break. Instant exercise for those tasks which are too easy to allow to be incredibly sedentary activities.

I’ve never found anything that can get me into the mindframe of specific characters and worlds, whether in writing or drawing them, faster than certain songs, playlists or types of music.
So many feel that music is crucial to them, I can’t help but imagine times before music was so abundantly available as at best lost.

Writing poetry without some pounding pulsating rhythm echoing in my headphones, is not something I even care to think about. Some may have difficulties keeping the lyrics from invading their written word. This is not a problem I personally have had, and I’m sure there are plenty out there who can keep it more than separate. It helps my pen fly across the page and my fingers glide across the keyboard. You’d never guess I’d been listening to Buried Alive by OTEP as I wrote this paragraph. It helps build rhythm.

Granted I listen to some stuff that many artists & writers probably would never attempt to write and do art to, or even listen to. I think the last time I was into mainstream pop the Bangles had just been walking like an Egyptian, of course I was also digging stuff like Pink Floyd and Ted Nugent’s Stranglehold as a kid, then in the late ‘80’s Enter Sandman by Metallica was high on my list of adored music. My taste is fairly eclectic, I’ll listen to some visual kei, then switch to some aggrotech, then put on my favorite band- Tool. I also like: belly dancing music (examples – Hossam Ramzy, Azam Ali), Talvin Singh, Beethoven, Tricky and other random things. Was into hip-hop, r&b and rap for about five minutes in the 8th grade.

I also enjoy singing, dancing and making music too. I’ve been writing songs since high school. Never had much access to instruments or anything aside from a brief attempt at saxophone in the 5th grade, wanted to play bass but they told me I was too little. Every time I got my hands on one I’d end up making patterns on them especially if I could play with the instrument when no one was around. If someone were to give me a drum set…oops drooling now. Anyhow I digress.

There are times when writing story or for a series that if you listen to the same playlist it can instantly re-acclimate you to the whole thing. Especially if you made the playlist specifically for the series, character or whatever.

I’ve also found music to be great at helping to fully visualize an art piece during the layout stage.
Music is a great way to help dissolve the brute force of distractions.

Anyhoo that’s what was on my mind this early am. I find that music only awakens and edifies the muse. And it’s something I develop further in my own creative endeavors.

Here’s a few places online to check out the music I listen to:

You may be interested to check out this: Musically Enhanced Free-write

Do you listen music while you write? While you create art? What kind of music best helps you with your creative efforts? What works best for you?

___________________________________________

Flaws in the Organization System

2010-06-16T17:52:00.001-07:00

From outward appearances this blog may appear to have been forgotten! Oh, how can this be? Simple, it’s an illusion. Over the past several weeks, amidst the inevitable chaos of my life, I hunkered down and made a plan for what I wanted to do with this blog. I made schedule of days and which topic types should be addressed on those days. I also spent some time developing a few ongoing columns for Artistical Exploration. The system is flawed and I aim to do more than slap a band-aid on it.

Couldn’t forget about this blog if I tried. In some strange way I really love this blogging thing. Events of the past several months have been of the sort that point out, in harsh contrast, the most extreme fatal flaws of my organization system. Not that I’m complaining. Not at all. I really needed that flashlight shone on those flaws, because I was wanting to know what they were. Without the events of late, I would not have found them as quickly, nor would I have had the chance to spend a bit of time working out a way to resolve so many of them.

Among the things the organization problem affected was the rate at which I could put out new art and writing, as well as just about every other thing in my life. I simply was not taught in school, nor at home how to organize things properly. My mom showed me much about general organizing, sure, but not how to set up filing systems, nor how to untangle my belongings properly after a move. Growing up and until very recently, we moved around a lot. This is not an exaggeration, more like an understatement. The last place I lived, I broke the “2 years at one address consecutively” mark for the first time in my entire life. But I was only able to break it by about 7 months. Where I live now, as I approach the one year mark - some 4 months away, I’m doing everything I can to unravel the mess that our sudden move caused. The cause for the sudden move this time was an extremely positive one, however it took the two & a half years of the last place and the ton of moves before it and scrambled the snot out of my belongings in a way it never had before.

So since we moved here I’ve been trying to re-train myself in my organizing, and well the things that piled on me this year, so many of them I just didn’t expect to clash with that at all. Yet there they were all tangled up. Which I guess, in the end, is lucky. Now, I can see more clearly what needs to be done regularly with what, and which kinds of files I need most, which as it turns out were not the files I already had going. At least my head will not explode, as I thought might be around the bend if I didn’t figure this out well enough by now.

What obstacles do you face in your creative endeavors, especially when it comes to organization?

Did anyone show you what to do with index cards?

I would hear all over the place, oh index cards they’re so useful but no one would go into to any details about what they did with them, so I guess I’ll just have to write a little book about my discoveries with that.

Have you got a proper calendar system for your art, writing, crafting or other such things?

Took me a long while to get my calendars to work with my stuff, they’re just now starting to fall into place. And now that they are I sorta wonder how I kept my head from rolling off in frustration before they started to work right.

Wish they taught life management classes in school, ahh such a pretty dream…

Well, I’ve got to go now lots more to do today, and the day is pretty well gone.

1st entry in the Organization for the Creative column.

Sleep and the Creative

2010-05-24T11:34:00.001-07:00

Been up to lots of things in the background lately. A flurry of activity mostly offline, and much planning too. We’ve had a house guest come to stay long term. This is taking adjustment, naturally. I’ve got several entries for Artistical Exploration started up and in various stages of being written.

My sleep schedule has been upside down for the last week or so. I’d worry except this absolutely nothing new. Silly thing flips upside down on a fairly regular basis. Me awake days for a week or so, me asleep nights for a week or so then the cycle repeats. It’s among the major reasons working at home is just about the only reasonable option for me.

It’s funny the different ways that this affects my creativity and other processes. In my more awake days I look for patterns, curiously seeking out the best bet times for doing specific tasks whether that be the art, writing, business and networking aspects. I’ve yet to find anything conclusive on this. The scientist in me is disappointed by that. The free spirit in me revels in it, muwahahaha conformity can suck it that part of me says. And well no one wants to hear what the practical side of me thinks.

I wonder how does your sleeping pattern interfere with enhance or otherwise affect your creative processes? And for those who run businesses around your creativity, how does your sleep pattern affect your business efforts? I’m curious how other people in similar boats handle the whole sleep issue…

Making the Best of an Ink Spill

2010-05-09T06:00:00.001-07:00

Spilling India Ink on the carpet is bad! Really bad. And pity, such a waste of ink. Or does it have to be wasted? Nah.

In 2001, I was doing a piece in my sketchbook using watercolors and India ink. I was using both a brush and sketching pen set (the kind with penholders and nibs). I had absolutely no plans to include such a large dark area in it. If not for the spilled ink, I never would have included that. Ultimately I think, and others have commented that, the large darkness within this painting adds a great effect to it. It probably wouldn’t have been all that compelling with out it.

The ink washes added due to the spill took the painting to a darker and more sinister place, more inline with the sort of painting I was in the mood to do. However, I’d been hesitant to use any large amount of ink. Never knew when I would be able to get my next bottle of India ink. I had no clue where the art supplies lived in proximity to where I lived. So, while I was certainly toying with the idea of foregoing a bit of food to replace my ink as randomly needed, that only works if you know a good place to regularly pick such things up.

Here’s how it went down:

In the mood to paint and play with my pen & ink supplies, I pulled out my sketchbook, India ink, watercolors, paint brushes, sketching pen set, a paper towel, water cups, stuff like that. The memory is a little fuzzy in some areas of what happened.
Lying on my belly on the floor of my bedroom, I began painting the basic figure of the girl, next I painted in the man. I did the watercolor background washes then. Then I painted in the basic shapes of the stairs. Since then, I’ve heard the washes are supposed be done before the main figure work, as ever I am the backwards sort.
Then I opened the ink I don’t think I put the ink into my lovely sturdy old glass ink well, I recall it being there against that hideous orange carpet with me, but I can’t recall exactly how the ink spilled. I do remember it wasn’t long after I began sketching in the inked details with my pens.
Ink spills, I freaked out for a moment swearing, crying, lamenting the loss of ink. I used my paper towel to try and blot the ink out of the carpet. Then I ran to my little bathroom to grab the toilet paper roll, not sure how much I’d need.
As I stared at the toilet paper soaked in ink and I looked at my picture sadly, I thought, screw this I’m not just wasting all this ink like that! So I squeezed some into my ink well and most I just applied directly to the painting with the toilet paper straight off the carpet.
I blotted as much out of the carpet as I could, my trash can nearby, for the used T.P. (that sounds wrong, ignore how wrong that sounds). I was careful not to rub I didn’t want to make the carpet worse. My fingers were covered in ink. I used my fingers a little bit on the painting too, just a bit.
I stopped messing with the carpet for a minute. Using a paint brush to enhance and blend what I applied with the TP.
Then I went and got a bowl of clean water, putting in a few drops of dish soap and finished cleaning up the floor, still using a little TP & paper towels. I finished that as quickly as I could, wanting to get back to the painting. The ink stain wasn’t too noticeable, well, not if you didn’t know exactly where it was.
I finished putting in the details with pen, did some very light ink washes using a brush & the carpet-recovered ink. There was surprisingly very few little hairs to pull off the art.

And voila, project salvaged!

_____________________________________

Tell us a little about your own experiences with project near disasters.
Have you ever spilled India ink? Or some other liquid art supply? What happened? Did your art get ruined? Or were you able to make the best out of your unfortunate mess?

Doodle: Burn & Scorch, an art experiment

2010-05-06T12:00:00.003-07:00

Here’s a snapshot of a doodle I did clear back in freshman year of high school. The entire thing was a spontaneous experiment, an exercise in artistic exploration. I took this here doodle of mine then burned and scorched it to come out with this. It’s an experiment I enjoyed and occasionally revisit every few years.

Warnings –

Be extremely careful if you try this, you do so at your own risk. Paper is highly flammable, as I’m sure you know.
The way I do the burning and scorching is via an extremely controlled environment and manner with safety being the top priority, paying full attention to it.
Most people should probably never even attempt this.
I don’t recommend doing this often. People tend to get complacent and casual in habitual practices. Lighting stuff on fire is not a casual thing and should never be taken lightly or abused.

Here’s How I did this experiment:

I started with pen and doodled during class while the teacher was discussing something.
When I began to see shapes taking place I strengthened and enhanced those impressions and lines with my pen.
I sketched in the letters for the words I had chosen to compliment the image that had emerged - “Evil Dwells in the Hearts of Men”
Next I enhanced the shape and style of the lettering.
Then I thought I was done, put it in one of my school folders and randomly glanced at it during normal school activities. There it remained until one night of too much homework.
I pulled it out and stared, thinking this isn’t done yet huh… needs fire.
So I went to the kitchen got a mixing bowl, swiped one of my parents lighters and took them and the drawing to the bathroom.
I set the drawing aside away from the water, and filled the bowl most of the way full with water and placed it on the counter next to the sink in case the controlled burning of the paper got out of control. I also made sure no towels or other flammable items were anywhere near the sink. Also I left the door open and ensured that my two youngest sisters (who at the time were very young but old enough to attempt monkey-see monkey-do, and run in and jostle me), volatile step-dad and anxious mother weren’t around or wouldn’t be underfoot, my sis AJ appreciated art experiments and didn’t need to be avoided.
I brought the drawing closer then proceeded to spend about 10 minutes igniting the lighter. I suck at starting lighters.
Once I had a long flame going from it I picked up the drawing and carefully brushed it up against the paper, while holding it directly over the sink (in case the flames got larger than anticipated so I could drop the paper into the sink immediately and to catch any pieces that burned off).
I burned the edges all around and in further some places than others very slowly and only a small section at a time, this is where the flame gets it’s largest & has to be monitored very carefully and blown out once it reaches the desired point on the paper. At times I needed to slightly wet my fingers in the bowl of water and snuff out the still slightly smoldering edge.
I scorched parts of the interior image by holding the lit lighter below the underside of the paper not touching it with the flame. This typically took only a few seconds and I pulled the paper away from the flame quickly before it could do much to it beyond that, though the first scorch I did was too close to the paper and held there too long, I’m sure you can tell which one that was.
I made sure the artwork had cooled before I was done. When using matches rather than lighters be sure to wet the match thoroughly before throwing away, though I recommend lighters over matches for this. Lighters are easier to control, matches have that sulphur smell that could be a costly distraction (the burning paper smells like cooking flour tortillas I thought, which made me hungry), also having to light new matches through out could cause a grave error.
Luckily I have never needed to use the bowl of water beyond wetting my fingers to extinguish slight smoldering. But it’s the time that one forgets to have the bowl of water that it’ll be needed most.
I put away the supplies and kept the lighter. This experiment also kept my urge to play with fire safely in check, by busting it out every few years, well that and burning things like sprite boxes at campfires to see pretty colored flames. Fire pretty, it’s a thing I have to face. Yep, fire like shiny is compelling to me. Better to tame the beast than for the beast to tame me. At least for me anyhow, I imagine others with stronger compulsions for fire and less discipline would not be able to tame it this way.

Remember this is an experiment that must be done very carefully in a controlled environment or not at all.
Anyhoo, hope you found that brief artistic foray into mild pyromania an interesting diversion.

Who has ever tried using controlled fire as an art supply before? What safety precautions do you use? What types of effects have you developed?

Who has a workshop set-up for art or making that incorporates fire or burning, scorching and melting, or even kilns in someway? Who uses Photoshop (etc) to develop effects like this in digital art? How’s that going?

_______________________________________

Be safe artists.

Major Options for a Fiction Writer

2010-04-24T10:43:00.001-07:00

For the 1st time ever I felt compelled to respond to a question on Yahoo Answers. That is the question was interesting enough and I had relevant advice to mention. The question was from someone who wanted to be a fiction writer who was asking advice on what she should major in in college, her aunt recommended Journalism which she’s not at all keen on and she’s thinking of going for a creative writing major. It sounds as though she’s serious about being a fiction writer and she mentions developing her writing skills as the key factor behind the urge to attend college. [view the question & other answers submitted]

The answer I submitted:

If you despise journalism do not under any circumstances study it as your major, you will only grow to hate it more as time passes. No offense to your knowledgeable aunt, but you are the one who would have to deal with the consequences of majoring in something you despise. I too loathe journalism, I took a journalism class once due to late registration, and will never be into doing that type of writing. Though I have nothing against doing a few interviews for my blog.

Some thoughts on how best to approach your dilemma:
* If you truly want to excel as a fiction writer, you may be better off not majoring in anything specifically writing related.
* College is very expensive. As far as majors go, creative writing is a not a particularly functional degree.
* If you need to earn a living on a day to day basis and do not have the luxury of waiting for your writing to find it's place amongst the stars: you need more marketable skills (a more marketable degree) that will BOTH enhance your fictional writing goals and interests & be easy to use for a day job. The day job will likely be necessary for quite awhile while further honing your writing skills, completing your initial fictional novels (assuming novels will be your main format), and more to cover basic needs and bills.
* English & Writing classes have a tendency to attempt to systematically destroy all things a fiction writer loves, especially when taken on as a major.
* I also hear you can't do much with an English major; except maybe become an English or writing teacher. Though additional teaching certification is typically required. Perhaps being a creative writing teacher might be the way to pay the bills, perhaps major in teaching (or major in whatever is the most applicable relevant major for becoming a writing teacher is) and minor in creative writing. All while using your down-time and summer vacations to pursue a fiction writing career, it could be a good way to go. The discomfort of dealing with people would be offset by teaching the awesome creative writing classes. I personally found my semester long creative writing class in high school beyond beneficial.
* Buy books on writing, grammar, punctuation, techniques and so on. Read them and explore the methods and exercises within them on your own. Explore any facet of fictional writing that peeks your interest. Take notes about what you like and dislike while studying said books.
* While reading fiction pay close attention to the wordplay in the story and the ways in which the story is crafted and held together. Know what you like and what you dislike in the way the author told the story and strive to keep your own tastes in mind as you write your own stories. This is something no degree can offer and no teacher can teach you, yet it is extremely important to developing your skills as a writer.
* Take a creative writing class as an elective. And/ or add a creative writing correspondence course from a reputable source (check with http://bbb.org the Better Business Bureau while selecting your correspondence school). And/ or try taking a creative writing class at a community college or via your local community center, or some such thing.
* The major that I think could be most beneficial in your situation- business. All the better to market your writing & manage your fictional writing career, and useful in numerous day job type fields, it has the added bonus of being a day job choice that will not overly deplete the creative juices you will need to pour into your fictional writing work.
* Also, psychology is a great minor for someone who is very interested in writing fiction. Knowing the psychological angles could really enhance your fiction writing so long as you avoid writing stuff that sounds pulled from some psych 101 tome. Additionally, it would compliment a business major. If you don't like dealing with people I would not opt to make the psychology your major. Though realistically, a psychologist is dealing with far less people on a regular basis than say a cashier at a grocery store and in a much more controlled environment too, not that I'd ever recommend psychologist as a day job for a fictional writer type. At the very least whatever minor you choose should be something that can enhance your writing.
* You might consider minoring in creative writing and choosing a more widely marketable skill for your major, in a field that will enhance your writing career.
* Join a creative writing support group or something similar.
* You might consider postponing college a bit longer or skipping it entirely, until after you have tried out many of the other less expensive things I have mentioned. If after trying those out creative writing is still your passion, then consider whether or not you want to go to college for it. A college degree really isn't necessary to be a fiction writer. If something in which a degree would be worth the money you'll spend on it sparks your interest later on down the road consider it then for that.
* According to Sherrilyn Kenyon, NY Times best selling author, paranormal romance, in an interview I saw awhile back (as well as other random writers and people in the publishing field) - there is more money in non-fiction. So be sure to learn those skills as well. Who knows you may enjoy doing something like writing non-fiction e-books to supplement your income, possibly even someday you might find yourself writing non-fiction books about fiction writing techniques.
* If the only reason you're are planning to go to college is to hone your writing skills then I'd recommend not going for any degree at this time. You'll hone them more by habitually writing, and perhaps auditing a couple of relevant classes, and many of the other things I've mentioned.

* I read the first page of the writing sample you included. I might read more later if I have time. I would say that you have solid grasp of many key writing fundamentals. Though you could use a bit more study of proper use of punctuation. In many instances the way you used punctuation I found distracted me and pulled me out of the story. Your punctuation became less distracting as I went down the page- illustrating nicely the principal that to write well one must simply keep writing. The story itself shows promise and potential. I loved the line about his hair looking ridiculous if he didn't "set it into palatability."

My job - Artist/ Writer, owner of Bent Realm Studios http://www.bentrealm.com
My college experience - I was only able to attend for two months. Five years later I'm still paying that off and I'm not even close to finished. I did meet my fiancé, the love of my life because I went to the school I went to, when I went, majoring in what I majored in (which in fact was what I expected to get out of it, though I did think it would be a nice bonus if I got a nice career out of it too). The major had been Video Game Design. I also learned some valuable useful info while there that benefit my ultimate writing and art goals.
Correspondence course - art
I've been writing and drawing seriously since 1994, but I have only begun the genuine attempt to make a living with it this year. I wanted to do do something very specific with my work long before the means to do exactly as I wished even existed. I also wanted to develop my skills majorly prior to making this attempt. I prefer writing fiction but don't mind writing reference-centric non-fiction.

What would I have done differently- Practiced writing and drawing with specific goals and deadlines more often than I did.

I hope that helps even if in only a small way. Who knows, maybe it’ll help someone else even. But that’s my $20 on the matter (my two cents adjusted for inflation). And drat I just noticed that I accidentally used “you’re are,” bizarre how much difference the display makes in editing. I also just noticed what actually posted to Yahoo Answers was drastically cut short. That is incredibly irritating. The submission process did not indicate a character limit, nor did it inform me I had passed it. I’ll have to edit it to include a link to this post. World –1 Me- 0… wonder if it really is a good idea to start keeping score on that…my impulse would be to retro-count the score too. *sigh*

Writers, what have your experiences with the usefulness of college degrees been? Artists? Crafters? Makers? Who has stuff to add to what I said? Who has majored in creative writing? Did you graduate? What were you able to do with said creative writing degree? Who else has character limits make them randomly feel like beating a coconut to death? What other majors would you recommend for someone who wants to be a fiction writer?

Adepts, Dabblers & Chocolaty Death

2010-04-15T00:44:00.003-07:00

Initially, I considered calling this Random Thoughts Inspired by Death Sex. Since this has plenty to do with the blog post Death Sex by @VickiDeath. However, enough of what’s in here has long dwelt within my brainmeats being un-voiced, not to mention too much a rip of her catchy title. She’s only started using her blog regularly recently. Though more recently than I. Her blogging shows promise, I’d say.

In her post, she talked about two questions she gets repeatedly that largely pry into her techniques and methods for creating certain effects in her art. She then goes on to explain why those two questions annoy her hardcore. Once again, I was writing way too much in a comment and realized I’d started a new blog entry. As does happen when a blog poster goes being all thought provoke-y.

Thoughts largely &/or vaguely related to her post:
Thought 1 – Art Teachers & Students

There is no end to the amusement when non-artists treat all artists as teachers. Not all artists are interested, willing or even capable of being teachers. Of course, on the flipside there is always the saying - those who can’t do teach.

I wonder if the art teachers who have students come away feeling as she did, do they fall into that category? As though they learned very little or only re-hashed what the student already knew or even deciding to discontinue their art studies. Some who discontinue their formal studies do continue to be an artist and learn on their own.

Are those teachers unable to earn a living with their art, unable to make a career of it and therefore just bitter enough to quickly have their students dismiss them? I’m sure this happens, the traditional art world is very hard to break into. Notice I say traditional. Certainly some feel teaching is their place and art is simply what they are to teach. Those are the art teachers you are more likely to learn a lot from, but the population being what it is, that’s rare. Even more so as funding for art programs gets continually sliced to shreds.

Or maybe the way art needs to be taught has changed. If people are asking questions that should be posed to a teacher directly of artists who have given no real public indication that they care for being a teacher or imparting hard fought self-taught knowledge to those looking for quick easy answers, then yeah, that is a clear sign that something needs to change [a post expanding upon this will be linked here later]. Granted one cannot always tell when someone has been mostly self-taught, but self-taught or not the path of art is typically hard fought. That was fraught with rhyming…yep.

Thought 2 – Broke Artists Cringe When Brands are Mentioned

If people asked me those two questions I'd not answer and be more than irritated too. I have nothing against doing a little art teaching [a related post will be linked here later] or sharing knowledge, but those particular questions are of a maddening variety.

I pay little attention to brands & makes when knee deep in an art project & dislike writing down what I use through out the process, that & growing up poor causes disdain for discussing brands.
Besides telling somebody your tool is an f'n generic q-tip and having them be so shocked, probably not as satisfying as one might imagine.

Personally I have to work with what I have, I’m not in a position yet to buy fancy art supplies, or even new ones all that often. Luckily, from the time I started playing hard and purposefully with art around age 14, people who gave me presents went for the easy here’s some art supplies kid, and I’d randomly buy some when I had money. I’ve a decent stockpile to last while I wait for the money to stop being such a heartless prick to me.

Plus going into detail about specific techniques is time-consuming, especially repeatedly. If I was just an artist maybe that wouldn't make much difference to me but I'm also a writer. When I'm doing art, I'm thinking about the art. The writer needs to be turned off while I complete my illustration, painting or whatever if it’s not for sequential art purposes. The project, not the ins & outs of what specifically I’m doing, that stuff goes to or comes from a more subconscious place and I get lost in it. I like to work fast and hard, from deep inside where explanation is more like a stranger.

I’d love to make videos to teach with, I think it would be the only way I could do it. Film myself working on art, narrate it later and even write notes for instructional blogs and eventually books. Do I have a video camera? Of course not crazyface! However my mother has a plot to send me a webcam packed in chocolate bunnies soon. Chocolate bunnies?! Ha! Of course it will be packed in chocolate bunnies, Easter just happened and my mom is awesome like that. She has a webcam she bought for one of my sisters that never got used. I think the sister accidentally killed her laptop by drowning it with hot chocolate. This is what happens when the oldest doesn’t even get a card for graduating high school and the 3rd child gets a laptop, it’s called karma. Either that or just keep your drinks away from the electronics.

Thought 3 – the Dabblers Are Not Allowed to Eat the Adepts

A lot of my art & writing skills are largely self-taught. Naturally, I can relate to the fabulous Miss Death’s disinclination to divulge such hard-won life lessons to dabblers. One can tell they’re dabblers too.

To be a true artist, once you discover your interest in making art -you spend your life organically learning all you can absorb about the process of making art and then applying and improving upon the knowledge picked up throughout your quest. It is intense hard work, dabblers haven’t the stones to live that quest. Adepts should never share too much info with dabblers. As an artist, whatever your chosen art form, you embrace the pain. I think some people call it studying.

I never really studied so much as bothered to learn as I went. I used to have people ask me, after I aced a test, if they could study with me. I don’t really know how to study. I’ve seen it on TV. It looks nothing like what I do. The looks on their faces when I would tell them sorry I don’t study for tests was …alarming. So I’m not one to advise precisely how to study art on your own, per se. Everyone has a different learning style, they just need to find theirs.

I’d say the questions that the fabulous Miss Death keeps getting ticked off by, imply “dabbler.”
What do I mean by dabbler -

a lack of seriousness about being an artist
an expectation of the world to give them quick easy neat answers and things served in silver platters
a habit of slurping up the hardwork of others and trying to ride it like it can take them somewhere they cannot go, a propensity to play around in someone else’s garden wreak some havoc
flittering away giggling or complaining at the earliest signs of real challenge
an utter lack of giving a crap if they dented the holy hell out of something in the process
Like they wouldn’t properly appreciate the gift of your knowledge if you went out of your way to articulate on your own techniques
nor are they the sort to genuinely appreciate any skills they gain, nor are they the sort to actually connect with their own art.

But more than that is the fact that they were asked of an artist who does not post tutorials or even links to tutorials, or in any other way publically indicate that she is the teaching sort. Yet she gets asked.
I imagine that sounded harsh to some but dabblers make me have headaches and you’ll notice I kindly left out the word lazy…oh wait there it is. I have no taste for dabblers, and I imagine I am far from alone in that.

Dabblers are not to be confused with people who:

aren’t sure if they want to start exploring art
have recently started and are looking for guidance
have not accepted how much of an artist they are yet.
are just kinda lost as to where to explore next
were never encouraged or permitted to explore art as a child
If not from dabblers, those questions would have come with an indication of some sort that they were just seeking your guidance for a bit. Non-dabblers are the kind who are far more likely to ask an artist who publically indicates an interest in teaching, whether by posting tutorials, art lesson videos, tips, &/or tweeting links to art how-to’s, tips & tutorials.

The questions I get repeatedly asked that make me crankiest- (Usually by non-artists)

Wow, you drew that? Yes, yes I did draw that. That only makes crankiness because of the repetition…and well, look at the question and tell me how it would make you feel. Yeah.
Will you draw me a picture (for free)? Drawing pictures for other people…well if it’s not a gift I thought to make someone and they’re not paying me, then I’m going hungry and all my clothes have holes in them for no good reason. I’m not doing that so much anymore.
Will you design me a tattoo? That one always throws me, and more often than not they would indicate they’d not be paying me for that. I’ve thought about it. It’s not something I’m ever going to do for free. It’s something enough people have requested or suggested that I’m likely to someday offer it as a service or in packs of designs for tattooists to buy. For now I’m going to field all custom tattoo design requests over to Vicki (request from her shop or via her email that she gave in the interview when I asked her about custom tattoo designs). Even if I do start offering it as a service myself I’m likely to randomly direct people to her for that, since it’s her forte.

---- This thing is clocking in near 1900 words! I read somewhere that blog posts of that sort of length are considered very long. Yes, new concept to me, learned it a week or two ago. Either I’ll be able to do more posts at widely acceptable sizes or I’ll get even more used to writing than I already am and pour out novels, as I’ve been so often accused of. I’d like to believe I’ll wind up with a fair mix.

What questions about art, writing or crafting make you crankiest?
Do you see yourself as a professional artist, writer or crafter?
What was your “aha! I AM an artist” moment like or are you still waiting for it?
What are your experiences with dabblers?

2010-04-14T03:52:00.000-07:00

Working on a bunch of posts for this right now. I expect one to go up later today, and to post with more frequency. The last month & a half have been tricky with stress & random goings on in my personal life. It's truly difficult to post some days, I imagine as I become more practiced & used to my new schedule that will have less of an effect.

Meanwhile, wondering what everybody else is up to quite often lately. So I thought I'd post a general check in.

Who has done or started any of the National Poetry Month challenges?
In general what kinds of arts, crafts, or writing are you guys working on?
What kinds of topics would you guys like to see most in this blog?
For the writers, what's your daily word-count looking like lately?

As for me, I typically have a hard time counting my words, for me that's the hardest part of it. Well, I have to go right now, falling asleep at the keyboard.

April is National Poetry Month

2010-04-01T07:30:00.001-07:00

During April, I will be posting many things in honor of National Poetry Month. Basically a month long event. There will be various poetry related challenges. Not all challenges will be exclusively for writers. Yeah you heard me right. Some will be for artists, some will be for crafters & makers. Also to come - a few discussions and poetry information posts. I’m not sure how deep into poetry tutorials I’ll get but there will definitely be some how to info.
All challenges are just here for your own amusement and to encourage creativity. Yay creativity! Participate at random as you like, feel free to share results, achievements, crankiful griping and so on relating to these challenges in the comments on any post in the National Poetry Month category. I’ll be participating in some of them as well.
Here are the challenges that should be spread out through the entire month.
Challenge #1 – A Poem a Day
Write at least one poem per day in the month of April. Any topic any poetry style.

Challenge #2 – A Poem a Week
Write one or a few poems a week during the month of April. Same deal as challenge #1.

Challenge #3 – 20 Short Form Poems
Write at least 20 short form poems this month. By short form I mean poems up to 500 words in length. Any topic, any poetry style.

Challenge #4 – 10 Long Form Poems
Write at least 10 long form poems in April. Long form as in any poem over 500 words. Pick whatever topic, and any any poetry style that can exceed 500 words.

Challenge #5 – 5 Poems with Illustrations
Write 5 poems, any kind. Then do one of these variations. Variation 1- write your poem in calligraphy or some other fancy lettering and draw some sort of sweet border. Variation 2 – write your poem then illustrate a scene or image from it. Variation 3 – If you don’t want to write your own poem, if your an artist not a writer, then pick a favorite poem and either do the lettering & border variation or the illustrate a scene thing. For variation 3 it is a good idea to only use a poem that is under public domain.

Challenge #6 – Some Poetry Inspired Crafting or Making
As the challenge name implies this one is about crafting or making inspired by a poem. Either write the poem yourself or use a favorite. Remember if you plan to sell the result and didn’t write the poem yourself be sure you have permission or it falls under public domain, not all projects require that but some do, so watch yourself. Depending on how long your particular craft etc takes to complete you may want to do more than one. Pretty much take any element of the poem and somehow incorporate it into the project. Examples – embroidering the poem onto some gorgeous bit of cloth for hanging on the wall, screen printing your favorite line with some fancy bit of awesome included, do up a little sculpture inspired by some element from the poem, poetry inspired metalwork or jewelry, make an item or object in the poem (for example if there is say a description of a magic mirror make some version of it). You get the idea.

Well, I figure this is a nice way to kick off National Poetry Month. Have fun with it, blow your own mind if you can. There will be more challenges (typically more specific) plus discussions etc. this month. Not that that’s all I intend to post this month, but there will be plenty more for the month. Oh, and if these challenges aren’t exactly as you want them, then customize them, maybe even mix and match elements between these 6 month long ones. Remember I’ll be posting more, so many will be suitable for use in conjunction with these.

Which of these challenges do you think you’ll tackle? What kinds of poems do you like to read and why? What kinds of poems do you like to write and why? If you hate poetry, why (be tasteful)? Have you ever written long poems? Would you consider yourself a poet? What genre do you use most while poem writing? Horror is my most frequently employed genre for poetry.

On the Matter of Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing

2010-03-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

On Twitter, mystery author Elizabeth S. Craig (@elizabethscraig | her blog) posts many useful & interesting links concerning writing. Recently this one caught my attention Has Digital and Self Publishing Devalued Authorship?

First let me just say that entire debate about self-publishing somehow being less valid and any such related ideals fills me with a profound anger. Why? Largely because much of what is said negatively about self-publishing is broad generalizations that rarely encompass situations like mine while implying that what I do is somehow less and the opines disclosed frequently reveal to me an air of taking for granted things I struggle with that are for whatever reason somehow easier for them. Not that I have a clue if they genuinely do take such things for granted, it’s besides the point whether they do or not, the grumbliness happens regardless.

Reading the article I frowned and harrumphed. It was the 1st real comment, however, that made me feel like responding. The comment was made by writer Joni Rodgers. I never heard of her prior.

Her comment was lengthy and eloquent. Some of it tweaked a nerve, however, and I began writing a response in the comment section. As it began to grow in length I realized it was more of a blog entry than a comment. Plus I don’t care for hashing out long rants in comment form.

So now I weigh in on the whole traditional publishing vs. self-publishing debate.

I'd say it always depends on the writer, the individual, and the work itself whether or not anything is devalued. Some self-publishers are: simply content with dabbling for the remainder of their years, stubborn, tired of rejection, delusional, vain or some other random thing. And others are none of those. Some are visionary and unorthodox. Some have very specific goals or other circumstances that are not conducive to the traditional publishing format and environment. Each situation is very different.

I plan to begin self-publishing this year. It is not remotely in dismissal of the necessity of all the work that people that are involved in producing a traditionally published book. They and their work are extremely necessary, however I haven't the luxury of having the time nor resources required for pursuing traditional means of publishing.

I have many reasons for self-publishing.

Art and writing are my calling and have been since junior high some 15 years ago, I did not ever consider myself a dabbler. I threw myself in heart and soul.
I always had very specific plans for what I wanted to do and I've also always had extremely limited resources.
Printing and postage costs alone involved in the usual submissions process have always been beyond my means, and that's to say nothing of the cost of acquiring an agent.
The thought of: writing out queries, sending large samples of my writing to a multitude of strangers, spending copious amounts of valuable time being a nervous wreck while awaiting a reply, going through a contract process before finding my footing, and many other standard procedures native to the traditional route - those things to me are unappealing, horrific, torturous, stressful, sleep-depriving and crazy-making. I need my sanity and I need enough sleep. While insanity has it’s merits, sanity is not over-rated it’s required, without it they lock you away.
Many of my writing projects involve the incorporation of my artwork.
A great deal of what I want to do is difficult to convey to other people.
A solid decade of my life was, well, rough for lack of a better term, and due to all that went on I have to be very careful of my stress levels. Many forms of paperwork are exceptionally difficult for me, and the entire submission and trying to get discovered process are seriously stressful to me as well. Large amounts of stress cause me sleep deprivation, which is very bad for me.
One could say my health requires a simpler, more mellow process.
And about a kagillion and three other random reasons all of them thoroughly valid and respectable.

The only piece of writing I ever submitted was published. I only submitted it because I could handle the submission process.

Self-publishing allows me to both answer my calling and go at my own pace. Few things in life allow me that.

What do you think about the whole traditional vs. self-publishing debate? What experiences have you had with either?