You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'work in progress' category.
I’m really not sure how it suddenly got to be almost September all of a sudden. So much for posting more regularly during the summer, huh? Well, I had a tough summer class, okay?! Sheesh! (And of course I’m addressing all the masses of people who’ve been awaiting new posts from me with bated breath.)
Anyway, so I have actually been doing creative things, it’s just a matter of not posting about it. Like, for example……<drumroll>…… I submitted my manuscript at last!!
*cheers and applause*
And I have another copy of it ready to go out tomorrow to another publisher, so that’s cool. I feel very accomplished, because if nothing else at least I’ve finally moved beyond just talking about trying to get a story published.
The hardest thing about the whole deal is just finding a publishing house that still accepts manuscripts from dorkuses like me who don’t have an agent. And then a couple of times I had a publisher all picked out, but then when I went to their website to double-check their contact information I found that just since the last time I looked they’d changed their submission policy and no longer accepted unagented submissions! Oh, how I’d laugh and laugh…
Anyway, it’s a very frustrating process.
But meanwhile I’m doing very well at keeping busy with other projects and not obsessing over whether I’ll hear back about my submission. I’m honestly not even secretly, deep down, in my heart of hearts thinking that I’m going to get an acceptance letter–I’m really managing to be realistic about it, through and through! (Not being delusional is such a big accomplishment for me that I have to reinforce it by giving myself lots of praise and affection for it.)
So anyway, other projects: For one thing, I’m getting ready to submit my portfolio just as an illustrator as well — I know my writing isn’t as strong or as developed as my artwork, so I’m not kidding myself too much about that, but I really think I might be able to get some work as an illustrator. So for some illustration practice and just for fun, I’m doing a series of watercolor paintings for the Keats poem “La Belle Dame sans Merci” — I hope I’ll be able to make a hand-bound book out of them when I’m done, though I’m not sure how I’d print them for that yet. Here’s the first finished piece:
watercolor and pen and ink; 8" x 10"
It goes with the first verse of the poem–
“O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.”
(Or something like that? I should totally look that up.)
…with my inspired-by-Coraline tortoise.
He’s got his shell attached now and I just need to do a couple little nit-picky things and then he’s done. He is very handsome, I think you’ll agree:
Aww! Isn’t he cool? I wish the colors in his shell showed up better, but you can see the texture of it at least.
This one gives you a better view of his face (while kind of making it look like one of his back legs has disappeared–it hasn’t, it’s just my elite photography skillz at work again):
And I didn’t want to post a million views of him because I’m trying not to be TOO boring, but he has teeeny little vertebrae for his neck, and a little bone tail, too. ^_^
Well, as usual I’m doing this instead of doing schoolwork so I guess I’d better get back to it–*snivel*–but The Other Mother drawing is shaping up nicely, so hopefully I’ll get a chance to post a scan of that soon.
Just thought I’d post some photos of what I’ve done so far for the Coraline mystery box swap that my little mochi organized. I just got my cigar box today, and it’s so much cooler than the photos on eBay made it look! I was really nervous after I ordered it that it was not right for this project, but as soon as I saw it in real life I totally fell in love with it.
So now that I’ve built up the suspense, here’s the box (my photos don’t do it justice either–the colors are richer in real life):
Isn’t it great? Douglas Fairbanks! *squee* It’s going to look so good with red velvet inside…I still need to hit some thrift stores and find some red velvet, of course–this week sometime.
I’m planning on doing at least one little sculpture for it, maybe two if I have time. Here is the first one in progress (please excuse the horrible photos…I don’t know why I always take such awful blurry pictures. Anyway…). Here’s my little tortoise, all sad and shell-less and nuuuude:
And his shell, the top half, anyway:
Ugh, those are blurrier than I thought! >_<
They’re the only ones I have, though! Anyway… Let’s just move on and pretend we didn’t see those horrible blurry things, shall we? :)
Here’s a really rough sketch for a pen and ink drawing I’m planning — I don’t know how much it’ll look like this in the end… I have some plans for adding some little 3-d touches (kind of pop-up book style), so this is just kind of a concept drawing.
So that’s the news for today–back to schoolwork, I guess. I’m coming to realize that I’m going to have to tag every single post I make with “things I do instead of schoolwork”. Sigh.
Got a couple of things scanned in, one sketch for a new pen and ink drawing, and one finished pen and ink…
The Walker in Darkness, 11"x14"
This one is going to be part of another hand-made book I’m planning, along with the other drawings on the “New Stuff” page on my site–you can click on it to go look at the other drawings in the series.
The Silver Key, pencil sketch
This little weirdo…it’s a really rough sketch, but I think he’s so cute that I just had to share him :) He’s from an H.P. Lovecraft story I read recently (click on him to go check out more of my sketches at my site).
I decided a while ago that Owen’s Uncles would be illustrated after all–I hadn’t thought I would do illustrations for it because it’s aimed at older kids, but then I thought, nah, it’s too perfectly suited to some lovely little weird pen and ink drawings not to have them. And they are turning out to be a ton of fun to do, so I just have to share some of them now, even though they’re not done yet!
So here are some works in progress…
“Owen meets the Uncles” –still finishing up some background details, the door, etc…
“Arrival at Cragview Manor” — this one I’m not too sure about…it needs quite a bit of fiddling still before I’m happy with it–if I ever will be. I can’t quite come up with a view of the house that seems like I picture it in my head.
“Strange Figures in the Standing Stones”
–See that poor doggie? Yeah…he’s going to be edited out of the story :( I feel awful about it! Tsk! It’s hard to switch from Doting Creator to Ruthless Editor mode.
Yay, I survived! I am so looking forward to getting to do some creative stuff over the break, to make up for having to read, write, and think about management for the past four months. *shiver* I need a scary font for the word “management,” seriously. That was not a happy place for me, that’s all I can say…
Anyway, the second the semester started easing up in the last week, I got back to writing and drawing, at least a tiny bit. I’ve done a bit of sketching and little writing just about every day — better than nothing, right? It makes me feel like I’m not *totally* euthanizing the creative part of my brain, anyway, which is, unfortunately, how library school makes me feel sometimes.
So here’s a scan of a (very) quick sketch I did yesterday. It goes with a story that’s been at the back of my mind for a few months now which I hope to work on over the break — although, I gotta admit that as soon as I had a little time to really think about this so-called story idea, I realized that I basically have no idea what it’s about, what happens, who’s in it– you know, a few picky little details like that. It pretty much amounts to a bunch of random images in my head that lead nowhere. It’s like it…dissolves when I look closely at it… I really don’t know that it’s going to get any further than those pictures in my head, but here’s the sketch, anyway. :)
You know, just to see it in writing to motivate myself, I thought I’d record where we are with this goal:
NOWHERE.
Yeah, that’s right, Go Me. I turned totally wimpy and have not submitted a thing. Not even just sending my URL to art directors that let you submit your stuff that way. Isn’t that great? How driven I am. *le sigh*
Well, to be fair to myself, I should say that it’s not really a matter of not being driven– it’s a matter of being a big fat baby. I’ve completely lost my nerve…it’s so silly. I mean, it can’t hurt anything. Even if everything I’ve done sucks and is rejected no one will yell at me or, like, blacklist me or anything. :) And yet I still can’t bring myself to do it.
Comments
NOTE as of 5/12/09: Where have all my pictures gone?! It’s so aggravating. They’ve all just disappeared into the internet ether, and I see someone was viewing this screwed-up page just a couple of days ago, which must’ve looked totally lame. *sigh* So, uh, anyway, this note is to say, “coming soon,” I guess? eh heh heh.
I haven’t had time to do much work (read: none) thanks to library school, which is super frustrating, but I do have some scans to post…these are just some rough sketches for some more pieces in the Orangutan series: the Tyrant, the Drunkard, and the Shaman! (Sorry for the poor quality of the scans; the sketches are a mix of pen-and-ink and pencil, which is hard to scan–the pencil lines tend to get lost because the ink is so much darker.)
Anyway, here is the Drunkard:
The Shaman (this one is particularly badly scanned, sorry!):
And finally, the Tyrant…I just love him! He is really quite creepy; I can’t wait to finish this one…
Well, I’ve done pretty well this last week– one of my goals I’d made, once it became clear that without deadlines for classes I was completely dorking out on getting any art done, was to get some sketching done every day. It helps a lot when you’re in a dry spell for ideas to have a sketchbook full of stuff– even if none of it is particularly brilliant or inspired, at least it gives you a jumping off point. So I’ve been doing pretty well with that since we got back from our trip to the Bay Area; I’ve done a lot of new sketches.
Another goal was to finish a drawing every week (which sounded crazy to me at the time; my big, detailed pen and ink drawings take weeks to do…but I figured what the heck? Better to aim high and push myself), and ta-da! I actually did accomplish that too.
I had found a site I really liked with these lovely little watercolor paintings, very simple and small but with such great lines and so much personality that I felt like, jeez, this guy packs more interest into these simple things than I do with all my fussy, obsessive little details that take forever to finish… So I tried to keep simplicity more in mind, and (using some of my new sketches, yay!) did this painting, which I think turned out kinda neat. Here’s the pen and ink version of it, almost finished:
I ended up changing it a little after this point; I decided it didn’t need the rafters I’d been planning on adding. So the finished painting just has the stone walls go up a little higher. I’ll scan the painting in soon…And the cool thing is that this has turned into an idea for a whole series of paintings. I already have sketches for a few more, and vague ideas for some others…In addition to the Philosopher here, I’m going to have a Wisewoman, an Artist (of course!), a Shaman, possibly an Orator, a Despot (maybe Dictator or Tyrant? not sure yet), and I’m sure there’lll be more. They’re really fun to think up!
And here’s the site I was looking at: scott-c.blogspot.com. Very cool! Funny blog, too. I’ll have to keep up with his stuff, I just love it.
