Lyrical History of a Girl and Her Acrylics

I've decided my Comic-Con review would be boring so maybe I'll get to it one day, but instead, how about another history lesson in why I do what I do? This is right on the heels of a day when I sold three completely different works of art so I have a temporarily inflated ego. Enjoy :P




Once upon a time, there was a very broke girl who belonged to a 2nd Amendment forum for quite awhile (7 years *cough*). She had always wanted to donate to the bored like the rest of the members, but she was quite literally broke. Brokedy broke broke broooooke. But she had an idea (ding!), why not paint something for the owner of the forum that was like... oh, I dunno... the logo of the board? 

And now you know I'm very weird and frequent a gaming forum turned 2nd amendment board...

What she really wanted to make, was the little yellow and black minuteman flag the forum members had created for the game. 

Simple, splattery, acrylic on canvas board.

She sent one gratis to the god of the board (brass) and asked the rest of the members if they would want one? $20 to her, $10 to the forum as a donation in her name and they would get their very own, one of a kind minuteman painting.

She sold five and felt pretty good about herself. That was quite a bit of money for a brokedy broke girl! But something else happened... something unexpected. The board members started asking her if she could make them custom paintings. Flattered but entirely inexperienced at that sort of things, she took them on, one at a time. 

The first was a watercolor of a members avatar:

The next was a whale from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

And the weird requests came rolling in:

So she realized, "Hmm, maybe I could sell nerdy art to people that AREN'T my friends?" By this time she had made quite a few of those watercolors mentioned in the other story... and she talked to a fellow artist about opening an Etsy store.

But first! More geeky things:

Half life lambda

HHG2G

TARDIS and the Time Vortex

 Star Wars - Jedi

Harry Potter. Etc. 

So she made a bunch, and sold mostly all of them! Then she got distracted by her watercolors for about 6 months, but she fully intend to paint some more geeky things very soon! In the mean time, she has a bunch of architectural salvage pieces she's working on... and the nerdy watercolors. But she was happy that she found a vibrant way to express her fandoms. The acrylic pieces took a fraction of the time to make, but were far more expensive to paint as well. 

Acrylics were her first love in art, and she always knew she'd come back to them some day...

The end.

So ya, I tend to paint very simple acrylic pieces in various geeky fandoms. I started an etsy store: SamjenArts. Some of these pieces are still for sale there. My next lyrical history will be about my architectural salvage pieces that I did a how-to about in my other blog. Right now I'm doing some digital manipulations of my watercolors to actually make them LOOK more acrylic... cuz, you know, why not.

Until later, internet.

Post Comic-Con Hangover?

Comic-con has come and gone and I'm feeling a little like a train ran me over (a very sweaty, stinky, nerd train).

What a freaking whirlwind! I intend to tell some amazing tales and give some individual attention to the various panels we attended. Don't worry, I won't talk about it all right now. I'm fairly certain attempting to recount everything that went down in those 4.5 days would probably result in hand cramps and perhaps even a post-happy aneurism? (That's probably in bad taste. Meh).

So Wednesday. Let's just start at the beginning.



Wednesday - Preview Night

According to my paperwork at my day job, I had Wednesday off... but according to the schedule, I had a full day of work AT Comic-Con working on a Game of Thrones off-site gallery / thingy. Basically we helped build and set up a fun room for HBO to showcase a travel sized Iron Throne, give away free customized t-shirts, display some amazing fan art and overall woo Comic-con GoT fans. It was rather impressive and I had a small part (painting a LOT of things black, and then using my obsessive tendencies to meticulously hang fan art on a wall...), but the end results were a HUGE hit with massively long lines out the door for the entirety of the convention.

Anyhow, so there I was working at Comic-Con on a day I was supposed to have off but loving it anyhow. Then at 3:45 we wrapped up and off I went to the stinky, sweaty, over-crowded, but delightfully exciting convention known as San Diego Comic-Con (hereafter known as SDCC).

At 6, the doors to the convention center opened and a swarm of people pushed there way in to see the splendor that is the enormous, shiny, blinky, chaos that is the exhibit hall. People were running and rushing in all directions attempting to get to the exclusive toys. Husband and I just kind of wandered all around in a serpentine pattern trying to find our favorite booths (webcomics, tv shows, comic books). We didn't buy anything that day, but rather took it all in, absorbing the slightly less busy day and wishing it could stay as only a few thousand people forever. As you may know, only a few thousand people get preview night tickets. There aren't any panels, so really the day is for toy collectors, exclusives hunters, and wanderers. We are the latter. We really just needed that time to get into the SDCC groove.... also, why the frack aren't all the booths in the directory? BAH.

Okay, so that story wasn't that exciting... "WE WANDERED AND LOOKED AT THINGS... YA." But it get's better. I'll soon be writing about things like... I dunno, walking right past Grant Imahara... George R. R. Martin being 10 feet away from me... Accidentally running into Anne Wheaton... Wil Wheaton's wife. You know, that kind of shit. And don't even get me started on Joss Whedon, Neil Gaiman, and John Barrowman... *squee*




To Be Continueeeeeeeeeed (unlike Firefly... whomp whomp)




p.s. I made a few things this week. I'll be making a post on that soon toooo!

Comic-con is coming.

Guys.... guys.... guys... Comic-Con is in 3 days. 3 DAYS!


I'm going again this year with hubby and I cannot be more excited. EXCITED WITH A CAPSLOCK! I'll do a big update after the Convention is over. I'll hopefully have images and cool stories and shit.

Have I mentioned how excited I am?


As for an update today, I just did the San Diego Vintage Flea Market with my etsy co-owner Jen and a few people from our day job. It was pretty fantastic and I sold a few great pieces... including Mirepoix and my Bert the Turtle. I've already mentioned the veggies, but when I get to art on wood in the history of me, I'll explain  my inspiration for him a little more.

Our setup:

Anyhow, I'm running on about 4 hours of sleep, then a 10 hour day in 90 degree heat, and now sake, so off to toodle around my house and get very little done.


Later, 'nets.

A lyrical history of girl and her botanical watercolors.

Ok, so I've mentioned a few times now that I do artsy stuff. Time to share some of my recent projects. How about my foray into watercolors in story form?


Once upon a time, there was a girl who decided to try her hand at watercolors after getting a few requests for some paintings out of no where. 

Her first request was an artichoke trio with comical bites out of it. Sure, why not:

Well, shit. That looks pretty good for my first watercolor...

From then on, she realized she really liked painting botany. Especially if it's funny. So she got another request.

Harry Potter themed botany in the form of Dirigible Plums:

Cute AND funny... for a very select number of people. 

And from there, she had an idea: Garlic! Who doesn't like garlic?!

Vampires. Va ha ha.

Well, non-vampire people thought that was pretty neat-o and suggested yet another painting for her to paint... Mirepoix? The hell is that?

This apparently.

And suddenly a bunch of her paintings sold. It seems people more than liked them; they actually wanted to stare at them every day. Forever! (Or at least until they redecorate).

"Hmm..." She thought. What else will people like? Flowers?! I effing LOVE flowers. 

And so she set out to paint a few of her favorites and offer them up to the world:

7 Flowers. Hell yes.

But contrary to her beliefs, people didn't really buy them as much as she had hoped. She made some prints to make them less expensive, but they weren't a huge success.

"Well, shit." She thought. And did some other stuff for awhile that she'll talk about in another post at a later time... but eventually she came back and realized that botany is what she likes to paint. So she painted something else... something funny again. Something she thought was funny and wouldn't care if they didn't sell.

Super Mario Brothers Piranha Plant and Fire Flowers.

 Do you know how hard it is to spell PIRANHA?

And suddenly people were interested again. And they made some more requests based on video games.

Nirnroot from Skyrim and Hawk Grass and Horse Grass from Zelda Twilight Princess:

Crimson version... it's still a work in progress.

She realized she had a new direction and while she'd still be putting things up for sale on her store, she knew that if they didn't sell, she'd have a house full of things she painted with love. Not bad.


And with promises of art shows she had already booked and a possible opportunity to showcase at Comic-Con in 2014, she went on painting happily (ever after for now?).

THE END



So that's my story of watercolors I like to paint! I'll post a story of why I do what I do for a few of my favorite artistic endeavors. Hope you liked it!


Tomorrow I have an art show (and by tomorrow, I mean I have to be awake in 7 HOURS to get there. SHIT) so I'm off to bed.


Goodnight internet!

How did I get here? A history lesson.

Why have I tried so many times to make a blog? Well, I have always had something I'm working on that I've felt like showing the world. Other than my obvious arrogance...

When I was younger, my dream was to be a playwright. I was in a lot of writing groups in high school, and frequently (like 5 times!) had my stuff performed on stage for the drama club. But off I went to college and my taste for art changed. I no longer wrote for the stage, but concentrated my efforts into the art of backstage work. I got a job at an opera and always was working on a set or a prop and wanted a way to showcase what weird thing I'd be making next! 

Then that all changed when I graduated with a business degree and moved off to California. WTF was I supposed to do now? Now my theater background was being wasted. No job without my network of colleagues to rely on. I had to start over... from scratch. You know what that means in theater? That means load-ins and load-outs working terrible hours at a not great pay. I had been a lighting programmer... a nice cushy job indoors with little lifting. I had been on the artistic side and never wanted to go back to grunt work. Spoiled rotten me.

I rejected the thought of joining the union and relied on a little luck that eventually landed me a job in a prop house. I had never really been a painter... Well now that's all I'd be doing. Painting, building, repairing, and overall maintaining props, sets, and furniture.

Finally, a new creative outlet. First it was "Guess what we're working on now?!" As I posted silly things like this:

Look, a bridge made out of candy!

Is that a full size elephant... and a sand castle... and fun house mirrors? Umm... yes.

 

Okay... you made a space ship.. crash? And purple lava. Huh. WTF? Is that one alien DYING in a LAVA PIT? You jerks! Think of the children! Nice cargo net.

But not all projects were super glamorous. The day to day grind usually consisted of repairing big wooden tables. Not exactly the creative outlet I craved. I needed something more. Something that was all mine... but not all by myself (gotta re-read the first post again...).

In came my boss at the prop house who also lacked a good creative outlet (you know, besides purple lava, candy statues, and a really effing big elephant...). We decided to start an Etsy store to make up lost hours during the prop house's slow season. Though not an instant success, we've done pretty well! Our not very creative name ended up being..SamjenArts. A simple combination of our names. We suck.

So there I have an outlet. Get my random art out into the world! YAY ME! I'm going to be so famous! Dumbass. But I needed something all mine. Nearly a year after starting that wonderful venture, I'm starting a blog. And I'm going to write things. LIKE, ALL THE TIME. Or, you know, whenever I feel like it. Ain't nobody got that much time for this shit.

I'll still post some silly photos from the prop house from time to time (when allowed... you know... client confidentiality and shit.). And I'll update here on all my new paintings. Which happens a lot, actually. I'm working on a whole line of geeky botany. Ya. I said it. GEEK BOTANY. Nirnroot.

So stay tuned if you're still tuned or... you know... want to be tuned. Ya. I'm painting some Mario flowers...


brb.

Alright. Let's try this again...

Hello internets,

I've tried this blogging thing before. I dabbled in middle school when the word "blog" was barely known... I tried again in high school and it bit me in the ass...drama.  I've had a livejournal, a myspace (dear god, they are probably still out there somewhere...) and of course a facebook for quite awhile. I've joined twitter and pretty much just use it to stalk celebrities. I screw around on reddit and submit rarely (read that as lurk)... And I even have developed a fairly bad case of Pinterest-itus. I've been active on a gaming forum for 7 years (Or a little under 1/3 of my life). And then, yet again, a year ago I started a blog with my sister. I was active, she was not... and being the only active member of a twin blog is just plain depressing (EMILY!).

So here I am, giving it another go. This time it's just me.

Being just me scares me a lot. I usually don't like doing things on my own. I blame this on being a twin and never living on my own. I'm a strong, independent woman... I'm a strong, independent woman... I'm a strong, independent woman...

At least since it's just me this time, there's no one to let me down but myself!