Today would be a close second for the busiest day of my year so far. It was one of the most exhausting. I really notice the drain when I don't get my daily nap with Kaleb lol. I don't sleep as much at night since I get a nap but without the nap I'm hurting. Today I was able to get in to see the va dentist on an emergency basis. They are trying to treat me while my referral is still in effect. If I used regular appointments they are so booked up I wouldn't get any work done in time. This morning I got fitted for a mouth guard, received two fillings, and a deep cleaning all before noon! They will have me back in a week or so to get about 4 more cavities filled and make sure the mouth guard fits nicely. Needless to say, by the time we got home I was exhausted, but I had to work on my card :) I have been wanting to make an an angry face. I've never been good at anger faces. I find them to be particularly complex. I pulled out my facial expression and cartooning books and worked and worked. I tried to make it with an open mouth but that was a failure, so I transitioned to the angry snarl with a closed mouth. Honestly there are parts about it I like and parts I'm not entirely satisfied with, but for a first time angry face I feel pretty good. It was hard to keep my eyes open and the exhaustion of the day made the card harder to draw. I noticed while I was drawing that I kept scrunching up my face to try to feel the expression as if my face would make the drawing better. Whenever I post the cards I see details I would still work on, like I could have sunk the eyes in more, but when one is making something new every day there isn't a lot of time to perfect it. I have to accept them as done without getting the chance to stare at them for hours like I do on my portraits.

I'm a little concerned about the smaller ATC standard cards. I will start them tomorrow and give it a try for at least all of February. They are dramatically smaller and I will be inclined to work on them like I do on my miniatures. Extreme details takes a lot of time and is challenging, normally in a fun way. I'm hoping to conquer the intimation factor and make some good work. We will just have to wait to see how it turns out :) Thanks for stopping by.

Final bid 500 credits. This card is going to Idaho.

I got a book in the mail on how to draw cartoons today. It has simple techniques that explain how to keep something round and minimal. I also saw a Dr Suess book at the Dr's office today and noticed that he drew the eyes almost always the same. This creature has Dr Suess interior eyes, the pupil and reflection part. I used the layout of the body from the cartooning book, taking into consideration a bit of what they described on facial expressions and effective overlapping. I tried to change it up some by skinny-ing it out, changing the ears and mouth, adding a face and twirling things up. I still wanted to keep it simple. The overlapping bottom lip and smile really made it friendly. It's interesting to me to see what features effect the characters in what ways. Now if I just had control over them! *evil laughter ensues*

Featured on Listia.com
Final bid 1008 credits. This card is staying in Oregon.

Today started with a migraine so, needless to say, we missed church. Thanks to the medications, sleep, and the assistance of God answering the prayers of my Facebook friends it didn't last all day like they sometimes do. I wasn't able to get started on my card until about 4pm. Yesterday I won an auction from a fabulous folk artist and I was inspired by her owl creatures to create the head shape for today's character. I purchased a book on facial expressions on my super busy day Thursday that I utilized to make this expression. The expression was deemed drowsy but I don't know if I got the brow quite far enough above the eyes to really capture the look exactly right. To me he has a bit of drowsy combined with a pretentious melancholy feel. I'm very glad I got the book, I hope to be learning more from it to help create some expressive creations. I love expressions!

Only 7 more custom card's available with the purchase of a ticket to my show. You're welcome to donate your ticket to a local if you can't or choose to not attend. I  currently have 7 donated tickets if anyone is interested but can not afford the entrance fee.

I asked the previous winners of creature cards how they felt about me changing to Artist Trading Card standard size starting February. The resounding answer was that they would like whatever I drew on :) I'm going to give it a try for a month and see how the response is. They will be slightly smaller going from 3x5 to 2.5x3.5 inches, but will be on a much higher quality paper. Get your index card creatures while supplies last!

Final bid 51 credits. This card will be going to Georgia.

Only three more cards after this and January is over! What an experience this has been. I'm very glad to have taken up this challenge. I'm meeting some wonderful people and getting a lot of great encouragement for my art! It's easy to get appreciation for the portrait work, but I was never very sure about my own creations. Not that I think they are all perfect by any means but to have the acceptance I am receiving is so wonderful. I never know what people are going to think until I get the card posted. Some cards I think will do well and they are only so so, but others that I don't know about appeal to some in interesting ways. I am reminded daily how hard it is to know what other people like, and that I need to stop trying to figure that out. Sure it's vitally important to know what people want commission portrait wise, but beyond that I just need to be myself and trust what God has chosen for me to be. 

I've been wanting to make something square for a while. I tried to make this card using what I know about perspective but without using a ruler or a vanishing point. I figure the creature wouldn't have perfect perspective and would have a bit of curves and character to it. This one turned out to be a duel creature card with the two interacting subjects. I really enjoy his expression. I see it as sort of a mad, surprised, upset feeling. I like to imagine it letting out a girly squeal when it saw the thing climbing on it. lol
Thanks for visiting. 

Final bid 1010 credits. This card will live in California with #3.

I'm still trying to play catchup from yesterday. Yesterday had to be the busiest day of my year so far and will likely be the busiest day of the year for a long time coming. On a whole it was a good day. I just ended up with WAY too much planned. I had an insanely crazy dream and only got about 4 hours of sleep that night. Once we were all up I took  my daughter to school I secured my son with a great friend and headed of to my first appointment. I did an interview class in the morning, stopped by Blick art supplies in my spare moment between appointments and then met with my voc rehab counselor shortly afternoon. I had scheduled a surplus off auctions on both listia.com and Ebay to end all that evening, the week prior and hadn't considered the impact that would have on the day as well. I was trying to juggle the comments on the auctions and my appointments adding unnecessary stress to the interactions. Once I got home I had about a half an hour before the kids showed up, and then my best friend Annemarie came over to cook dinner with us. I was able to start my creature card in my interview class but I didn't get to work on it again until 10:30 pm that evening. There wasn't a lot of room for adding extra interesting details. I was worried I wouldn't be able to get it done. I was able to get it listed before the day ended but my blog and other posts fell after midnight. I think I got to bed somewhere around 2:00am this morning. Then today I had laundry to finish, and all the auctions to mail out. It wasn't a bad day yesterday. It was just exhausting. I had a wonderfully successful card auction that really surprised me, and ate the best home made apple pie ever. There were downs too but on a whole it was a good day.

Today's card is a great example of the difficulty I encounter when creating an unknown. When I don't know what I'm going to make it easily runs off the page before it should and leaves other areas in need of attention. I tried to add something to the other area but found it to be unsuccessful. I like it :)


Final bid 707 credits. This card now lives in New York. This creature is androgynous and is named "Equidander Playport"

CRAZY DAY!!!
I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

Final bid 404 credits. This card will be going to Georgia.

Today's card is the second reversible card. When I'm making these cards I start to see something and rotate the card to see if anything else looks better to me. On occasion I see two different characters that I like equally, and then I try to make the card plausible for both of them. It seems one always pulls a bit of dominance over the other. I'm still working on that. My goal for these characters was simplicity, while still maintaining a three dimensional quality. 

Final bid 775 credits. This card will be going to New York. This creature is androgynous and is named "Cyclotheradorp Felterafter"

Well the ticket sales for the Raw show are doing better then I expected for the amount of time they have been available. I really appreciate people stepping forward to help me out, and that I will have the opportunity to see many of them at the show itself! 

Here is the card for today. I like the led I'm using much better then what I was working with before. I spent a lot of time on this character not knowing what it was. That is not the most comfortable place to be. It's hard to make something look correct when you don't know what it is. I like it, in that strange, sorta creepy kinda way. I like the mystery of the rear end. What would the rest of it look like? The options are limitless and I enjoy mentally drawing various endings to it without having to commit to any particular one.

Final bid 959 credits. This card will be sent to New York. This creature is androgynous and is named "Spindrogenous  Antenoraphon"

Today today, oh what a day, today. I had to reset my phone yesterday because my daughter got into the system and changed things I couldn't get back to normal. I didn't think about having to re-set all our alarms, so we got up late for school this morning. Not by much, thanks to my son's internal clock. After dropping Ash off at school I got to work on my card. I've been wanting to make a cyclops for a while and hoped this one might lend itself to that; however, since I wasn't completely sure what I'd be making, he did end up pretty far to the left of the card. I tried to restrain my need for perfection and create him in a rough squiggly texture. I think it gives the card a lot of character.

I had him done decently early but I could not find my cf card. My camera uses a cf card to store the memory of the photographs and won't take pictures without one. I have two but the other has been MIA for quite some time. It wasn't were it should be and it took me a long time to find it. I'm so grateful that I can talk to God about my moments of panic. I was very close to the brink of freaking out about the card when I remembered to pray. Ash also said a beautiful little prayer for me to help me find the card. It wasn't an automatic find, I had to do a great deal of house cleaning and more praying before it finally turned up around 6:30pm in the sweater I had worn the night before. I did worry and fret about it but a lot less then I would have without God there comforting me.

Final bid 126 credits. This card will go to California. 

I'm surprised to see the cards I like don't do as well in credits. I'm hoping one day that I can get over the fact that I have no idea what anyone else is thinking. Part of me really wants to make things that appeal to a great quantity of people, so the knowledge that they are unpredictable is unpleasant to me. I just need to get over it ;)

Here; however, is the lovely story to go with this creature

Name: Casaran
Height: 4'5"
Location: The Baltic Sea
Nationality: German

Simple Casaran toiling away by the sea.  Staring each day as his days labor sailed away on the crushing waves of the ever churning Baltic.  A shipwright by birth and gift, he crafted each one with such care that even the angels took notice.  Alas, as wondrous as his skill with the keel hull was, his skill with the ladies was not. His one great eye was focus intently upon the one love he could see.

I wasn't sure if I would actually get this card done in time today. After church there was only time for a nap and then we had a pirate party to attend for the parents of small children. I included a picture of me and my son taken by one of the leaders there for your viewing enjoyment. He looked super cute in his pirate bandana and strategically placed patch eye. I had to pry (not literally) my daughter away from the bounce house they had to get them home. By that time I only had time to get the kids set up for bed and pull out my card to work on. I've been having trouble with the new led I put in yesterday. It's not dark enough and the 6b I try to put on top seems to reject it. You might be able to see the resistance in area's. I'll probably try some new led tomorrow to see if I can find something I'm happy with.

Final bid 537 credits. This card is going to Missouri :) I love seeing new states added to the list!

The information about this card is being decided by the winners kids. I'm excited to see what they come up with!