I don't usually double post art but I'm really proud of this one, so humor me. Also, because I posted it as part of a fic, I didn't get to babble about it, and I want to.

( Reclaimed, Watercolor, G, Bucky/Toro )

First HOLY COW IT HAD BEEN TOO LONG SINCE I WATERCOLORED!!!
*flail* I can't even begin to say how much fun this was.
This is my cheapo Crayola watercolors again on watercolor paper with pencil, black ink and colored pencil.

( Ani crits her own art )

So yup, okay that is enough indulgence, for today =P

You guys want to humor me with art?
See I loved Spiderman and Peter Parker. I know I've mentioned this.
My thing is I CAN NOT DRAW PETER PARKER. At all. Nothing ever looks right to me. It's unspeakable frustration to me.


So I was wondering if anyone wanted to draw some Peter Parker for me (or link to drawings already done). I'd love to see some of y'all interpretations of the character. ^__^

I realize this is an odd request, but what the hey I'd love to see my F'lists take on him so I thought I'd ask.


BTW, I' mconstently sketching Ginny right now. If I want to draw HP, poof there's Ginny. It's . . odd. Art to be posted soon . . maybe.

crazy fan story ganked from starry_diadem

Ok sure BSG 1978 is a great show. I like it too, but is it really worth risking your life over?

Sane people say "no".
Ahhh fans.

Actually I've seen people playing portable game systems in their cars *head desk* And people wonder why I'm afraid of driving 0.o


Mmm speaking of BSG, starry_diadem beta read a lot of my bsgflash entry fics so I'm hoping to have those up soon in a less scary format than they previously were.

I'm pretty proud of those little fics. I feel very accomplished given I never thought I'd ever write a half way decent fics with any consistancy for any fandom.

Harry Potter still holds it's number 1 spot ad far as fanart love goes; however, I notice that as I read less and less Hp Fanfiction (because the writers I lvoe write less an less) I'm not as inspired to make Hp fanart as I once was.

Just in general though I've not been overly artistically inspired recently. I think I'm just feeling to overwhelmed to be satisfied. The more stressed I get the more disgruntled I am with art because I don't have the patience to work through my screw ups.

And, I really REALLY want to find a nude figure drawing class that I can go to. I think my figure skills are begining to deteriorate and I think a nude figure drawing class would really help me get back on top of my game.

I should draw more from life, but drawing people in the lunch room bugs people, and I can only draw my roommates so many times ^^

BEHOLD! My write up on Fanart for the Fanlore Wiki

Yeah ummmm this absolutely positively constitutes procrastination.
And now to chain myself to my e-mail and try to get through the Hp-Art-Project submissions.

I won't btw, get through them all tonight 0.o
There is no way!



Also WELLSFARGO! I need my debit card. Please please please.
You don't know what it is like to only have 5 icons. It pains me!!! You don't know the icons LJ choose for me! It's like two I use all the time and three I NEVER USE.

But using my credit cards gives me even more physical pain right now, so I need my debit card. Ok I understand I left it in the ATM and it was eaten, but fhfhkd HURRY *flail*

glockgal pointed out that the Fanlore Wiki(a wiki like encyclopedia for fannish stuffs) had a woeful entry on fanart. Which basically said that there is fanart. Fanart is art by fans. There is HP Fanart. Television Fanart favors realism, and SGA fanart is the most diverse. It was even more biased toward SGA but the wonderful ratcreature fixed it a bit.


I thought I'd take a stab at the entry sense I've had an interest in fanart (clearly =P).
Obviously it's wiki like so when I put it up it can be added to and changed, but if anyone wanted to take a peak and my third draft ( Here it Is )

Clearly no working links yet, and each time I revise it I think of more sections to add so those are the one's that say need more info and such, but I fiugre if I but up the bare bones others can expand.

What do y'all think?

Well after going through 5 shit pictures I think I finally have a nice Starbuck/Apollo pictures going.

Sometimes it can take a long LONG time for me to come up with something, but if I doodle long enough I get there.

Sometimes the best images come from me not even knowing what I've started with. Like this one.
5 shit drawing of my saying I will draw this specific image.

And then I give up and say screw it I'm just gonna doodle Starbuck, and I get a god image going that is like 70% cuter than my first idea.

YAY.

My Harry Potter art usually works like that too.
I think my best images happen when I only half know what I want to draw.

But this is why I'm utterly 100% dependent on my lightbox!!
I have very messy sktechpages ^^

ETA

Dear Switzerland,

Ddudes look, I know we mock you with the old neutrality joke and just being about chocolate and clocks, but seriously You gotta go all mad scientist on us and try to destory the world?

Ok I exaggerate, but I'm sorry, Ok so you don't THINK this should create a world destroying black hole but ummm . . on the off chance you are wrong, is the experiment really worth that risk? However minuscule?

And what if it doens't destroy the world? you do realize this will be a craptacular holywood film or WoRSE a beyond craptacular sci-fi original movie in a few months, right?

PLEASE! Spare us that horror! Before it is too late!

So in keeping with me plan of naming my new rats after artists whose work I particularly like/ have been inspired by I made a list of said artists.

If you’ve ever wanted to know artists I’ve been particularly inspired by or just enjoyed here's the list.
I starred the ones I felt were particularly big influences and double starred anyone I’ve actively attempted to copy. Tripled starred anyone I still try to copy =P

Illustrators
***Virgil Finlay
Bernie Wrightson
**Brian Froud
Robert McCall
**George Barr
Tasha Tudor
***Roger Dean
Norman Rockwall
*Alan Lee

Comic Artists
***Al Williamson
Jack Kirby
Gil Kane
Will Eisner
***Stan Sakai
*Hogarth
Steve Ditko
Alan Moore
**Coleen Doran
**Wendy Pini

”Modern” Artists (if I knew the movement they were usually associated I tried to include that, but I’m not always sure, It’s been years since I studied these guys ^^)
Monet (impressionist)
Kant (?)
*Rothko (Abstract Expressionist ?)
*Paul Klee (Abstract Expressionist)
William De Kooning (Abstract Expressionist)
Cezanne (?)
Roy Lichtenstein (Pop)
Jasper Johns (Pop)
Carl Andre (Minimalist)
Robert Morris (Minimalist)
Piet Mondarian (?)
Eduard Munch (?)
**Degas (Impressionist ?)
**HR Gieger (?)

Classical Artists
*Rembrandt
Botticelli
Battista Alberti
Jan Van Eyck
Durer
*Hieronymus Bosch
Ruebens
David
***Raphael
**Caravaggio
Leonardo Da Vinci

I’m sure I left people off, but this is the list I could come up with this morning. I’m so sure too, I’ve misspelled some names ^^

As far as names for my rats, I’m leaning toward, Finlay, Rothko, Jasper, Morris, Degas, Kirby, Alberti, Bosch, and Ditko.

Also Murdock . . . you know just to through out the whole “artist” thing, though Murdock did PRETEND to be an artist in one A-Team episode, so we can count him, right?

ohhh lets see

Wedding is stressful
Hp-Art-Project Stressful
Personal crisis is stressful
Work is stressful


So I'm basically on big giant ball of stress.
I'm not really depressed though, just stressed.

I need something to beat on.
In light of not having anything I can legally beat on, I've been drawing really odd art. I got two paintings outta this and one cartoon (all to be psoted as soon as I can) so that's been interesting.

One thing about me is I'm actually not a very emotional artist. Not that my art is without emotion, but I think it comes more from my head though it looks emotive I think.

Not so much with these last two pictures though 0.o

Course then again throwing paint around is exceedingly liberating and gives me something to do, and that's always been the case. I just wish I sitll had a studio and could actually walk on my paper again.

Squishy paint between toes was fun and even more liberating ^__^

Apartment would most likely not appreciate the effects this would have on their rug though :(

I may actually do some outside work though once it cools down a bit. Outside work now would be ohhh death.
Yeah pretty much, death.


And I know have 10 minutes to eat! EEK!

Just FYI: I will be ding a watercolor Workshop this Saturday in Dallas at the Portus Harry Potter convention.

Are you going?

If you are come to my Watercolor Workshop! Saturday, 4:30-5:50pm at Dardeneles Theater

I'll be going over various watercolor tips and techniques.

The focus of the workshop will not be how to go from a sketch to a finished painting because there are many tutorials like that on the web, and done way better than I could do. Plus you can't do that in an hour. What I've noticed though, in those tutorial, is something like using salt only gets mentioning if the artist used salt in their picture.

So what I want to do is to demo tips and tricks and show off what various things you can do and all the wild and crazy things that can be done with watercolor rather than focus on "how to make a painting"

This is more "things you can do with watercolor"

I hope this will give people ideas and a wider variety of skills to pull from.
'Cuase you know style isn't just how you draw characters, but how you paint, so hopefully this will give people ideas on how to use paint.

And it's applicable for anything anyone wants to paint: figures, still life,non representational abstract etc.

If you can bring your own supplies that'll be great. Due to cost I can only provide cheapo watercolors.

So Deviantart had a contest to create an anime poster for Anime Expo.

The winner was IMHO not the best but that I'm ok with. I just found it ironic that with all the bitching the DA admins have done about anime over the years they picked THE MOST streotypical and least creative look of all the entries.
But it was cute.

HOWEVER (cue the drama bell)
Turns out the artists TRACED the character in the poster from an official anime image and did not change it enough to not be recognized immediatly upon being posted as the winner.


This really underscores an argument DA has been having for a LONG time with its users. Are traced works acceptable? I can certainly see if you manipulate enough photos into enough different affrangements then it might be ok to do a trace of that unique arrangement. On the other hand, tracing one anime character so exactly from a poster that people recognize it almost immediatly upon it being posted? Seems a a bit skeezy to me.

Oh and btw I love all the 'OMG I took an illustration class and this TOTALLY would hve been ok' comments. Really? I took one and this would have gotten me bounced out of the art department. .

I get what they are saying, in some cases an illustrator can trace, but usually from ANATOMY BOOKS not . . . not like this.

At least I hope not. If we can I'm working way to hard on my art. I can just start tracing glockgal's artwork and recoloring the hair and changing the cloths and the winning the money with it!

-_-



I almost wish though that this had gone up at anime expo. That would have been hysterical


DA represented by cheaply traced generic anime art.
Hysterical.

So last night I organized all my financial records.
Fun times. Took forever. I'm horribly disorganized.

I find a check. And at first I think it's a "check"
You know, those "here have some more debt" checks credit card companies like to send, which promptely get shredded.

Upon closer inspection . . . it's a real check. Some kinda YAY you graduated and have thousands in loans type incentive check.
For about 500.00.
Made out 10/26/2006
With no warnings of being void in 90 days.


So uhhh yeah.
I'm gonna go depost it into my savings via ATM.
If the bank later sees the date and flips or the check is denied, then well, I have it in my savings and they can have it back. If not, I have 500.00 dollars.


I also have a really good lesson in why I should pay more attention to my mail -_-



Other than that.
I need to send art work to HP Art Project layout volunteers.
I need to send the last list of names to the last contact volunteer (no I'm not behind on getting lists out, I realized Monday night I needed one more person; I saw her acceptance this morning; list tonight)

I need to also get my cousin's art framed and matted.
And I need to print my father's poem out on nice paper and paint on that a little.

Which means I need to set up my NEW PRINTER!
YES! New printer! I no longer have as 5 year old broken Lexmark printer.

I now have a brand spanking new Epson RX595.
This makes my artistic heart gleeful.

I shall make bookmarks or something for Portus I think.



Actually, does anyone know how to make buttons?

To amuse the Lawyer's on my F'list and . . .
well not so much warn the artists on my F'list 'cause you guys are smarter than this, but yeah, thought I'd spread this tidbit about.


I've off an on heard horror stories about working for Tokyo pop (also combined with horror stories of working for Antarctic Press)

You want to see an actual Tokyo Pop contract and laugh?
No really,AFAK, this is real. It's an actual legal contract written in goofy teeny bop speak., complete with Anti-French jokes.

Anyway, I know most first time comic contracts can be cruddy, but seriously, this one strike's me as especially bad. You sign away even their need to credit you.

Leaky Icon Context

Interesting concept.
But what also interests me is AFAK, in phase two, they are gonna be taking art based on new submissions. Have they got a way of knowing that iconing is ok with the fanartist?


Personally I wouldn't care.
I consider icons to be 100% percent transformative works. If you want to ever icon any artwork of mine, you can. I'm totally flattered, and you really do not even need to aks my permission. Like I said, I consider iconing to be transformative and therefore totally within fair use as far as my art goes.

This also includes my non-fanart. Truly I don't mind at all. The only excpetion would be a commission in which the buyer paid for exclsuive rights.




That said, this is just how I feel.
I know other fanartists do not at all feel that way and don't like icons made of their artwork. In fact iconing an artists work without permission as caused some major blow ups.

Did Leaky add a ticky box to check off if when you uplaod art saying iconing is ok or something? How are they gonna avoid angered artists?

Art Meme ganked from insomniel (I modified it a bit though, I hope you don't mind)
Feel free to comment anon if you want to.

1. Do I have a distinct style of drawing? (this is like asking "does this make me look fat" isn't it *L*)
2. If so, what exactly is it that defines my "style"?
3. Would you say my art usually follows a 'theme'?
4. Does my style (if I have one) remind you of/look like the style of anyone else?
5. Judging from whatever art of mine that you've seen, what do you think I do the best at?
6. What do you think I need the most work on?

You know who is one of the most fun character to doodle in the entire HP-verse, at least for me?

Tonks.

I love doodling Tonks.
I've also been invested with the urge to doodles Snape. It's his nose. It's so much fun t make huge and hooked, either that or the massive Snape love on my f'list has infested me. ewwww Snape-love get it off get it off!


Things that brighten a morning. I got up and found this comment on my DA page in reference to my latest original piece, Erk:
I logged in for the first time in almost a year just to say that this is amazing. Keep up the good work

SERIOUSLY! WHAAA! (does the Happy Dance)
The one thing about DA is I love that my original works get love.

The ego boost for original works is there a bit more because I know you actually have to really like my art, not just be faving every picture of Snape you see. I mean I love my fanart, but t on Deviantart, it's a bit noticably . . hugely biased.

I also made a little Deviantart page for my Battlestar Galactica Comics.
http://bsg-comics.deviantart.com/

Ok yes that's kinda comment whoring, because they are already all collected on my website and the difference between DA and my website is feedback ability, but *sniffles*, I admit it, I'm one of those who likes feedback. I mean hell I'm gonna keep at these even if no one says anything els ever because I totally and utterly amuse myself and I feel accomplished knocking 'em out, so feedback is not required, but I thought I'd make the page.

It also served the purpose of not making me clutter my DA page with 'em, which again isn't a fanart thing it's an aesthetic thing for me.


Oh and I'm using Firefox now. Why, in all the years of people trying to sell me on this browser did no one ever told me it SPELL CHECKED blog posts automatically. OMG! *LOVE*

My deviantart account is all over the place artwise.

I'm thinking I may make a seperate account for my actual art and leave the DA account I already have for fanart.

I'm just thinking I don't know . . . looking at the <http://ani-bester.deviantart.com">front page</a> I have two original fantasycapes and two chibi BSG comics. Together.

And ever time I see it I want the goofy silly chibi BSG art away from the fantscapes and the fantasyscapes away from the BSG comics. I just . . . arghhhh I don't want to sound like an art snob, and I have no problem with fanart and such, but it's like this really odd looking combination of styles.

Both are me, but I feel like they hurt each other by being displayed like that.

It's like an art show that has no theme or something and my fanart is often radically different in theme and style than my original art.

sfgsdghdsghdfkgkds

I had art to post today but my damn internet wouldn't connect this morning so I couldn't upload it *sniffles*
(it's not serious art, it's goofy joke art that I spiffied up in photoshop as much as one can in 20 minutes after waking up in the morning, and all pre-coffee)


Also on art, I spent two hours last night trying to get some prelim-sketches for Aprils Fool's art for FA. Using penicl
Crap all of it.

This morning I grab a ballpoint pen, and in the time my computer is full booted (which is actually a decent amount of time) I get a decent preli-m doodle out with a ball point pen.

I'm thinking I may need to remember that. I think using pencil these days for pre-lim work causes me to give up/change/over-think.

Ball point pen is just ahh fuck it, lets see what happens. Which is generally the frame of mind I need to start a picture otherwise my innner critic won't shut up long enough for me to even start!


. . . I wanna watch my 'Last Starfighter' DVD.
ohhh which has a sequal in the talks.
FINALLY someone can rape MY childhood. everyone else gets there childhood raped, but never me.
(sarcastic of course, I'd kinda like to see what someone made of this for a sequel)

. . . I don't think I like working on canvas.
I think I'll stop by an art store at get some actual paper to paint on again.
I like acrlyics, but not on canvas, if that makes any sense.
Speaking of art

I think I finally worked out why there is the damn bias toward anything REALLY BIG.

Because it's easy to get art supplies these days and anyone can pop on down their local art supply store and grab up paper up to about 30 X 22 inches.
Any Joe can do this.

Where as, it's not easy to go about making 8 foot X 10 foot paintings.
Most average Joes don't do this.

So perhaps the art world created the following somewhat unfair and senseless distinction:
average sized paintings = Hobby Art
Ginormaous paintings = Serious Art

In this way they create a way to distinguish artist from Artist given the advant of easily available art supplies. Where as in earlier times the mere fact that you bought art supplies pretty much meant you were an Artist (not the caps *L*)

I'm not remotely saying I agree, I've just always pondered why the hell and 8X11 girls face is illustration and yet the exact same girl's fiace at 20 foot byt 10 foot is High Art, and so I'm putting this out as a possibly theory on why this size bias as come about.

Thoughts?