Cartoonist, Artist, Geek, Evil Crafter, Girl Scout Troop Leader and Writer. Also, a zombie. I haven't slept in I don't know how long.

Sunday Contentments – Of iPads and Zombies

I don’t know if I was good or not this year (okay, I was outright evil and we all know that), but Santa left me a very nice present anyway. I got an iPad! Since yesterday, I’ve been very busy with it, downloading ebooks and apps. I love reading on the iPad even more than I love reading on the netbook (but I still love my netbook, yes I do! Best little device ever for writing and blogging!). Even more than reading though, I love creating digital artwork on the iPad. I downloaded a few apps, including Brushes, Sketchbook Pro, and ArtRage. Since yesterday, I’ve done 4 paintings, which is an amazing amount of output for me. Here’s my favorite piece so far…

This was done with ArtRage. I don’t have a stylus for the iPad, so this was all done by “fingerpainting.” It kept the style of the artwork pretty loose, especially the inking, but I think it works very well. In fact, I’m hoping to do more like this, using a very loose style of inking and then using the watercolor brush and other tools to color the image.

I’ll post some of the other images from the other programs later today. Sketchbook Pro allows me to export my artwork as a Photoshop document, so I’ll be able to start something on the iPad and export it to my desktop for further work. I can’t wait to try that and see how it works!

WIP Wednesday – Noir book cover at sea!

This is far from finished yet, but here’s what I’ve been working on this week, a book cover for a paranormal mystery. I need to refine the guy lurking in the background, plus I’d like to add some details to the woman’s dress, then change the lighting a bit to make this a nice sunset scene. Of course the biggest problem is the background image of the ocean. That horizon line doesn’t line up with the set or the characters at all! Once I’ve got a decent 3D rendering, I’ll be looking at converting the whole thing into a painted image via the wonders of Photoshop!

And that’s this week’s WIP 😉

ACW Episode 97 – Merry ChristmaaaaaaaAAAACK!

Happy holidays, folks! I opted to go with a Christmas card rather than the usual strip, and decided to play around with ArtRage to give it all those pretty colors! Huzzah!

This is the first Christmas for our new cats, Hiccup and Toothless, and they’re quite excited by the tree. So far they’ve stuck to just knocking off lots of ornaments, but I’m pretty sure they’ll be climbing that tree any time soon. And I just know how that’s going to end. Meanwhile, we’ve failed so far to take our annual holiday picture and send it out with our cards, so if you’re on our list and you get a copy of this in the mail, you know what happened!

Anyway, Merry Christmas and all that jazz. Blog updates will be spotty at best this week, but you know I love you all anyway!

New WIP!! Zombies at school

I’m embarking on some entirely new projects next year, mainly cartooning and art. So far, I’ve just been doing some doodles of the things I plan to draw, but I have some interesting samples so far. Take a look at these zombie high school senior portraits!

Whadya think?! Even zombies want to look good for their graduation pictures!

Rats! Episode 45 – Beer goggles

Aaaaaawwwww, don’t they make a cute couple?

This story arc has a few more eps before it wraps up. No, I don’t have any clue what’s coming up next. I just know things switch over to something else.

I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays – Channukah, Kwanza, Christmas, Bohdi Day (for all you fellow Buddhists out there!). Whatever you celebrate, enjoy it. To all you students out there, take care driving home for the holidays and do not hand your mom all your dirty laundry when you walk in the door. She’ll love you for that, trust me.

ACW Episode 96 – Reach out and…

My mother has discovered the joys of Skype, so now once a week she has a video conference with the kids. It’s very chaotic. The kids haven’t figured out yet how to sit still so they can stay in the camera frame and sometimes they like to get really, really close to my netbook and all my mom ends up seeing is tonsils and nostrils. But she loves it.

My family is visiting for a week over the holidays and I have no idea what my schedule will be like. I’m sick right now with a nasty cold, and I’ve got a lot of work to get done. So I have no idea if I’ll get a cartoon up or not next week. I’ve decided not to make any promises about deadlines over the holiday season. I may do a cartoon or just relax. Or maybe I’ll do some doodles and post those. You’ll see whatever I put up whenever I put it up.

In any event, enjoy your holidays and I’ll see you when I see you!

Sunday Contentments – Who Framed Jessica Rabbit?

I had a brief discussion on Twitter earlier this week about Jessica Rabbit. Bryan Prindiville had posted a link to a video of Katy Perry performing in an outfit that was almost like Jessica Rabbit’s. “Ah,” I said, feeling very sage and nostalgic. “Been there. Done that. Own the dress.” And Bryan shot back with, “Pictures, or it didn’t happen!”

Well here’s your picture, pal…

This was taken in the spring of 1990. I would have been 21. I think a friend of mine, Telf Dalton, made the dress. I can’t recall why she made it for me, but she did a damn good job. I wore it for a talent show at Technicon that year, where I briefly flirted with a guy who eventually go on to become the Hubster.

I still have the dress and the “come hither” sexy attitude. Not that the attitude fits into that dress any more, but what do you expect? That picture is almost old enough to drink!

Rats! Episode 44 – Relationship drama!

Ah, relationship drama. Nothing says love like doing something totally stupid to impress the object of your affection. I’ve done it, you’ve probably done, we’ve all done. But some folks go a little farther than others and that can spell disaster, especially if you land on your head.

Speaking of relationships, today is the 20th anniversary of the first time I kissed my husband. It was during a Christmas party/slam dance at good ol’ Apartment 1 in Blacksburg. This was my senior year at Virginia Tech, and Michael and I had been flirting outrageously for months. A lot of folks probably breathed a sigh of relief when we finally got together, then looked away when we got waaaaaaaaaay too sappy and mushy for anybody’s good. We’re still just as bad 20 years later, I can assure you.

ACW Episode 95 – You want WHAT for lunch?

This happens ALL the time. I will be preparing lunch for myself and my darling children and of course one of them will ask for the impossible. It’s most often Pixie, asking for a grilled cheese or PBJ sandwich… sans a certain important ingredient as seen above.

Feeding young children is always challenging. When Princess was very young, I used to struggle to find things she would eat. As a toddler, she’d get a plate of sliced fruit, shredded cheese, crackers, all sorts of things I knew she liked to eat and yet she’d still turn her nose up at it. Catering to her like this meant I had to prepare two meals, one for the adults and one just for her, and that’s just exhausting of course. So one day I just snapped. I put together a plate of what we were eating, cut up into toddler-sized tidbits, put it on the highchair tray in front of her and said, “Eat or starve. I am done jumping through hoops for you, kid.”

Obviously she has not starved. But to this day we do still have our battles over food.

Princess/Pixie: “How much brocoli do I have to eat to get a treat tonight?”

Me: “All of it.”

The kids: “All of it?! But that’s a lot!”

Me: “No, it isn’t. I only gave you what I know you can eat.”

The kids: “But I can’t eat all of it. I’m not hungry anymore.”

Me: “Then I guess you’re not hungry for a treat either.”

Don’t you just love how logic works in a situation like that? Of course, they will continue to bicker and barter over the whole thing. Personally, I don’t care if they get a treat or not. They don’t need the sugar like they need the green veggies. But Hubster will sometimes relent and cut a deal, so the whining continues at every meal, the kids knowing that some days they might get what they want and some days not. It just depends on which parent is most likely to rule the table that day.

Anyway, I hope you have a lovely day. Be sure to enjoy your lunch. And if you figure out how to make a grilled cheese with salami, pickles, jam, sprinkles, syrup and no bread, let me know!

Move It Mama Monday! A painful but effective way to stay slim

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve done a Move It Mama Monday post. My apologies on that. I have been moving – swimming, water aerobics, karate, Just Dance and Wii Fit Plus. Seriously, I have kept up with my regime as best I can during the busy holiday season. However, I have been so busy, I haven’t had much time to blog. And to be honest, there’s not that much new going on in my exercise/fitness regime.

However, we have had a recent and interesting development I thought I might share today. I have discovered an all new way to stay slim this holiday season! Yes, that’s right! I have found the perfect way to keep from packing on all those holiday pounds caused by eating too much yummy holiday food.

It’s called heartburn and it hurts like a bitch!

For those of you who don’t know, I had my gall bladder removed 13 years ago. There was a stone in it the size of my thumbnail, and I spent five months puking my guts up and going in and out of the hospital before the doctors finally decided to cut me open and take the damn thing out. Since then, my tolerance for fatty foods has made a slow but steady decline. I noticed a couple years ago that I really had to be careful what I ate when I went to visit my folks in Arkansas. Arkansas is the capitol of fried foods, in case you didn’t know. Then last year I noticed I got some very uncomfortable pangs right below my sternum after eating big meals, especially high fat meals. That started getting worse and worse until this past Thanksgiving, I spent a few days doubled over in pain, wondering just exactly when I had managed to swallow a small garden gnome who was trying to cut his way out of my body using a pair of dull gardening shears.

Heartburn hurts. It really, really hurts. Thing is, most of the time I don’t get it. We eat pretty low fat all year long, and I do my best to eat 3 servings of fruits and veggies a day (3 big servings does go a long way toward having a low fat diet, so long as you don’t deep fry those fruits and veggies the Arkansas way). But holiday meals are a whole different ball game. Everything is loaded with butter, cream, oil and fat. Last year I hurt bad enough that I asked Hubster to stopp cooking the traditional recipes for candied sweet potatoes and green bean casserole and find me something else I could actually eat. He did a fantastic job, I’ll say. We now serve roasted sweet potatoes in balsamic vinagrette and green beans with tomato and onion relish (or else mustard green beans). The recipes are so tasty, I don’t miss the original dishes we used to serve.

But there are still plenty of items on the holiday menu that need trimming down. Hubster made a fantastic ham for Thanksgiving! And then coated it in a fat based sauce that is both delicious and deadly for me to eat. Then there’s my mom’s corn pudding recipe. Favorite holiday recipe EVAH! But it calls for a lot of condensed milk, butter and eggs.

So I’m now busily looking for more holiday recipes I can eat without inflicting agonizing pain on my digestive tract. If you know of any good, tasty low fat recipes for Chirstmas dinner, let me know! And for Christmas breakfast too. One of my most favorite meals of all is Christmas breakfast, and I would love to enjoy it again this year without suffering for my food. Thanks!