Life
Save the Date Sneek Peek (WIP)
I’ve been commissioned to design some Save the Date cards for a wedding. The theme is “peacock”.
I’ve been painstakingly hand drawing each and every feather. This is but a small section of the overall piece.
And here’s a closeup view of the colored version:
I am really starting to hate peacocks now.
Portal/Ingress Mashup
Gotten into playing Ingress, lately. The meaning of portals has slightly changed as a result.
Commission Sale!
Q. What’s this “commission sale”?
A. I’m sellin’ shit at half price!
Q. Why?
A. Mind your business.
Q. How do you benefit?
A. You pay less for it!
If you’ve longed to have a Beth original piece to adorn your walls, storage unit, or trunk of your car, NOW IS THE TIME!
Email me and we’ll get this shit started!
kthnxbai!
Beth
My foray into the Children’s’ book market
Without going into a rambling story about what led to this post, I’ll make it short and sweet.
I have a friend.
I troll this friend relentlessly.
She wanted to write children’s books with me as illustrator.
She also wanted said children’s books to star her pets.
I took the liberty of drawing up some ideas.
Uh-Oh, these guys look tough, Charlie!
She's got a secret, but she's not telling!
Smokin' weed everyday
Downward spiral, Charlie
Let's hope it's just the flu!
It isn't.
Working titles: Charlie Dies with Dignity, Charlie Meets Death, and Charlie Hangs Around (my personal favorite).
Why is she still friends with me!?
Love,
Beth
Kid friendly
Ok, so last time I posted was before I got myself knocked up. Now, I have a 7 month old.
My art has taken a dramatic turn towards the kid-friendly. No more penises and vaginas for this gal.
I started drawing a bunch of Alphabet flashcards with animals on them:
It started to go downhill from there.
Fuck it.
I can probably get a coloring book out of this, or something.
More fun (at poor Husband’s expense)
My poor Husband.
Now, initially, this was just meant to be a character sketch because we had been talking (for ages) about doing a mini-web-comic about some of the conversations we’ve had (although it may turn into a project that only we find hilarious).
I thought, hey, I’ll post the images on Facebook and see how it goes. Maybe I’ll get some constructive criticism!
I forgot that many of our friends/family have …unique senses of humor.
Well, here is the initial sketch:
I thought it looked pretty good, but Husband thought it could use “more beard”.
OK! So I posted it and waited.
Let the “constructive criticism” commence:
WARNING: This bit contains language.
Not for the faint at heart, children, pregnant or nursing women, my employers, future employers, or badgers of ill-breeding.
Well, I certainly got some awesome tips with that one.
I am not one to disappoint.
I added onto the image per recommendations, however I decided to censor a little bit; I just didn’t feel comfortable drawing a dick in my husband’s mouth.
I posted the image.
Waited (not very long, mind you. They were ready!)
Touched up:
With this one, I not only added a parrot that looks like our own pet parrot, Bowser, but I added a little shading to the cowbell (for realism).
It looks like we have a winner!
All things considered, Husband was a good sport (<3 J00!). He even showed coworkers. He must be so proud of my artistic talent!
What has been seen cannot be UNseen
Once upon a time, I was browsing the interwebs. As I ventured through the ‘tubes’ I came upon a work of art that just startled me to the core. It was very well done (technically), but the content of the image was just… stunning.
I sat there dumbfounded for a good 5 minutes before I could muster up the ability to close the window.
I’m not going to link it out of consideration of my readers.
Right.
So anyway, it inspired a quick (like lightning quick) doodle I did with deviantArt’s Muro program.
I gotta say, after using Photoshop and Painter 11, it’s a nice, powerful browser-based program! I love the sketch pen!
So anyway, here is a doodle of myself after having seen the image in question:
I was quite pleased with it, so I colored it (or attempted to, rather).
I think it turned out well, considering it was rushed and I don’t know what I’m doing.
fin.
I’m gonna break stuff!
It was bound to happen. As soon as I get in the groove of posting semi-regularly, I want change!
As soon as I figure out how to backup my WP database, I’m going to be drastically changing with look and feel of this place.
This will likely mean that I’m gonna break stuff!
In the interim, if stuff doesn’t appear to be working, let me know!
Sincerely,
B-dawg
(my street name)
Franconia!
Last Saturday some friends invited me to go with them to tour the Franconia Brewing Company in McKinney, TX. I’ve been meaning to make a US-wide tour-de-beer, so no better place to start than right in my backyard!
I got lots of pics to share, so bare with me!
The Brewmaster
(Want more? Many more pictures can be found on my Flickr!)
I was impressed with their process. It was a small facility, but they have a small operation. They don’t currently bottle their beers, and won’t unless they get a recycling program arranged with the vendors that request to sell their beer. They have made an effort to keep their operation as environmentally sound as possible (i.e. recycling hot water, only producing what’s ordered, taking what little waste they have to the recycling center themselves…).
Well done, guys!
On a side note, the Winter Wheat was phenomenal. I have had the regular wheat and dunkle beers, but this one was new to me. 9% alcohol content, too. Nom nom nom.
Excuses, excuses
I haven’t had a chance to update at all, lately.
I recently had the opportunity to shoot at a fund raiser for My Possibilities, a local non-profit organization that helps adults with disabilities. I met some really awesome people and got TONS of photos (approx. 400+) of the event.
Editing said photos has been eating up most of my time. As well as shooting/editing/sending off photos from the City Council Meetings (more on that, later).
I promise, once I finish the remaining 101 photos, I will be posting more content, as well as updating with some of my own art. ^_^
In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a gift: pictures of my super-cute dog, Ollie!!
What lucky people, you are!
The Lion and the Crow
I took this shot (macro) of our peach tree. It frequently oozed a viscous fluid in the springtime. I assume this was due to the physical injuries it indured from the various insects that bore into its branches.
I named this one The Lion and the Crow. Can ya see it!?
Fun
I finally cleared off enough space on my desk to hook up the WACOM. I was experimenting with some comic characters but instead decided to play cheerleader for Husband.
And the result:
Edit: I tried to tag these on Facebook to make use of their new feature where you can make these 5 images show up on top. I wanted his profile to show JAMES in Beth-characters, but apparently they’re too full of awesome to show the entire image. The result was a cropped version of what I had intended.
A funny result, however:
Totally looks like “SEX”.
1 down, 1,599 to go!
I finally had time to go through my external drive and copy over photos to re-edit in a higher resolution (i.e. bigger, clearer). That pretty much means going through and finding all the originals, resizing them, touching up (if necessary), and putting borders as close as I could to the edits I had uploaded years ago.
I’ve edited one, so far. Only 1,599 to go!
I cleverly also uploaded a second version (cropped), so instantly I have two photos instead of just one! HOW AWESOME AM I!?
**Answer: Pretty awesome.**
Full version:
Cropped version:
You’re welcome.
Love Where You Live pt. II
I decided to break up the previous post into two since there were two different parts of the event. One was the obvious, making the properties look more presentable and making minor repairs; the other was a sort of festival (complete with a jumpy house things and hot dogs!).
Behold! One of the few photos of people you will see from me:
I chuckled to myself when I saw this couple. HAD to take a picture :)
These faces are priceless!
(this is, by far, one of my favorite pictures)
Love Where You Live pt. I
Once upon an end-of-lease term, Beth had the bright idea that she would volunteer for the city she would soon be leaving.
She wished to accomplish a few goals:
- Give back to the community she was born and raised in (not court mandated, for once)
- Play with puppies EVERY DAY
- Bragging rights Personal enrichment
Well, I tried.
I did make it through 2 whole days of orientation before I just grew tired of it.
HOWEVER, during my interview to be accepted as a city volunteer, I did mention the whole “I [heart] photography” thing. So now “unpaid photographer” is my unofficial volunteer status (as I was officially and permanently released from volunteering at the animal shelter due to non compliance with their minimum hour-per-month policy).
My first job was to shoot the Love Where You Live event hosted in a neighborhood they thought could use a little cosmetic makeover.
All in all, it was a pretty cool event. I actually enjoyed walking around with a camera while other people did the back-breaking manual labor.
Is that lazy? Oh, hell yes! But I think some of the workers were hamming it up for the camera, anyway. Sittin’ there with their free water bottles waiting for the photographer to walk up.
Yeah, I know your game, college students.
In fact, I had little direction. Just show up at this time, and walk around. Not all homes were being “loved” upon, so it was my task to walk for hours until I saw a house with a little sign indicating that it was to have someone there at some point.
So that’s when I decided to just find a group of people and follow them around. They led me to the action.
Without further adieu, l’action:
I fail at prioritizing.
Perhaps my New Year’s resolution this year is to actually DO something productive when I get home from work.
Lofty dream, says I!
The “day job” just drains me, but I promise I will be more “updatey”, eventually. ^_^
In other news, I have a broken blood vessel in my eye. Shooting the evil eye to Husband has a whole new effectiveness. It’s…effective.
One monumental task I have assigned myself… re-photograph all my paintings in a higher res, and also re-edit all my photos so they’re not all “facebook-friendly”. Now, they’ll be Flickr-friendly! HIGH-RES AWESOMENESS!
As a little gift so you all don’t hate my lack of posting, here’s one such re-vamped painting:
- Mattresses are friendly, dim-witted, docile creatures capable of speech. They are all called Zem and live in the swamps of Squornshellous Zeta
Yes, it is inspired by the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. That is, before the movie came out and featured a more iRobot-esc-Marvin.
Of course, my visualization of Marvin created a seriously average-looking, old-school-sci-fi-esc robot….
(DISCLAIMER: I shall add here, that yes, I know he is an android, but look at him! That’s CLEARLY more robot than android. My bad. Fucking jump on my back, internets. I KNOW YOU WANT TO!)
So not having watched the OG TV series OR the movie before painting this, but being just in love with the “trilogy” (I can read!)… you get the robot that closer resembles something out of the Jetson’s. Sue me. I was raised on that shit.
SUPER AMAZING UPDATE 3/5/11: Prints for this piece will be available so soon (via my etsy which is so painfully empty atm) you can taste it! Check back soon, or you will be disemboweled by rabid badgers while stray cats shit in your mouth (it’s super-effective). Love, Beth
New digs (pt. I)
Well, Husband and I have been settling into our new loft apartment. We’ve been here a little longer than I care to admit, and are slowly working on unpacking while stepping over piles of broken-down boxes (and using some as makeshift tables).
In moving in, we had a vague idea of what we wanted to accomplish with our space. Since it is a loft, we don’t have rooms per se, or even too many walls. We thus have to create “zones” in the large open spaces (whatever that means). Super-supportive Husband has come to the conclusion that I should have a perfect work space first and foremost, and then a living area can be put on the back-burner (or eliminated altogether).
With the bookshelf, couch, and an array of desks, we managed to make a really snug area for both of us to work.
It’s messy. So as soon as I muster up the courage (motivation) to actually straighten up, I will provide pictures.
Eventually.
UPDATE 3/10/11: Nope. No pictures, yet.