I didn't really mean for this to turn into a general art blog.

Delwin has a glow beetle!

I guess I'm just rolling with it, though, and I will try to resume the 365 projects but it's kind of nice to have somewhere else to share my general art, too. I have been busy. On the drawing front, I joined an online RP that's very art-centric, reusing an old character of mine, a little centaur boy named Delwin.
He's kind of challenging to draw, because I struggle with drawing children, but he's fun to play because the psychology of kids is fascinating. I guess I'll be drawing him a lot, and I'm pushing myself to do more digital painting experimentation with him.

In other not-so-fun news, all of my artistic output has been severely dampened for weeks and weeks now by an outbreak of hives. We think it's an allergic reaction to a new medication, which I have since stopped taking, but there's apparently no good timetable for how long it takes to work its way out of your system.
If it's not a reaction to the medication, then it means I've spontaneously developed an allergy to something that's consistently in my environment, and that will be utter hell to work out. I'm currently on my second dose of Prednisone to try to shake this off. A lot of the hives are on my arms and hands, which has made it almost impossible to so much as hold a pencil, some days. Using scissors is hard. I can't practice the guitar. It's obnoxious and frustrating and makes me want to be creative all the more just because I'm having so much trouble physically doing anything.

And yet, I've still been managing to get stuff done, sometimes painfully. Inspired by the cubed bird, I've been making these guys we've dubbed 'SquareCrows' to sell for Halloween, both at the local Farmer's Market and on our Etsy shop. The largest there is a cube three inches to a side, the medium-size one is a two-inch cube, and the tiny one is one-and-a-half inches to a side because I cut out a one-inch square and took one look at it and decided I'm not quite that insane. They're all felt, all hand sewn with embroidery floss because we were out of orange thread, and I've been scrounging for button eyes. We did find these packs of teeny tiny buttons that work for the littlest one, and may have to break down and buy a pack of buttons for the others because I've pretty much run our miscellaneous bags/jars of buttons out of orange. I've gotten lots of squealing comments and had a commission for a full trio plus one extra of the largest ones. Anybody who sees them here and wants some, drop me a line, because I'm still at work on more.
Mostly I'm grateful my hives today are mostly on the backs of my hands and I can still work...

In betweener art

I know I need to make time for daily 365 projects again, but life is keeping me busy. Two days a week get pretty much eaten up with the local Farmer's Market. In addition to running the table for a local tea shop, on Saturdays we also have a table to sell my girl's dolls and my art.
The other vendors are so friendly and it's a cool social atmosphere, so I'm not complaining. Anyways, there's a woman there who sells what she calls 'bird cubes' which are these cubical birdhouses. I asked if they were for cubical birds and the idea struck me and wouldn't let go. I just had to make this guy. He only took two days, and he's all hand-stitched with some stiff interfacing to hold the cube shape. There's an European robin on her business card, so that's what he's supposed to be, although I had to paint on the red.

The cube bird in natural habitat.

He's gotten a lot of good comments already when I gave him to her on Wednesday, and I'm hoping tomorrow she'll help direct business our way. Saturday promises to be busy for me anyway because we'll be out of here at 6:30 for the market, and then I'm working at the tea shop after the market until who knows what time of night. It's going to be a long day, and I probably won't get a real meal until dinner. Ah well. If we can sell some dolls or art, it's all good.

Slow return

I guess I shouldn't have assumed I'd be ready to jump back into life just after the funeral. On top of it all I brought home some germs that rapidly devolved into being so sick I was pretty much non-functional the week after I got home. Even now I'm finishing up a course of antibiotics because it tried t turn into bronchitis.

Been drawing some, though, and  pushing myself to get back into the normal rhythms of things. I'm still looking for work, but I also stumbled on what might be an excellent site for getting illustration work, so I'm scrambling to put together a few pieces for a portfolio that would be appropriate to what they look for there. Freelance is scary, but being jobless is scarier.

That said, updates here may be slow, and while on the one hand I'd meant for this blog to be devoted to the 365 project,
on the other hand it's all art so I may continue posting my other work in between proper entries. Click either of the images here to see them full size on DeviantArt, where I keep my regular work.

As a side note, I sometimes worry that my art is so eclectic that nobody will ever be able to see something I've done and know it's mine. I vary so wildly in style and medium, because the concept always comes first to me, and the style and medium are in service to the idea. I think some artists (most artists?) have a style, and all of their ideas naturally emerge through that style, so you can look at any piece they've done and identify it as theirs.
Maybe I'm caring too much about getting credit for my art? I hope that's not selfish of me. Possibly if I got more people willing to place value on my art by paying for it as work I'd feel validated or something. Possibly because I've been out of work so long, art is the only thing left that gives me a sense of accomplishment I feel I can measure my worth against. Probably I should finish this post now, and go make some more art.

I will be gone for a week for my grandmother's funeral, and I'll try to get back to regular blogging after my return. Thanks to all who have the patience to still be watching this blog, and if you are, here's more filler art to tide you over.

In between...

Sorry for yet another pause in posting. There's not so good family stuff going on, and I've been... distracted. Anyways, I did get this done, so have it as filler art until I get the next 365 project up...

Working like a... rabbit... or something.

No post the past couple days, partly because I was helping get ready for this ->
These bunnies were part of our table at the Farmer's Market today, but it didn't do all that well, actually. I'm not sure quite what it is we're doing wrong, or maybe this just isn't the time to be trying to sell art and crafts, but we do everything we can to make money right now. That said, a big thank you to Heidi of Puppet-a-Day for buying some of our bunnies and making the day better!
For those who don't know, my girlfriend made most of these, we have an Etsy shop (although we're kind of working away from that, because we keep hearing and seeing bad things), and a FaceBook page for trying to sell my art and her dolls.

I partly made this!

We also sell the stuff at a table at the local Farmer's Market, but since I'm also there to run a table for a friend's coffee and tea shop, taking our business to a different market isn't really an option right now.
The other reason I've utterly failed on 365 projects the past few days is this entire week I've been running around like crazy, pretty much from waking up until past dark, at least. Sometimes into the next day, if I'm up late enough at night. Today I have basically done three different jobs, on about three hours of sleep. We're still behind on all our bills, of course. Everything we own is very old and falling apart, or a gift, or mostly both.
I'm very tired.
Anyway, have some bunnies to look at, and ask on the FaceBook page if you're interested in buying any of the ones we have left, and I will be working on my actual 365 projects again as of tomorrow. Tonight I still have paid work to do.

Filler post

Some days you just get up on the wrong side of the bed, I guess, or something. This morning started with finding somebody had been in my car, and while they didn't take anything (there's nothing in it worth taking), the idea creeps me out and it's locked, tonight. I also didn't get the chance to eat until almost noon, because the earlier chance to eat I did get between appointments involved me discovering my bagels had gone moldy.
Nothing major, but I was tired on top of this, and I just haven't had the motivation to get very far with today's project, although I have worked on it a little.
In lieu of a formal 365 project, here's some older fanart of mine, for Alice in Wonderland. I used to be fascinated with the Mad Hatter and his claims that he knew Time personally, although they had a falling out. Here, then, is the Mad Hatter having tea with Time, possibly even that fateful moment when he said something about 'killing time' and was thus forever after cursed...
I used my own pocket watch for reference, because it opens on both sides, so this is specifically the backside of the workings.There's numbers and hands on the side the Hatter is seeing.