Star Horse

Okay, I have not posted anything in over a year, so I am far overdue for an update... I returned to school last year to start working toward my art education and art therapy licenses, so between school, work, and my personal life, I have been crazy busy.  I suppose that's no excuse though...

For one of my field classes we are doing some projects that we can save as teacher examples, so for this project we watched a video on the illustrator Eric Carle and then proceeded to create our own handmade papers.  We then had to use those papers to make a collage of anything we wanted.  I immediately knew I wanted to create an animal and, of course, I chose a horse.  In the past, I've had illustration projects in which we had to create an illustration based on a set of words, so I chose another word to join my "horse" prompt and "star" came to mind.  This made me think of the Horsehead Nebula, so that was my inspiration for this whimsical piece - all made with hand painted papers.

I have a lot more projects to post from last semester - including fun things from my metalworking class!  Cast pewter, enameled copper, and welded steel, OH MY!   I'll be posting pics very soon!

Self Portrait for December

I have not done a self-portrait in AGES, so today I did one on a whim. It's not one of my finest drawings, and I must admit, I didn't put much thought into it... But I haven't done much drawing in a very, very, long time, so this was kind of a "get off your butt and get motivated" sort of thing... I forced myself to do it... I'm going to try and do a self-portrait every month, but I'm not making any promises.

Princess Roxanne

Ohhhhhmygoodness it's been way too long since I've updated!! For my fiance's birthday back in April, I painted a portrait of his beautiful shepherd/rottweiler mix, Roxxy :) Watercolor with colored pencil.

dino valentine-o!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

DerbyShiva!

Derby Shiva will very soon be having an epic clash against the Battle Hipsters of Milwaukee!!!

Stay tuned for more info!

The fantastic battle poster was designed by the amazing Jackie at Lovesick Robot Studios.

So, Derby Shiva was inspired by an actual conversation after deciding we were too poor to attend the roller derby bout:

Jackie "If only there was a way to sneak in... Perhaps dressed as derby girls... HRMMMM"
Tara "We could totally pull that off!! I have my own skates!!!"
Jackie "I don't have skates, but I do have a helmet... I can ride on your shoulders, and we could be DerbyShiva!!!"

sweetness

I received a gift of delicious, homemade, dark chocolate-covered strawberries! So sweet :3

sullen squirrel

Mr. Sullen Squirrel after a long day at his not-so-fun corporate job...

triple C morning!

Chessmasters goes way back to a time much simpler than this: MIAD. 2007-2008. Fourth floor Illustration studios. *sigh*  We had a huge scoreboard and enjoyed our Triple C mornings (chess, coffee, and cookies), which has now I think been officially changed to CCN mornings (chess, coffee, and nuts?). Doesn't quite roll off the tongue as nicely, but I'm quite anti-sugar and anti-flour now, so that's where we're at.
Sorry, Pietro, I couldn't draw you winning that first game because I was just so excited to finally win myself!  To everyone else: I did not actually dance on the chair. Though I probably should have...

I heart music!

So, crazy random assortment of songs. And I have to reiterate: She Wolf is an amazing song and the video rocks my socks. I can't stop watching.  (And yes - I know, I know. Kesha is on this list... I really dislike Kesha, but that song has a good beat and unfortunately it's super catchy!)

christmas for the kiddos!

I have a nephew and two nieces that all got some homemade presents from me this Christmas - including some hand-embroidered felt ornaments! yay! And ever since my nephew was born (almost 3 years ago), I've always taken his gifts, wrapped them in brown kraft paper, and drawn on them with sharpie and paint markers, so now I do it for all of them. Beckett is the only one who's old enough to recognize the drawings, but I still like to do it. Love those kiddos :3

the usual suspects...

The Steffen-Bublitz cats, from left to right: Wilma (chubby, adorable ball of fluff), Grendel (caveman kitty), Lando Cat-rissian (scared and/or confused at all times), and Jonesy (the silly one).

solstice stroll

Happy Winter Solstice! Mackerdoodle and I decided to take advantage of this lovely clear night and go for a late night stroll. It was a lovely walk despite being quite cold and a bit windy - but I was thoroughly layered up, so I was nice and toasty. :) I usually walk/jog on the roads in town since I have to drive to get to any trails - but I thought I'd give Mack's poor footsies a break, so we ventured out into a wheat field not far from my house and walked down a snowmobile trail (yes, this would generally be ill-advised, but there's not quite enough snow for anyone to be out using the trails yet).

wee painting!

This is from way back when - I'd say maybe around 2007? My friend Mie and I sometimes made "wee paintings." This little guy is 3x3" and I found it in with a bunch of relics from my illustration studio.
*sigh*
I so do miss having a studio... Just posted it for funsies - it's the only one I kept and I still love it.

forest friends

Some more of my homemade stamps!  I've been so crazy busy making gifts for Christmas that I haven't had time to do my self-portrait or any comics, so once the holidays are over I can finally get back on track!

gettin' crafty

I got a bit of work done this weekend, though not as much as I had hoped. For the last couple years, I've been making my own wrapping paper by drawing with sharpie and white paint markers onto brown kraft paper - but this year I'm gettin' all fancy and making my own stamps to make my wrapping paper.  I carved these stamps out of giant super cheap erasers and I must say, I think they worked out rather well.

pie art

For Thanksgiving this year, I busied myself making all of the desserts - homemade pumpkin, apple and cherry pies. Holy Yum. And with the leftover scraps of pie dough, I cut out some leaves and deer and proceeded to art-ify my pumpkin pie! We'll just go ahead and consider it edible art. Delicious, delicious art...

wild ride

Because that's how horses talk... 

So, I spent this weekend visiting friends (human and equine) that I haven't seen in a while and had a ridiculously fun time. We all went for a trail ride on Saturday afternoon then later we played some games and had some laughs.  And then there was Sunday - oh dear...  I got a chance to ride the amazing barrel racing horse, Slapshot, for the first time ever. Rode him bareback with no bridle - just a halter and reins. He is a phenomenal horse and quite lovely to ride. That is unless he's barreling down forest trails... 

Though I made it through the woods without any major mishaps, the pasture was another story... Heading up a giant hill, I think Slapshot and Calibur decided they wanted to race to the top, because once Calibur took off, Slapshot needed to follow and hr bolted up the hill.  He won. I didn't. Instead, I had a rather rough and somewhat painful introduction to the ground, A over T-K.  It wasn't too terrible at the time, but has since resulted in a bruised and sore lower back, and some pretty mean whiplash...

halloween girlies

A couple quick sketches of two of my very good friends - Jackie and Heidi, and then myself, in our Halloween costumes from this weekend. We celebrated up in Milwaukee and a marvelous time was had by all!

My 1950s getup came together quite nicely I must say, considering I didn't give my "faux bangs" a test run beforehand (I actually have bangs, but surprisingly they made it more tricky to roll the hair in front ...).  I also made my very first piece of clothing ever: a circle skirt! I ADORE it - it is so much fun to wear, petticoat and all!

CHICAGO COLOR RUN!

I successfully completed my very first 5K this weekend in Chi-town! WOOHOO!  Cannot wait for it to come to Milwaukee next year.  Declared to be "the happiest 5K on the planet" - I would say the Color Run most definitely lives up to its bold affirmation.  We all had a BLAST!  Besides the part where I got blue powder blasted directly into my eyeball... But other than that - it was just amazingly good fun.

creature feature friday!

bovid x edmontosaurus?  I have no idea what this crazy creature is that I created, but we'll just call him a "big, beefy ruminant with funky nasal air sac"...