During meetings, lectures, class, and conferences, I have problems staying awake. It doesn’t matter if I had a full night’s sleep, am completely jolted on caffeine, or am completely interested and invested in the subject. It’s like hypnosis or something. Anyway, over the years I’ve devised ways to keep myself awake, and one of them is sketching. So here’s some sketches I’ve done recently (with ballpoint pen)!

Prentice Will be Cleanin’
To “California Dreamin” by The Mamas & The Papas

All the cheese is brown,
Sheppard’s pie turned grey.
I’ll go for a walk,
Later on today.

Don’t be misinformed.
I will come save the day.
Prentice will be cleanin’,
at five fifteen, Friday!

So, please stop by the fridge,
You’ll pass along the way.
Please, grab your cream cheese and peas,
and your berry puree.

You know your pasta will grow mold,
and will be thrown away.
Prentice will be cleanin’,
at five fifteen, Friday!

Your Chinese turned brown,
and Pad Thai is grey.
I’ll go for a walk,
Later on today.

Don’t say I didn’t tell you!
Before you leave today,
Prentice will be cleanin’,
at five fifteen, Friday!

One of my best friends and fellow bloggers, Prentice Osborne has this fun thing she does where she writes what she calls a “Fridge Poem” every Friday for her office. She has to clean out the fridge at 5:15, and instead of writing a boring email to remind her coworkers to pick up their leftovers, she makes it fun by writing poems and stories! I love to chip in and do an illustration for them, but usually they’re just cute little sketches. This week, however, I went all out. So here is the illustration and the accompanying poem in their full glory!

>>Three pose sketches, three minutes each

>>The Tourist, Part One

>>The Tourist, Part Two

>>The Tourist, Part Three.

The point of this exercise was to draw the girl on stage, but with a twist. This wasn’t normal figure drawing… instead we were to emphasize her pose and gesture, and further characterize her. It was a difficult assignment, as I’m used to simply drawing what is in front of me.

The sequence of drawings with two characters on them were done in an interesting way. All three drawings have two different poses on them, but they were done by the same model. WHAT, no my model could NOT magically change sex mid-way through class. She did her first pose, and then quick-changed her costume on stage as she got into a second pose. The two poses interacted with one another, and were then placed on the same page to create a scene. Obviously both characters were based on a female model, but I turned the clown into a male while drawing. I also further changed up their costumes to develop the characters more. What a fun class!

That’s right, a contest! Want one of my prints but don’t have one? Here’s your chance to win one for free! Time to crack out your favorite art supplies because this is going to be a coloring contest. What better way to win some art than be a little creative yourself? Here’s how to get started.

1.) Download the Contest Lineart.
2.) Color it in any way that you wish– it can be done digitally or printed out and colored traditionally (markers, crayons, colored pencils, paints, etc.) and then scanned in.
3.) Submit it to me to become an official entrant in the contest!

Easy, right? You bet! You can get your entry to me via Twitter, Facebook, DeviantArt, by email or right here in the comments of my blog!

Now, how do you win? By being the Fan favorite! I’m going to set up a voting system with all of the entries so that you have a chance to win by popular vote.

!!WAIT that means you can enlist your friends to come vote for you! Spread the word about the contest, get your friends to come vote for you, and WIN!!

Prize:
The winner will be able to select ONE (1) print from my Etsy store and I will mail it to them after the winner is announced.

When is your entry due?

Deadline for Entries: March 21th, 2010 at 10:00 PM EST

The voting will begin the next day, and the winner will be announced on March 28, 2010. That gives you a FULL week to rally your friends to come vote for you!

OMG, are you excited? Colored pencils quivering in anticipation? Hold on, gotta read the RULES first!

Rules:
-One entry per person, please.
-Only entries received prior to the deadline will be considered.
-No voting for yourself, that’s just dirty.
-No purchase necessary.
-The prize can ONLY be selected from Joie’s Etsy Store Account: No exceptions will be made.
-Entries may be submitted via tweet, Fan page posting, Facebook wall posting, email, or comment at Joieart.net.
-No entries that someone else colored for you. This is supposed to be about having fun and being creative!
-No entries may be submitted by postal snail mail. Sorry– visit Kinko’s if you need scanning help!

What if I can’t/won’t/don’t color? Don’t worry. There is a contest made just for you coming next month!

Ok, that’s it! Here is your lineart! GO!

Download the lineart here!

The realization that I had been treating art like a hobby instead of a career blindsided me early in the morning last Thursday. There I sat at my day job, wondering why all of my efforts to make art a full time venture just weren’t working. Wallowing in thoughts about if I was made of the right stuff to make this successful and what I was doing wrong, it hit me:

A career is the way you make your money, survive in the world, and create your livelihood. Ideally, it is supposed to be something that you truly love and cherish; something that makes you eager to get up in the morning to do.

A “hobby is an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation.” (1) (continue reading…)