after a good long while

 Well, I've certainly abandoned this blog for quite some time. The last six months have seen some major transition, including me getting a new job (hooray!) and basically being an adult. I also got to hang my first NYC show, and also my first show since moving. It's been a pretty good six months, actually, especially in the job department. As a result, I've been sort of viewing my life in the past year-and-a-half or so in terms of When The Old Job Was Good, When The Old Job Sucked, and The New Job. These were painted in the middle period, probably in the spring and summer of 2014, all in the second of the two spiral bound notebooks I used to haul around to occupy myself and mitigate anxiety. 

First up we have two WelcomeTo Night Vale pieces. The top on is Each Named Erika (with a K), in reference to the angels. Canonically, they have non-human, oblong heads and are sexless, but I decided to model then after people I know (including my favorite model), who are sexed and have less-than-oblong heads. I also gave them some floating planetary symbols and multiple eyes. This is the only one of the WTNV pieces I've done that doesn't incorporate text. 

Next we have Intern Dana, another Night Vale character as she goes on her somewhat spiritual journey through the desert on the other side of the door, encountering a mountain and growing exponentially to become mayor material. To be honest I have fallen out of listening to Night Vale and I'm some months behind. The new job is less conducive to podcast listening, so I've been slacking off in all podcasts. A lot of the WTNV fan art I've done (as well a lot of other art) features triangles pretty heavily. Because I really like triangles. 












Following that is one of the few horizontal pieces from the notebooks, called Closer to the Moon, based off night vistas from home and that feeling when the moon seems surprisingly close. 









Perch was a spring piece, getting back into the mint greens and quaintness. It's, um. It's a big bird. I don't know, this was kind of just a spur-of-the-moment thing. This was during a pretty depressing moment of When The Old Job Sucked (like, more so than usual), and I might have been trying to make myself feel better. 

 Sensitive kind of came out of the same thing. If I remember correctly, this one was started sometime in the late winter, but kind of abandoned for a while.  While everything else in this selection is a watercolor/ink/gouache mix (except for Closer to the Moon, which is acrylic), this is pencil. 

 Here we have The Editors, with a throwback to the the massive black blob bodies of the medieval tradition. The name came from a work reference, actually (old job), and I sort of posed them as a mysterious, esoteric council. The tallest figure is modeled after someone who was not, actually, an editor and who has managed to sneak into a few other pieces, including possibly as the central figure in Each Named Erika. 

And lastly we have Camp of Hearts. This was another one that took a long time to materialize, and I actually had the title before I had the actual image. That's not uncommon in my personal process. I think the title came from misreading something that actually said "camp of the arts," as in a summer camp with art programs, but my strange brain turned it into something else. That also happened with What Double Vein, where I misread "what do you believe in." This not only came from the misreading, but I think was also inspired by movies like Moonrise Kingdom and a camping trip to Ithaca. I wanted something genuinely wholesome and classic, with a warm, nostalgic sense. 

There are actually considerably more art pieces I'd like to include here--I've been surprisingly prolific, even if it's only with small things. Currently I've been waging war on/avoiding Christmas, but hopefully over the holidays I'll be able to do some larger-scale pieces. 
Hooray!