better late than never

Tags

cartoon craziness challenge, dragon, drawing

That’s the final version of my most recent drawing and the one that I said really needed to get done this week. I finished her last night. And I was able to get this uploaded to Redbubble so it’s now available on damn near everything they sell. I’m contemplating messing with the colors now that I’ve got her scanned, but I’m not sure what other colors would look right. Thoughts?

what the hell? is it Tuesday or Monday or what?

Tags

cartoon craziness challenge, Evie Cat, goals, knitting, sick

I love long weekends for the extra time they afford to do exciting things, like clean out my backpack and knitting bag, but holy fucking hell does this shit ever confuse me! It was so bad this morning that I dropped all of my bills in the slot at the mail room with no damn stamps on them. But hey, there’s a perk of using the campus mail service – when I realized what I’d done and called, the guy told me he’d fish them out and I could come pay for them in a bit, but don’t come now because there’s a herd of foreign kids here right now trying to ship things and it’s backed up.

But I digress. Like usual.

I wanted to give a bit of an update on things. Josh is still so sick that he stayed home and I made him a doc appointment. Hopefully that helps. I still feel mostly alright. Of course, having the world’s best crab salad and crackers for lunch never hurts.

The shower thing happened both yesterday and today, and I even remember to floss last night. So yay for my silly little goals. I also managed to find some time last night to knit – 4 whole rows! And I did my drawing for the CCC. The theme this week is “anything you want between burger buns.” Or something like that.

Anyway, here’s my very unusual “burger.”

It’s abstract and there’s a lot of symbolism in it, some that I didn’t even see until I had added the color.

But wait! It gets better! Josh decided to give it a go this week, too.

His is obviously more of a “true to life” kind of burger. He kept fucking with it all evening. I think it’s good for him to be drawing again and I have every intention of trying to recruit him for more of the challenges.

Anyway, that’s where things are with me. I decided that I’d take some inspiration from Juls and see if I could pull off the whole blogging on my lunch break thing. This is kind of groovy. I’ll leave you with a very short video of the Evie Cat. This is kind of an experiment for me, so don’t be afraid that I’m going to inundate y’all with stupid cat tricks.

I have lived to tell the tale of my people

Tags

cartoon craziness challenge, life through the lens, motivation, school, stress, the world is full of fucking idiots, work

What a day. I honestly wasn’t sure I’d ever make it out of there alive. And I didn’t even totally finish everything. But I got to a point where I was so extra crispy that my boss told me to get the hell out before the phone rang again. I’ve got no idea at this point how many voice mail messages I’ll be walking in to on Monday morning or how many emails. I could get the email from home, but I’m too scared.

At any rate, it’s over. The week is done, the semester will start on Monday, and my calendar is decidedly less fuck-ish. And I get to see T-Bone Monday afternoon. So yay.

Moving on, here are a few slightly more interesting things to share…

This is my mythical creature entry for this week’s Cartoon Craziness Challenge.

Don’t ask what the fuck it is, I’ve got no clue. It was fun to draw and it’s got wings, that’s all that matters. Oh, and I might see if I have time to do another since Juls and I decided to give ourselves 2 weeks this time instead of just one.

 

This week’s Life Through the Lens challenge is “miraculous.” I really had to think about this one for awhile. I finally decided on this picture….

This is from when I graduated with my first Master’s degree. I started it just to see if I could do it. I had my mental health Dxs by that point and felt like I needed to prove to myself that I hadn’t lost my edge. While I was in school I ended up being hospitalized for a suicide attempt. In spite of missing an entire week’s worth of time (classes were only 6 weeks long), I earned a B in the class and went on to graduate with a 3.8 GPA. I’m quite proud of myself for that.

creative Friday – or – Mama gives a twofer

Tags

cartoon craziness challenge, family, fear, life through the lens, love, photos

Life Through the Lens is a photo/drawing challenge thing that Diana and I organized. (mostly Diana – I just make banners) The theme for this first week is “fear.” And unfortunately, which image to use was easy for me. This isn’t one that I took, but I’m in it, so I’m going to call that close enough.

me and my dad, Thanksgiving 2008 (I think)

My dad died in February 2012 of a very aggressive, very nasty form of cancer. By the time he had a diagnosis it was too late. There was nothing to do but make him comfortable and pray like hell that he didn’t linger too long.

In all the times I’ve tried to take my own life I’ve never felt fear. All of the car accidents, all of the near misses, all of the other shitty things that I’ve brought on myself – I never once felt fear. But when my dad got sick, I was petrified.

I miss him, a lot. He was a great dad and I always knew that he loved me and was proud of me. I’m still doing my best to make him proud. (you too, Mom)

Now, let’s not all be all bummed out because it’s time for…

In all reality, I had no idea where the hell else to stick this post this week, so there ya go. The theme for this week was “memories of a childhood vacation.” My first thought when Juls and I discussed this was, “how in the fuck am I supposed to draw shit that I don’t remember?” (I remember very little of being a small person for some reason. I blame the drugs. And the Lithium.)

And then I remembered the vacation my sister and I took with my dad’s parents when I was about 11, maybe. It was very eye opening. We drove from here – middle of the country, literally – out to the east coast to visit my uncle and his family who lived in Maryland, near DC. DROVE there. And my grandfather was a shitty fucking driver even then. Motion sickness galore.

Anyway, my favorite memory from that trip was the day we went to the beach. We all got sunburned as fuck, plenty of sand in our bathing suits and butt cracks, and on the way home we stopped at a roadside vendor and bought several large paper grocery sacks of freshly steamed Maryland Blue Crabs. My aunt covered the patio table with newspaper, we stayed in our bathing suits, and dug in.

Somewhere I posses a photo of the carnage – it was EPIC. Nothing on this earth have I encountered that is as delicious as freshly steamed Maryland Blue Crab eaten right out of the shell with your bare hands while wearing your still wet bathing suit. Nothing.

That is my homage to the Maryland Blue Crab. May he ever be tasty.

And now, because it’s Friday, here’s a random funny…

tuesday update

Tags

anxiety, cartoon craziness challenge, drawing, Evie Cat, goals, life, meds, sick, sleep, stress

First off, I wanted to share this article with y’all. It’s about how to make sure that you complete the projects you start AND it totally backs up Green Embers’ Building Rome idea! How fucking cool is that?

I had my doc appointment this afternoon. To be totally honest, I was scared as hell. What I didn’t tell y’all about my last visit with shrinky-poo was that she dropped an F-bomb on me. We were talking about all the weird random pain I have anymore and she said it could be from the stress or it could be fibromyalgia.

WHOA.

So given that I prefer to keep to a strict policy of Utter Denial about such things, I only whispered tiny peeps to Mom and Josh. And then pretended it never happened.

When I saw the doc today he did several physical test things which mostly consisted of poking and prodding various parts of my back and legs. His conclusion is that I definitely do NOT have fibro. However, I also do NOT get enough sleep regularly enough and that’s finally taking a very real physical toll on my body.

Sitting in front of me is a lovely bottle of something called Soma. I haven’t looked it up yet, but I know it must be good because his office couldn’t just call it in to the pharmacy – I had to carry it there myself. I was also finally able to get THREE REFILLS of the really awesome migraine med he had given me ages ago and then his fucking rotten ass nurse wouldn’t ever call the pharmacy back with the authorization. So YAY on that.

Anyway, I’ve taken one of the Soma pills – I get 3 per day – figuring it’s probably a good idea to know what they’re going to do to me while I’m safely in the comfort of my own home.

Here’s my entry for this week’s Cartoon Craziness Challenge, “happiness.” It’s supposed to be my nieces. Apparently I’m still not that great at drawing people.

I assure you, they are MUCH cuter than this. MUCH.

I also managed to draw this last night…

She came out significantly better. Still not sure if I’m going to try coloring her or not – the original was very muted shades of pink and green.

And just because I can, gratuitous pussy shot…

My tiny editor.

Apparently I was so whacked out of my mind that I neglected to realize I had scheduled this post for later this evening. So yeah, no Soma for me during the work day. But I should sleep wonderfully tonight!

 

just under the wire

Tags

cartoon craziness challenge, Evie Cat

Just barely, but I did it…

Not necessarily some of my finest work, but it bares at least a passing resemblance to the real Evie Cat.

Good night.

did someone request a little crazy?

Tags

cartoon craziness challenge

I cheat like a mutha fucking FIEND! I’ve been thinking about my entry for this week’s theme since I let it drop out of my head. Without further ado…

She’s ridiculous. Her boobs are way too big. She’s had an insane amount of collagen in her lips. What in the HELL is wrong with that arm??? I wasn’t smoking crack, I assure you. Honestly, I was just having fun and trying really hard not to use the eraser.

Aww yea…

That was my inspiration. If you get a little drunk and then squint just right, it totally looks like her. Evie is thoroughly unimpressed.

We’d love to have you join us on this adventure. As you can tell, you really don’t have to be able to draw (AT ALL) to do this.

tiny update

Tags

anxiety, cartoon craziness challenge, family, moods, stress, work

First off, it’s Monday and now Mondays mean the Cartoon Craziness Challenge theme is announced. This week’s theme is Superhero.

Second, anxiety pills are awesome. I had an amazing day, got lots of stuff done, got along with everyone at work, didn’t care in the least about the terrible traffic on the way home, and still don’t really give a shit that my sister is coming for dinner this weekend. Nope, don’t care.

In my defense, I only took 2 and they were several hours apart. I was allowed up to 4 today. But holy fuck-sticks, if I’d have taken 4, y’all would be scraping me off the pavement.

Anyway, I’m feeling pretty good and I think I might try something creative tonight. Why the hell not.

cartoon challenge – self-portrait

Tags

cartoon craziness challenge, drawing, getting creative, mental challenge

Once again I find I have no one to blame for this goat rope but myself. Alas, I fear I shall have to take a dose of my own foul medicine. On the off chance that you have no fucking clue what I’m talking about, The Indecisive Eejit says it way better than I could.

Part of my willingness to take part in these shenanigans is to kick myself in the ass improve a skill I’ve long said I suck at don’t have. But maybe, just maybe, I do have it. I present to you my photo inspiration…

That was one of my senior pictures for high school. It also happens to be probably my very favorite picture of me ever taken. It’s also how I see myself in my mind’s eye. So I used that to draw from, and I arrived at this…

Certainly not photo-realistic, but still recognizable as a human and not quite a troll. I’m not totally in love with it but I honestly think it shows more skill than I’ve been giving myself credit for. If nothing else I’m finding it’s giving me enough encouragement to keep working on getting better at this.

If I’d had my way, I’d have drawn myself with big anime style eyes, wearing my purple glasses, human head on a squirrel body complete with some tats showing, Birkenstocks, and a rose in my teeth. Maybe for next week.

It would never be a cool as the one that Josh did for me, but close

fun on a friday

Tags

cartoon craziness challenge, cheesy drawings, creative, pretty/shitty

Oh so much fun and some newness – can you stand it? Let’s get to it then.

First up is your pretty/shitty pic for the week. This is a recurring theme for me. Lots of folks who have no business being parents to anything more than sea monkeys breed like gawddamn rabbits while other people who would make excellent parents are never given the chance. WHAT THE FUCK, UNIVERSE???

Now, for the new. Last week I decided that one of my goals for the Building Rome “challenge” would be to do more creative things. Juls issued me a specific challenge to draw an alien. I did, she loved it, I enjoyed the process immensely. Then on Monday of this week I got fed up with my boss and drew the devil. And loved it again. So then Juls decided we should both draw cats in hats. And then we decided it should be an officially official challenge. What would an officially official anything be around here without a new banner?

That was done the same as my other pictures have been – crappy markers on sketch paper. Now, this is my entry for this week’s challenge – a cat in a hat.

I’ve got to say, I am having a TON of fun with these pictures. I don’t think I’m necessarily very good at drawing, but it’s putting me back in touch with my inner kid.