Year: 2017

Art!, Ryan & Me

as of late

mary v.

I have definitely ghosted a bit on my art life. I have had some serious holiday blues this year and it’s made it really hard to focus on any creative projects. Basically every day for the past two months or so I have been trying to come up with a creative story idea to either do as a graphic novel or a normal novel and literally just nothing has come of it. None of my themes ring true and any serious soul searching themes I have are honestly just a bit too heavy to get into yet as they are all just kind of still happening and I’m not ready to confront them. So I’ll keep trying every day till something bursts forth basically.

My digital art has been really really dry. I feel like I keep drawing the same person with the same colors over and over. It doesn’t mean anything or make me feel anything so usually what I do is save it as a lame sketch and move on unaffected. This is kind of the issue I guess with not having a story. I feel so inspired when I’m writing about new people doing whimsical things. When I’m not I feel dishonest when I draw some random person doing something mundane usually with a coffee cup. But the inspiration literally just doesn’t come right now.

Naturally in times of trial I turn towards Ryan for inspiration, so I ended up painting us a Christmas card and I think it’s pretty cute.

Here’s some uninspired hand sketches.

Half a drawing called “When there’s only the dark side.”

 

A sketchy painting from work.

A sketch from showers time at work.

 

Art!, Holiday Drawings, Ryan & Me

surpassing witchy warmup

mary v.

Apparently the Mary as a Witch motif has been very inspiring to me lately. Worked on this over the course of three evenings. FRICKING LOVE IT. One of my most sophisticated color palettes and compositions on the computer in ages. Glad I more or less covered up my panty peek so I’m ont embarrassed about that…in all frankness you can still see it under my semi-transparent flutters. ^_^

This witch drawing was very well received on Facebook, but somehow it still doesn’t feel like an official addition to my art unless I post it in my blog.

For the record, these two sketches below were definitely my warmups for that witch drawing, which is cool. I actually let these two be sketchy/thoughts/experimental. I love the red and black one; it was first, and then I think I tried too hard with the other one and ended up abandoning my attempt to add hair because nothing looked good.

Art!, Ryan & Me

don’t call it a comeback

mary v.

Apparently all I needed was a full day home with myself! And Ryan wanted me to turn him into a spoopy ghost. And I wanted to be an adorable witch. The rest his history! I LOVE this! It’s so presh. Strong lineart inspired by Gwenpool’s last issue where it was suddenly a lot blockier.

Why though did the broom turn out to be the best part?

Art!

a bit dried up

mary v.

I have had absolutely no creative juices the last month or so. I’m not entirely sure why – I think work’s been a bit draining; I feel like that’s all I’ve been doing. So two nights ago I finally plugged in my tablet and just sketched meaningless crap. Here they are.

 

Art!, Emotional Breakdowns

in case you can’t see

mary v.

I have been completely confused by myself because I have not posted this image since my show last week. I thought I would do it right away. But I had an experience with a viewer at my gallery showing with this piece and its statement that literally rocked my world. It was amazing. I came out with this grandiose idea to produce a piece that was a physical representation of how I feel when I’m tied up in anxiety, and I didn’t want it to be misconstrued, so I made an artist statement describing my experience with anxiety and why I wanted to make it visible for those that don’t experience it.

I think this statement was way more effective than I could have imagined. I wanted to come and blog about it, to rave about the response I got to it, but it was real people who were affected by what I wrote and I want to respect their privacy. Bottom line is…I did it. This was a success.

Art!, Sun-Walking, Writing!

BACK TO SUN-WALKING!

mary v.

A few weeks ago I had been in this habit of just reading through Sun-Walking when I was bored, like, for a few hours at a time. And I had been paging through Wind-Running and redoing a few scenes at a time before I suddenly realized I felt totally ready to FINALLY tear that whole middle segment out and REWRITE THE WHOLE THING!

Because that’s my life.

It’s weird though because I never feel more peaceful than when I’m immersed in one of my worlds. I hate how much I like it, haha.

Regardless, I think this draft is going WAY better. It’s all a bit more mature than when I wrote it as a grumpy college kid. And I want to stay true to my original intention with Sun-Walking to finish it again this time around and start sending out some casual queries.

Needless to say I’ve been doodling the shit out of my favorite power couple so here’s a dump.

I finally managed a grayscale of them being adorable! Definitely not the piece I’d had floating around in my head all week, but I’m happy with it. I finally wrote a mushy scene in Wind-Running that I really enjoyed.

Levi and his sarcastic looks gaaaaah.

Aww Lucy’s pastiness got sunburned and Lee’s all like man.

This super video gamey vector image – I frickin love the colors, right?

Just a doodle of Lee, colored, ’cause after that grayscale I was all like … I do know how to get his skintone right, right?

I haven’t even given Lucy this job at the restaurant with Lee yet and I’m not even sure I like it, but this was pretty funny. LEE LOOKS SO CUTE

A sketch from when I was first picking up momentum during this rewrite.

Art!, Emotional Breakdowns

presentable

mary v.

I juuuust realized that this go around with preparing my art for public consumption is not nearly as traumatizing as all the work I had to put into the Skyline art crawl, for basically some strangers to pretend to be interested in me for a weekend. But it’s still a crazy feeling and always feels like a bit of betrayal against my childlike inner artist who just wants to draw things that make her happy.

Anyway, can’t pass up the opportunity to show some of my more seldom appreciated digital art in a show my wedding photographer is curating. I’m going to install tonight and my stuff does look pretty damn spiffy.

Art!, Emotional Breakdowns, Manga, Nikkei

half a lifetime ago

mary v.

 

I can’t believe it’s been 13 years since Cinnamin died, and since I wrote Nikkei. That’s literally half my lifetime ago. There are a lot of things about my life that have changed but in a big part I’m still very much the same dopey, nostalgic, passionate, artsy little nerd I’ve always been. A part of me though wishes I could be still writing my first-ever graphic novel all over again, and that I could have the lack of self-doubt I’ve developed as an adult. In a lot of ways I think my self-esteem was better then than it is now. But I do think he looks like a total stud. Not a seventeen year old stud, but a total stud.

It does make me happy that he and two other characters from Nikkei were still around to be written in my last story. Maybe not as leads, but they were there. That’s why I know I’m such a nostalgic piece of shit haha.

Art!, Comics, Real People, Ryan & Me

more things about marriage

mary v.

What can I say? Mostly all that’s guaranteed to inspire me is my life with my adorable husband. And sometimes when I’m mean to myself I get in trouble.

Getting poked in the sides is a pretty regular occurrence so I’m in the process of turning us into a cute goofy drawing. Just haven’t finished the shading.

Oh and then this experiment from this afternoon.

And then my husband’s entertaining wordplay turned into a little doodle. This is from a few weeks ago though.