Am I Your Mother?

Nathan and I have been giving much discussion to (and obsession over) getting a dog, and because we are both giant nerds we've been doing a bajillion times the amount of research any normal person might conceive of doing before getting a pet (cats are easy, man- you just find one and be done with it.  Dogs have... traits...)

Anyway, I did a quiz today about what dog might fit best into our family and lifestyle, and apparently the breed which most closely fits our needs/desires is the Black and Tan Coonhound.

Who's a good little corpse-tracker?  You are!  Yes you are!

Unfortunately the quiz did not ask about tolerance-for-baying, and so I disqualified Mr. Black-and-Tan for one of the runners up, the Canaan Dog.  Of course, this is all sort of a moot point since any dog we get will be a rescue from a shelter, but it is helping me figure out what physical clues to look for in those adorable mutts.

Creepy is the New Cool

If you're in the habit of drawing people from life (outside the context of a studio) you get very good about being sneaky.  "What?  Oh?  I'm not staring at you, my eyes are just gliding over you before coming to rest on that... um... that clock right there.  And now I flick my eyes around the room a little more as though I'm... awesome you've looked away again time to draw!"  I mean, you don't have to be sneaky, I guess- unless you want your subject to get up and leave which, in my experience, is what people tend to do if you stare at them too long- especially if they notice that you're drawing while you do it.

Which is why, gentle readers, you will find a great many drawings of sleeping people in my sketch books.  It's nice not to have to hide the creepy.

Some people nap in the terminal, some people draw people who nap.  It's like the circle of life.

Of course, that doesn't stop everyone else around you from being creeped out and giving you the appropriately scandalized looks of, "Is this behavior acceptable?", and which also makes the whole nonchalant, eyes-flicking-around-the-room thing a lot more difficult to make believable when you later move on to drawing them... but still.  At least napping guy still thinks I'm cool.

Of a Feather

I love the ocean, and I love approximately 95% of the creatures involved with the ocean (that percentage is higher if you only count vertebrates, or if I could somehow reconcile my horror of/fascination with jellyfish).  One of the most entertaining denizens of the coast I'm currently on (and most coasts, I guess) is the always hilarious sandpiper.  I mean really.  Those legs!  Ridiculous!  And awesome!  Anyway, have some coastal bird drawings.

(with an exotic pigeon and a partial night jar face thrown in for good measure)

Rediscovering Old Friends

Remember when my Katie got me a copic pen?  Sure you do.  Anyway I found it in the bottom of my purse the other day, and decided I'd better give it a good workout.  As I waited for my aunt to get ready this morning I filled up a page with doodles of her dog- and many, many other things.

(Okay mostly crows and trees/veins.  Whatever.)

I'm  not sure what it is, exactly, about a brush pen that compels me to really fill up the space, but there must be something because I sure do seem to do it... maybe because I get so enamored with playing with line width... anyway...

I Will Hang Out With You, Mindy Kaling

Today I spent the vast majority of my day on a plane, and, as is my habit whilst so engaged, I passed the time by reading.  Nathan had gotten me Mindy Kaling's book for my e-reader, and I was super excited to read it, because let's face it- Mindy Kaling is pretty effin' funny.

I really enjoyed the book, and not just because it was funny- also because it was such a joy to read about the exploits of a fellow nerdy-girl-with-parents-who-had-expectations-without-being-psycho-who-enjoys-comedy-but-doesn't-find-cruelty-funny-and-what's-wrong-with-being-polite-anyway?

Did I lose you there?  I think I lost me.  Anyway, my point is that I had only one complaint about Mindy's book:

(See, sometimes I do hasty sketches, too)

I Have an Uncle

And that Uncle occasionally introduces me to Excellent Things.  One of the more recent excellent things he sent my way was Neal Stephenson's Anathem.  Readers, I loved that book so much I wanted to roll around in it.  Science fiction at its best, I tell you (which is to say, heavy on the philosophy).  At any rate, here is my drawing of the main character, Erasmus, in the happy days before his world gets turned hypotenuse over angle:

Oh Erasmus... you deserve more diligence than I have given this piece....

You may have noticed that I made the beginner mistake of not placing my subject properly, which has resulted in poor Raz losing his feet.  All I can say to that is... well, I got lazy.  And moreover my headache/nausea/joint aches have declared that I remain that way.  I am not particularly looking forward to tomorrow's flight.  ::sigh::

Yep, flight.  I'll be gone for a few days (four at most), and as such there will be a hiatus on updates- but I'll catch it up all proper when I get back.  Expect to see a great many pen doodles from my journal.  Maybe I'll even get crazy and use my special brush pen.  We shall see...

Blasted Petticoats

One of my wonderful brothers-in-law got me the Monster Blood Trilogy for Christmas, and I have started reading it.  I'm enjoying it quite a bit, and I thought I might do a little doodle of one of the characters.  Now, there are two problems with this decision: the first is that it's never wise to draw a character before you've finished the book, because a few pages after you've done your doodle you come across the word "petticoats" and immediately kick yourself for leaving that out of the drawing.  Ah well.  The second problem is that the author is himself an artist, and as such has put his own illustrations into the book.  I had to very firmly ignore them in order to make my own drawing- which, I assure you, was difficult to do, because his drawings are quite good (as you will see if you go to that link I so kindly provided).

Europe is a Fulgar, which means she uses electricity to fight monsters.