Contemplative gummy worms.

Title is pretty much it... I have been contemplative and I am eating gummy worms.

I'm starting to feel the animating bug bite again, which is kind of nice. I've been doing a lot of illustrative work, which is what I want, but I do like to animate. Hm. We shall have to do something about that.

In conclusion, I drew a demon. On my new hand down moleskin. Mmmm, moleskin. Mmmm graph paper.

Times, they are a changin'

Oh man, crazy things this past week or so.

Basically, I've gotten a job next month traveling through Kansas and Iowa for a month, selling movie posters to colleges, and that will give me enough to get myself an apartment and try to do this whole only art thing for a bit.

Wish me good luck. I could say psha, I need no such thing, but honestly I am nervous.

Way too used to making sure everything is settled responsibly. XD

I've been doing alright with commissions through etsy and have spent a lot of time on crafts and art. Amusingly, I have yet to sell any of my original stuff on etsy! So even though I have more I could sell, I am reluctant. Check it out though - etsy.com/shop/kiraseru

At least I have a lot of art to use for future posts!

Like the following. Mmm, acrylic. Mmmm, not digital painting.

Quickly, an update!

Oh, it's been a while.

I've gotten very busy!

Right now I'm sitting in Think Coffee at a little after 3:30pm on July 4th, trying to hurriedly update this before they close at 4pm. It is beautiful outside. Everyone is eager to go to their BBQ's, beaches, parties and firework displays.

I'm starting to pull together some commissions through etsy, which is really exciting! I'm surprised - I didn't think that I would actually get any responses to my bids for work until I was better established. A bit to my chagrin, I haven't sold any work posted on my store but I'm up to three commissioned pieces! One was a set of banners and an avatar for a girl's new etsy shop, the other two are paintings. Each is very, very different from the other. Which is nice. I'm looking forward to working on both and I'm really happy that I can get some work as an illustrator and painter. Again, laughing at myself a little over this. I thought that the very last way I'd ever get money was through something like traditional painting work, and here I am!

I found out this week that the artists in Union Square will soon be no more. I was surprised - I knew there were some issues with Bloomberg or something but had no idea he was actually shutting everything down. It's ridiculous. The art vendors are such an integral part of the Square. Between that and Friday's moving into the area, I think Union Square might be destined for a more Times Square feel. Ugh.

I also didn't know that the artists there just kind of went and set themselves up! My friend Chrissy Clark had an event there a year ago, part of her thesis, and had to jump through a bunch of hoops! It's a shame they're shutting it all down, I would have definitely gone out and tried to sell some prints or pillows or something.

Might still do so next Sunday. They have another two weeks. It'd be nice to see what happens.

I'm starting to look at apartments. It's a little nerve wracking, trying to find the time. I can't skip out on work to look at places, and on my days off I'm either at internship, at Daisy's studio or... well there's Sundays, but I think most places aren't going to want to show their apartments on Sundays. Eh, we'll see - at this point, I'm rambling.

I'm also working more on my show... leaning towards making it a movie... exciting.

All this stuff is great, but I have to admit that I've been feeling cagey. The bridal shop is a good job - it's not what I want to do. Painting and doing illustrative work is fantastic - I can't yet live off that alone. I can't even pay bills on that money just yet. It's frustrating.

Ah well.

Following is a sample picture for one of my commissions! I'll post the entire thing when it's done. This was just a sample of the style I wanted to paint this woman's bid in. She really liked it, which made me happy. And I get to draw and paint a bunch of hands. Yay!

I need to do more life drawing. I miss it.

Starting up shop.

Ugh, I have a stomach ache from eating too much cereal.

You may wonder how one could get a stomach ache from eating cereal. It takes a lot of cereal. Trust me on this.

Anyway! Today I opened my etsy store! Woooo, we'll see how it goes. Right now all I have up are the necklaces that I've made, but I hope to expand with some other jewelry and perhaps some custom pillows. I think I'm also going to post some of my original work and try to sell prints. I'm also looking through the alchemy shops on etsy. Basically buyers post requests for work with a hoped for budget, and you as the seller can bid to create the item while offering your price. That might be the best way to get started, and will get me working on commissioned work.

Check out the store, see what you think!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/kiraseru

I like the banner I ended up making for the shop. It's a rabbit and a goldfish nibbling on waffles. Basically the combination of bunnymermaid and waffle-sushi, my two main insignias, broken down. Here's the banner:

I'd considered adding bacon, simply because I found the idea of a rabbit and a goldfish nibbling bacon along with waffles pleasantly amusing. But bacon hasn't ever come into my other labels, so I ended up not. I suppose to make it truly a break down, sushi would have been better incorporated. I use the excuse that the goldfish can stand in for both sushi and mermaid.

I also finished painting moths bringing sleep to the eyes by burrowing into the circles around them. Ah, it's not as creepy as it might sound. Here it is.

The final ASIFA-east meeting!

Was awesome. I could leave it there, I suppose, but then that wouldn't be a very eventful or descriptive... description.

So I was about 30, 35 minutes late for the event, which started at 7pm, because I get out of work at 7pm. I was a little worried that I wouldn't be allowed into the event, but all that happened was I awkwardly interrupted Frank Mouris speaking and was stared at by everyone as I took my seat (whew!).

I thought at first that I'd missed the actual screening, which would have made it a very short screening indeed, but luckily Frank was just getting started!

The films we watched were fascinating. I highly recommend looking Frank and Caroline Mouris up, see what you can find.

After the screening, a bunch of us went out to Rodeo Bar a few blocks away to hang out! It was great! Saw Christine and Caresse, who I haven't seen since graduation, as well as David Levy. Met a few new people and in general had a great time. Animation was talked about, career advice and commiseration was shared, politics and literature and comics and weird jokes surrounding beer, chicken wings and masturbation were thrown about.

Sadly this was the last event until September, but I'm hoping to catch a bunch of these people at the opening night of the Animation Block Party at the end of July.

Other than that, the stuff for the necklaces I'm making came in! So I spent a good amount of time today figuring out how to make glass tile necklaces. I'm opening a small store via etsy, so we'll see how that goes. Below are some thumbnails of the necklaces so far. Most of them are GLBT related - pride is next week and I figured it'd be a good way to introduce the stuff!

Ideas are good.

I'm working on a show pitch. It's a concept I came up with for Lisa Goldman's developing the animated series class, and with lots of encouragement from her and others I'm trying to pull it together into an actual possible series.

There's a lot to be said about the process of coming up with a show, sharing the plot and what I want to put into it, talking about what the reception has been so far, etc etc etc. For right now, I want to put down something I wrote into my sketchbook. It doesn't really center around the plot or concept of this show idea, but it is related. Ah, reading over it I suppose it needs a little context. The show is about all the mythologies and fairy tales of the world breaking into our own. A nine and a half year old boy is handed the fate of hero and told he gets to deal with it, try to make it right. So, here we go! A bit on my opinion (and just that, only my opinion) on the importance of myths and storytelling.

This show says that there is something to be learned from the imaginations. Curiosity has practical application - the silly, the fantastical, should not only be legitimate but also applicable and respected.

Kids are growing up fast, to use a cliche. The only response to trying to recapture and return the sense of roving wonder in a child, the mystic, has been to sequester it. To shove it in a protected corner, separate it entirely. Say it is the opposite of reason, maturity, logic and the adult, normal flow of thought. But it isn't. And to isolate it in this way steals some of its legitimacy - we are left only with a much more empty surface of bright colors and non-sequitur timing jokes.

(Aside - the over0use of the non-sequitur, without the explanation and without further content, rends the non-sequitur illegitimate. Because eventually, all you're left with is the non-sequitur, now based off nothing at all. There must be a foundation to parody, for the parody to work.)

Which have their place. But more can be done, which has not been done.

The fairy tale, the myth, is important because it teaches us from an early age to ask questions of images. We discover than an image, an object, an idea holds the key to many meanings, paths that contain fascinating adventure.

We learn the key faculty of not taking anything for its surface alone. We make an entertainment out of the process of thought, sharpening our ability to obtain knowledge to its fullest degree. This leads to a greater ability to apply reason and logic to all one learns.

That is why storytelling is so important.

That was all I wrote - but that is also why it's so foolish (again, in my opinion) to force imagination as separate from cognizant thought.

I have no idea if my show will encompass this. But it's something that I think is important and that I hope to be able to show some aspect of in all of my personal work.

In an entirely different note, there was an amazing ASIFA-East and WiA event last night (which rocked)! I'll post about that later on in the week! For right now, my mind is entirely on the show... I'm having lunch with Carrie over at Frederator, where I'm interning, to go over the show thus far. XD Exciting.

Gah, a picture. Hmm...

Yes, yes, it's life drawing that's already on my website. Ah well. I need to scan some new stuff.