Good news, everybody!

This is Snow White and HIS Prince Charming.

I have found the perfect model for my sweet Michael! No more trying to draw him out of my head (which is a pain, let me tell you). The problem now is, how do I get in contact with him? How do I get him to pose for me without seeming creepy? How do I go about using him as my model legally? Does it even matter if none of this ever gets published?

Yeah, lots of things.

This isn't some random guy though. This boy is the cousin of my best friend who I have been using as a model for around a decade. Ah! I was wondering what kind of pictures I could post with this blog and I didn't have any for the story but I can post the pictures I have done of my best friend, Gabe, over the years.

First few layers of paint on Prince Gabe.

Base drawing for the painting.

A really old painting I did in high school. That's his tongue that's making the mouth look funny. He was being Miley Cyrus before it was cool.

Gabe as Little John and my brother as Robin Hood. We had a really cool photo shoot in the park for this one.

I met Gabe's cousin at Gabe's brother's wedding. I helped Gabe do a lot of the best man duties and at the after party at his parents' house I saw this guy across the room and it was like a scene from West Side Story except that it wasn't love (it wouldn't work out for me anyway, he walked into the wedding wearing the most fabulous blue velvet dinner jacket, if you know what I mean...) it was seeing someone that you had created in your head suddenly appearing before your eyes.

Just a doodle of Gabe as a prince.

We had a weird few minutes as I just keep staring (yes, full on staring at him. I was very, very rude but I was also very, very tired so I wasn't really watching my actions) and then I told Gabe that I needed his cousin as my model. Gabe, being so like himself, thought it was just so funny that he called his cousin over and was like, "this is my friend Kelsey and she wants to draw your body. Bye."

I hate him sometimes. I then had to take a few moments to explain to this absolutely adorable gay boy about my story and why I needed a model and why he was just perfect. He actually looks a lot like Gabe but skinner in the face and body and he has the same racial ambiguity that Gabe possesses. And he had a great sense of flair (note the blue velvet dinner jacket comment from above) which, of course, is needed for a pop singer.

In progress painting of Gabe in a towel that I painted to go up in a gay bar here in Dallas.

I just texted Gabe and made him promise to hook me up with his cousin (I'm actually really jealous of how close he is with all of his cousins. I'd like to justify it by saying that's just how his family is because they're Hispanic but that's probably not all of it. My family just sucks. I was going to finish that sentence as "with communication" or "at keeping up with one another" or "at caring about each other" but "my family just sucks" is pretty succinct and perfect.)

The finished painting. Boom! 22 hrs! And then when I pulled this out of my car, we cracked the glass :(

Anyway that got a little dark there. Oops. To (sort of) lighten the mood, here is a bit of my story about Artemis and her everyday life. This is just one of those moments where she's awesome and doesn't even realize it herself.

Artemis     

Artemis ran the ticket exchange at the local Chucky Cheese. She only made minimum wage but she got free, old pizza and as many temporary tattoos as she wanted. This week it was a daisy with a smiley face in the center that she placed on her left wrist. She usually stood behind the counter, or sat if she could steal a tall stool, and mechanically traded tickets for prizes.

      Every once in a while a dad of one of the kids would eyeball her in her blue polo and khaki pants but she didn’t really mind. They never bothered her like the oil field boys. She worked with a bunch of them every day at the office where they barely noticed her but at night, as the ticket taker at a children’s arcade, she became a hot commodity. She assumed it was because they thought she was younger when working at Chucky Cheese or maybe it was because they had had a couple of beers by the time they got to her booth.

      She occasionally had to take to the floor and put more tickets in a machine or fix the coin slot. Sometimes she couldn’t believe the things that went wrong with the games. Saturday she was sketching her mystery man in her small sketchbook with a fat, black 8B pencil. It was perfect to get the high contrast and soft look she saw in her head. His eyes were closed and his head was down. He looked to be biting his lower lip in concentration and his brows were ever so slightly creased. His hair framed his face with only a few curly strands falling across his forehead. Artemis was really wanted to touch his cheek through her drawing, feel his skin and the slight stubble that she knew was there.

      A tiny hand tapped the glass counter next to her drawing. Artemis looked up at the tiny girl standing there with a rat’s nest of plain brown hair, enormous hazel eyes and a pizza stained pink and yellow striped shirt.

      “Can I help you? Do you have tickets to exchange?” Artemis asked in her nicest, kid-helping voice as she closed her book and slid it under the counter.

      “The machine over there won’t give me my tickets.” The little girl pointed over to the far back corner of the arcade.

      “Alright,” Artemis said as she pulled the keys out from under her station and grabbed the box of ticket refills. “Can you take me to it?”

      The little girl ran off toward the machine and Artemis followed more slowly. She ran up to the Zombie Murder Massacre game, probably the bloodiest shooting game they had there.

      “It won’t give me my tickets.” The little girl said again pushing all the buttons on the game.

      “I know, just give me a second.” Artemis unlocked the game and started to fiddle around with the insides. She pulled the tickets out, fixed the kink that had formed in the line, checked the coin slot and filled the tickets all the way up just because she didn’t want to have to come back out to the game later. The machine started spewing out the tickets as soon as she fed the tickets back in the right way and as soon as it was done the little girl yanked them out and ran off with her hands full of the pink tickets. Artemis closed the door and relocked it.

      Artemis didn’t really mind going out on the floor. The little kids ran into you like you weren’t there and every time you went out there all the little kids would complain about how this machine or that took their coins or wouldn’t give them their tickets. Artemis was trying to decide which machine could use the rest of her box of tickets when some little kid slammed into her leg and started coughing. Artemis patted him on the back but he started wheezing and grabbed at his throat.

      Artemis squatted down and tried looking in his mouth. He must have inhaled a small toy because she couldn’t see anything in his mouth. She quite expertly turned him around and pounded him so hard that the offending toy popped right out and skidded across the shiny concrete floor. The little kid looked a little winded and there were tears in his eyes but he soon saw his friends and ran off to join them without realizing how close he had come to death.

      Artemis stood up, gathered her tickets, and walked back to her counter. She passed by the small toy and picked it up. It was a power ring with a little green star in the center. Artemis had tried talking to the management about the small prizes they gave away and how they were possible choking hazards. She dropped the toy in a trash can as she rounded the corner back to her station, pulled out her sketchbook and started on a new drawing of her mystery man.  



Anyway. That was kind of a long one. If you made it this far, congrats!

Nighty night all.
KB

 

Dream a Little Dream of Me

My favorite song right now is "Dream a Little Dream of Me." I especially love Mama Cass singing it but, really, I will listen to any version of it.

Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"
Birds singing in the sycamore tree
Dream a little dream of me
Say "Nighty night" and kiss me
Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me
While I'm alone and blue as can be
Dream a little dream of me
Stars fading but I linger on, dear
Still craving your kiss
I'm longing to linger till dawn, dear
Just saying this
Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you
Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
But in your dreams whatever they be
Dream a little dream of me

Well, that really just leads into this post, I guess. I haven't posted anything in a long time (which seems to be what I say every time I post something). I haven't been on the computer at all in a really long time really. to recap what has been happening in my life, I have been having a great time at my job as an In-Store Artist at Central Market, I just took down my work from JR's since it's been up there for two months, and I might not have been working on my computer but I have been writing so I think that I will post a little of that now. 

Remember a while ago when I posted those adorable pictures of that boy with curly hair? Well, same story as that, I've just defined what I wanted to say in that story a lot more. Maybe this song doesn't lead into this bit as much as I wanted it to. This doesn't even talk about how Michael hears Artemis in his head and he writes songs about her. That would have been way more appropriate for this post.

Michael

     

       The phone rang 40 minutes before Michael's alarm. He knocked the phone off the nightstand, hit it under the bed, and finally answered after falling halfway out of bed and onto the extremely cold, hard wood floor. 

     “Hello?” he answered. His voice was rough and his nose sounded stopped up. Michael had been stressing all day yesterday that he had caught the cold on the plane back from Spain.   

      “Michael! It's Caleb. Meet me at La Rue in 20 minutes.” Caleb’s sharp New Yorker accent hurt Michael's head this early in the morning.

      “No.” Michael pushed himself back into bed and pulled the covers back up over his bare shoulders.

      “Michael, this is really important. Danyea’s at nine.”

      “I don't like Danyea’s.”

      “Michael. Frederick’s at noon?”

      “Fine.”

      “Perfect. See you there.” Caleb hung up before Michael could say anything else. Michael tossed his phone to the other side of the bed and buried his face back in his pillow. It was too late though. Sampson and Apollo, Michael's two guinea pigs, had heard the phone ring and Michael's voice. They started screaming for their food at the top of their lungs.

      “Shut up!” Michael yelled as he stopped his head under the pillow but it did little to muffle their high-pitched cries. “I get to sleep for another half hour! Come on!” his cries fell on tiny deaf ears as they squealed for his attention.

      “Fine.” Michael threw back the comforter and stomped over to their cage. Both of them looked up at him and started cooing. Michael rested his head against the door frame in resignation. He couldn't stay mad at them when they were so happy to see him.

      Michael popped the cage open, scooped Sampson out of the corner and Apollo off the roof of their tiny house. He carried them into the kitchen with him and dropped them on the counter. He filled a small bowl from a Tupperware container by the sink with all natural guinea pig pet pallets.

      He turned on the coffee pot and grabbed an orange from the fruit bowl. They all ate together, Michael passing Apollo and Samson little pieces of his orange. Apollo purred as Michael scratched his head and Samsung nestled beside his arm resting on the counter.

      Halfway through his cup of coffee, Michael picked up some discarded rind and a kitchen knife. A couple of cuts and he had made the perfect guinea pig helmet. Another piece of rind became a shield and a toothpick became a sword. A red dishrag from the linen drawer became a cape for Samson, decked out in his warrior ware.

      Michael snapped a picture of Samson majestically standing on a banana, sword and shield in hand, his helmet sitting low across his eyes. He tagged the picture “Samson in victory” and posted to his Twitter account.

      Michael had four likes and three re-tweets before he finished disrobing Samson and getting both guinea pigs back in their cage with some fresh water and enough food to last the day. They watched with their beady eyes as he came out of the shower in his teal blue towel. Michael lounge on the couch and went through his e-mails on this phone.

      He turned on his stereo and danced to his room to get dressed. The piggies started purring again when one of Michael songs came on. Three outfits later he came back out, poured a cup of coffee in his eco-mug, slipped on his gray pea coat and fuchsia scarf with the gold and aquamarine pheasant stitched at the end and headed out the door.

I read the first page to my friend and she said that I can't do this story like most of mine and not finish it. We have discovered over the years, it is really the journey that I love and not the finished product. When I have a deadline or a due date though, that becomes my goal and I can finish stuff. Ideally, I would have an editor who breathes down my neck to get my stories out on time because otherwise I just piddle around and doodle like this one here below.

 So there we have another installment in what I have decided to call "Plastic Bags." I know that is kind of a weird title but it really works for me.

Alright, night.
KB

   

I Was Doing So Well Posting On Here On A Schedule

And then I don't know what happened. It has been like a week since I sat down and worked on this. I really do think it is my grandfather. He sucks all the quality out of me and leaves me with nothing to write about. Argh. Working with him makes me so tired I can't do anything else when I get home.

I have big news though! Other than having all creativity and energy sucked out by my grandfather, I have had a really productive past week.


I:
1) got to see my aunt who came to visit all the way from Austin. It was a surprise and we had a lot of fun and I got to show her a lot of my artwork that she hadn't seen.

2) played dress up with my friend Chekeitha and then, after like two hours of trying on clothes, we decided to go out that night to the club because this place called 2009 was free all night for ladies. I have to say that for a spur of the moment thing, we had a lot more fun than we thought we were going to have.

3) got to see a dance battle!! I kid you not. While Chekeitha and I were out at the club these guys came down on the mostly empty dance floor at 2:30 in the morning and had a dance off that lasted like 20 minutes.

4) watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for the first time. It suddenly sparked my desire to read again. I demanded that my mother bring me books from the library (where she works, I'm not just making crazy demands for things that I can go get myself.)

5) got to hang out with a friend that I haven't seen in a while and it was her birthday so she invited me out and I got to meet all her cool friends. They invited me to Spaghetti Sunday and then to float the river with them next week. I really want to go but I really don't like camping (read: I hate camping with a passion). But you know what I don't really mind at all? Sleeping in a car. I'm totally cool with that. So if I do go on this trip with them, then I'm going to have to insist that I get a trunk space or a back seat to sleep on instead of a crummy old tent on the ground with bugs and dirt where something is always wet even though it hasn't rained in forever. I hate camping.

6) was forced to reorganize my artwork out in the garage into the closet out there. It was really hot and not everything fit but I really like how it turned out and I hope that all my frames and foam board will stay accessible (that was a big problem lately). I also reorganized my closet and it looks really nice. I'm sort of excited about that too. I like it when things are organized.

Oh yeah, and 7) I GOT A JOB! (contingent on a background check that I'm sure to pass) I know! I'm really excited about it. My friend told her manager about me when she heard that they were looking for a store artist over at the Central Market in Plano. I applied and was called in for two interviews. I got even more excited about it when I talked to the GM for an hour and he really tried to explain the creative vision that he wanted and why he thought it would be a good idea to hire another store artist. I'm gonna be store artist #2. It's only part time but that's a step in the right direction!

Woohoo! So I did get something done while I was away and not posting on this blog that no one reads.

On the creative side of things, I did some character outlining the other night and did some doodles like I always do. Not much else. I haven't even touched those watercolors I was working on so hard the past month. I am actually going to finish this blog though and try and write something. I need to get my butt in gear and get some more of that done!

Argh.
KB

I Heard Somewhere That Giraffes Are Gay

Like homosexual gay, not gay in the rude way. I looked it up and yeah, the males fight each other and then sex it out when they are done. Their fighting is called necking so I guess it's just natural to go all the way after "necking" for an hour.

I bring this up because my friend Vicky's favorite animal is the giraffe (she's not gay, though). I told her I would make her wedding announcements but she hasn't picked a date or anything (well, she has the dress but that's it). I really wanted to add her wedding invitations to my design portfolio so I decided last night that I was just going to make her invitations anyway. Without her. For a totally fictional time and place. I can change it later but I wanted this in my portfolio now.

Here's what I got:

BAM! That's a pretty good, one day fake wedding announcement don't you think?

I thought that, since I had finished it so quickly and I was really proud of my Photoshoping skills, that I would quickly get on here and share. That's all.

I think I'm going to bed. My back hurts and it's nearly 3 AM.

KB.

Edit: 8/12/13 8:20 PM

Here's the RSVP that matches the invite.

I've Got a Sketchbook And I'm Finally Using It!

I am a sketchbook addict. I love to draw but I haven't been able to in the past like, year. There was a lot of stuff going on that kept me from being able to sketchbook. Time constraints, fatigue, I just wasn't feeling it for a long time, etc.

But! Joy of joys, I have started again!

Now, I sketchbook for fun so these look nothing like my paintings. My doodles are very cartoon like and I often illustrate my stories because sometimes the ideas come out in images instead of words. I'll share with you what I have doodled in the past two days. I'm really excited about it.

I guess I could tell you a bit about each of the things I doodled.

This girly is Josephine. She has a lot of hair and she is really tall. She's from this idea for a children's or young adult fantasy story that I write in on and off that I loosely call Dreamweaver.

She is cast out of her village because her family upset the witch on the mountain. Josephine was always treated kind of funny by her village anyway because she was so much bigger than everyone else. She really has no other choice but to seek out the witch and apologize for her family.

So that first one was a really defined character that exists in my head, right? Well this picture I drew because I was watching Magnum P.I. and he was getting an award for saving a cat.

That's why I drew a picture of a girl holding a cat.

Also, I don't think I am all that great at drawing cats.


Below is another set of characters that go with a story of mine.

Okay, so I really, really like young adult fiction. It's sort of ridiculous how much I love young adult fiction so that's really what I like to write. It's not fair because I want to be all serious and write something that might change the world some day...


But alas, all that comes out of me is teen fiction. Not bad teen fiction!  I think it is loads better than some of the stuff that is out there that gives teen fiction a bad rap (also, the things that teens decide to read is crap and a lot of the really good stuff gets passed over).

Anyway. These two are from a story that I started in 7th grade. I'm really glad I didn't finish it then because I know a lot more than I did then and really reading my writing from that time is a little painful. These guys have lived in my head since then and they like to be drawn every once in a while.

By he way, he isn't naked or anything. I just don't like drawing clothes sometimes.

Okay, a lot of the time I don't like drawing clothes. But I am a fine art's major so I have drawn a lot of naked people in my time and when I'm sketching, clothes are a lot less important than balancing the image of getting the expression correct. Clothes are an after thought!



Look! I put clothes on this one-->

This is a picture that I drew of that character I have been writing about recently.  This is sort of what Artemis looks like right now. I had to have a picture of her if I was going to have pictures of the other main character. It just wouldn't be fair.

And pictures spark my imagination so at some point in my story, Artemis is going to deliver a baby.

Alright, this lady is actually inspired by this creepy doll that we have at my house. She has huge curly brown hair and a black dress and mysteriously moves around the house on her own.

She is currently sitting atop an evil looking iron cast pig with wings and she has this fabulous pink shrug. I did another picture of her and I called it "She Rides a Flying Devil Pig."

She may or may not be the evil witch in the same story that Josephine is from. 





Yep, just two days worth of sketching. That's how much I love to draw. I did three or four of these the same day that I did that really detailed painting of that girl. That was a really good art day.

I also re-watched every episode of the BBC's Sherlock series that day. So even my entertainment was top quality.

Maybe someone will understand this crazy compulsion to draw. I'm right here with you, random stranger! Stay strong!

KB

I Should Probably Do This Whole Publicity Thing, Huh?

God, it is hard enough to actually sit down and write a blog when there are so many other things that I could be doing but I also need to get it out there in the world and make people read it? That is just too much. Maybe if I just apply to enough jobs and they do an internet search on me and this blog pops up they will be engrossed and keep returning to read my wonderful stories and meaningless rambles.

So today I have been trying to update as much of my stuff for optimal searchability. Yesterday was much funner because I got a lot of art done. I wanted to share because I really like one of the paintings I started yesterday. I'm a really fast painter so this was only like six hours of painting.

I didn't like the way this was coming along until I added the hair. Hair makes such a difference. And a background. this looked terrible without a background so I threw one down real quick and it came out like this. I really like it a lot now. I have to finish the arms and the shirt, give it a tiny bit more contrast and this is done!

This is really the painting that made me go, "Yep, this is what my next series is going to look like. Really detailed portraits of girls/women."

I was getting the feeling from this other painting I am working on. (I have to work on multiple paintings at a time because watercolor takes so long to dry so while the back ground on this one was sopping wet, I picked up this other one I had been working on.) I really liked what I was doing with this other one and I do feel like they go together (which is really important if I'm going to be making a series from these girls.)

I posted this one yesterday but she was as done as she is here and I got a better picture any way.

I think this is going to turn out really well.








KB

My Newest Ladies

I've been gone for a while now, sorry to whomever might care I wasn't here to post randomness no one reads anyway. I went to a wedding in Stillwater, Oklahoma this weekend. That's where I went to college and so did the two getting hitched. They also went to my high school and, along with my friend Darby, were the only Garland grads to make it to OSU. Not that making it into OSU is a big deal. The friend that just got married told me that if you could breathe, you could get into OSU. I thought that was a little mean until I actually got to the college. I thought it was even meaner when I meet people who couldn't make it straight into OSU.

I digress. I went to this wedding in Stillwater and staid with my friend, Karen in Tulsa. I really like Tulsa. And I really like Karen. I miss her a lot since we live so far away now. It's a lot closer than she was a year ago, she was living in South Africa a year ago. Oklahoma is a smidgen closer to me than that. So now I can go and see her on occasion. She was my date to the wedding and we had a blast while we were there (can you say open bar and a photo booth?)

And then on Monday I got up late and spent the rest of the afternoon baking cakes for my friends's birthdays. I made a really good strawberry cake and a chocolate cake. After I got home from the party, I then put together a design portfolio and picked out my clothes for an interview I had in the morning at Central Market for their Store Artist position that one of the friends having a birthday told me about and hooked me up.

After the long and kind of strange group interview, I went to see my grandpa and give him a cupcake and some metal testing acids that I finally found at this place called Rock Barrel. Isn't that what every grandkid gives their grandpa? Acid? Actually, the last time my grandpa and acid were involved, I got chemical burns on my leg and a hole in my jeans. He had claimed it was the best way to strip paint off some copper fan blades. I heard the paint brush cry out in pain, sizzle and die in my hand when I dipped it in the acid. Thankfully, what I gave him wasn't that kind of acid. I think.

He responded by giving me a bunch of art books that are actually really cool. They are about portraits and sketching. The two things that I absolutely love. So I looked those over and then, feeling really tired, when home and thought crawling in bed to rest was a good idea. It wasn't, I didn't wake up for 20 something hours. I don't know why but I was dead tired and felt really sick. Whatever it was, I'm over it now. And that is why I haven't posted in 8 days. Ta-da!


The real reason that I got on here to post a blog is to update on my art work! I have been rushing to get some work done for when my turn comes up at JR's Bar. What happened was that I accidentally put together a full set of art work that I need to get professionally photographed and post on my website. Here is just a taste though. Remember that I took these on my phone in my living room, not the best art photography that I've ever done but it gets to point across.

I ended up painting what I love to paint, which is portraits of women (also the title of one of the art books my grandpa gave me). I think the series is pretty cohesive, with the exception of the blonde girl, and I think that when I get a few more knocked out (that last picture isn't finished yet and I have quite a few more waiting in the wings) I can start shopping around galleries with my two complete collections to possibly show. I know I haven't done that yet but life kind of got in the way. Now I have sort of decided that I really do want to do stuff like this so I am going to get a little bit more serious about this sort of stuff.

I have a few of them framed already (which is going to make taking photos of them a pain, not that photographing work isn't already a pain) and frames waiting for a few more. That's the biggest expense at the moment. I have tons of paper and I just keep buying it like I have an addiction. It really is a problem because I also don't have enough space for all this watercolor paper. Argh!

I hope that I can get a few commissions off of this series too, and not just people wanting paintings of their pets. That sort of thing puts me off painting all together. I really don't want to make a living painting cats. That sounds like hell to me. Why can't people love their children as much as their dogs? Oh well.

I think next time I will post some of the photo booth pictures that I took with my friends at the wedding. You'll get to see what I really look like (Gasp!). Well, that one lonely internet surfer will get to see photos of me. Go you one lucky internet surfer.

Alright, it is bed time for me. Nighty-night.

KB

Palstic Bags and Liver Failure

Turns out that it has been a really long time since I did much with colored pencils. I used to be really good at using colored pencils but I guess you really can forget how to ride a bike.

Last night my experiment with colored pencils didn't turn out so well. I tried a self portrait and ended up giving myself a black eye, prostitute lipstick and an overall unhealthy jaundice look.  I scraped the picture and I will not be showing everyone how hard I just failed at that. I have another picture I drew of Mika *cough* Michael. Remember, he's the character that hears the girl in his head and she sees images of him in her head? Yeah. Still trying to work out some of the details on that one. Anyway, here is a fairly successful example of a colored pencil (well, color stick) drawing I did of him. He too looks a little sick, way too yellow. Maybe I think everyone should be having liver failure.

I guess I could post a little of what I have written in this story. I decided to call it Plastic Bags because I felt that was what the story wanted to be called. Just brainstorming and doing a little character development I came up with this description of the main girl:

There was absolutely nothing extraordinary about Artemis except when extraordinary things happened, then she was brilliant. But no one knew this about her.  She didn’t even know this about herself.

       

One time, when Artemis was ten, her grandma’s friend, Paula, told her grandma that Artemis was “plain as pudding” and “seemed a bit simple.” Artemis thought this too, as no one had ever corrected her, that she was simple and plain.

      

Artemis had nearly dropped out of high school because the classes were so boring to her but she knew that her grandmother would have wanted her to finish and so was the only thing that kept her going until the end. She even messed around with an art college for a whole year before dropping out of there. Too many things happened that were out of Artemis’s control until she ended up the small South Texas town of Victoria where she worked as secretary at an oil company during the day and as the ticket taker at Chucky Cheese at night.

       

Art was the one thing that Artemis felt she was above average at. She couldn’t remember a time when she didn’t know how to draw. She used to draw what every little girl likes to draw, horses and fairies and dragons but around her fifteenth birthday, Artemis drew her mystery man for the first time. 

Dun dun dun. There we go. Another blog successfully completed and a little bit more of myself put out there on the internet for everyone to read!

Until the next time.

KB