thagandizzle

So much!!

Fri, 19 Jul 2019 01:17:01 GMT

So... A lot has happened, y'all! I'm sorry I haven't updated, but I've been feeling pretty wrung out for a while.

The temp assignment I was doing wasn't super great? Like, it seemed fine! But once I got on the floor and started taking calls at the call center, I was doing between 55-60 calls per day of, like, active and involved customer service with zero downtime at all. I also learned that the company I was working for doesn't let employees use the restroom outside of their scheduled break and lunchtimes unless the employee clocks out while they're away from the computer. Y'all... I am a thirty-four year old woman. If I want to take a piss on the company dime, you can bet your ass that's exactly what I am going to do, you know? So, I was looking for a way out ASAP. The money and the location were great, the people I was working with were all really nice and pleasant to interact with, the job itself was the pits.

Then, out of nowhere, an old co-worker messaged me and asked if I wanted to work with her again. I'd left this company after transferring departments and I had a really bad and stressful experience after my transfer. Long story short, J was having some really bad emotional problems at that time and after trying to work with the department head and getting nowhere, raising my concerns with the former owner of the company, and finally getting denied a transfer back to my old department, I had to make a decision. I ended up with the choice between between the mental health of me and my wife or this job that couldn't meet me halfway, so the job went.

However, the company has had some MAJOR changes. The old department head and former owner have been ousted and a lot of the problems that were endemic to the company have been resolved. So, I went back to the original department I'd worked in. I've only been there for two days, but it's already been a pretty restorative transition.

Plus, it's a permanent job. The new branch manager offered a hefty pay increase from what I was earning last time I was there (which was a whole other problem, in and of itself. Two promotions and zero raises! Woo!) and I'm guaranteed annual raises.

So there's that! A lot of moving and shaking! J's trip to Baltimore went well, except for an evening she spent with her parents where they harassed her about going to graduate school (which she's not interested in) and us buying a house (which would be nice, but we live in Seattle and aren't bazillionaires.) Other than me changing jobs like it's going out of style, life has pretty much plodded along. Because of how stressful that temp job was, I haven't been doing too much art. Here's a little Dragonair I did with Ohuhu markers!

Print available via Deviantart

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Marker Illustration

Sat, 09 Feb 2019 09:42:00 GMT

I got a set of Ohuhu markers off of Amazon about a month ago. I've used them to add accents to watercolors, but coloring with markers isn't really something I ever did much, so I'm still not 100% comfortable with using them.

So, in the spirit of drawing the tree earlier today, I decided to do an illustration (which is a type of art I don't usually do!) in marker with flowers (gnk!!) and a paisley background (GRNNNK!) with white gel pen--another tool I've used to add occasional highlights in watercolors, but not for anything else.

And I'm not mad at it! I like how the marker coloring went, overall. I thought I'd ruined it completely about 500 different times, but I just colored over it with my base color until I blended everything pretty much to oblivion. I did a very basic gradient from a darker green to a lighter green on the background. Then, because I love punishing myself, I did a gel pen paisley. I have never done a paisley before. I am not good at, like, patterns and things. But, again, not mad at it! It's bright and colorful and looks pretty good! Since the self-flagellation wasn't complete, I also did flowers. I'm a little mad at the flowers? I don't know. They're ok. I didn't really want to be very detailed with them--I wanted to keep a pretty flat-colored illustrative quality to them to contrast with the comparatively more elaborate shading of her face. I don't know if it worked? Whatever. I did flowers and I only, like, 15% hate them so I'm counting it as a win.

Click to enlarge!

Print available via Deviantart

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Completed drawing!

Fri, 11 Jan 2019 22:03:45 GMT

I finally got this one done! Nyakim Gatwetch wore the most beautiful dress to the Emmys in 2018 and I decided I wanted to give it a try. I... Did not accurately replicate the dress. But I gave myself permission not to, as long as I 1) tried and 2) did something pretty. So I tried and I did a pretty thing.

The main figure and the red carpet are all colored pencil. Readers of this blog will note that colored pencil is not a medium that I am completely comfortable with using. I did a little bit (read: REALLY little bit) of colored pencil work when I was in high school. I am 33 years old. I haven't done anything with colored pencil in close to 15 years. My last colored pencil drawing came out surprisingly ok! Despite the many notes and issues I had with it, I'm pretty proud of it and most of those issues are not, in fact, with the colored pencil work, itself. So please believe me that I was absolutely biting off way more than I could chew with this piece.

Here's a thumbnail; click for a larger version. I've been saving my artwork as close to the actual size of the original as possible to give the most accurate impression of what it actually looks like. I like working in smaller formats, so it's easy enough for me to do!

I did the background extremely lazily with the Ohuhu markers I finally convinced myself to buy. I really like them! But I know absolutely nothing about markers AT ALL other than what I've watched artists on YouTube do. I scribbled over the marker with colored pencil to make it look leafy? Kinda? Work with me here, people. I was really tired of this drawing by the time I got to this point!

In any case, she's done and I like her, overall, and that's good enough for me. :)

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