One Month Later

A lot has happened in the past month...

I spent a week in Chicago with family and friends.

There was a hurricane in NYC.

And then there was a snow storm.

None of these are really excuses for not updating my blog. They just all happened when I just so happened to not be updating my blog. So here's an update on some stuff. Yay!

For Halloween I dressed up at Maurice Moss from the IT Crowd.

The top one is Moss (played by Richard Ayoade) and the bottom one is me, in case you couldn't tell.

A quick sketch of me as Moss.

Today I got a chance to go to The Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival and see selections from the 2012 Eyeworks Festival of Experimental Animation (which plays annually in Chicago, but was replayed in part for BCGF). I got to see a lot of cool artists and view some interesting animation. I also spent way more than I should have on comics. 

BDGF swag and the Eyeworks program (cover designed by Ivan Brunetti ).

I was lucky enough to get some of my comics signed by some pretty cool artists/authors like...

Lilli Carré

Rina Ayuyang

and Aron Nels Steinke.

I came home from all the fun today to find a notice from the post office. They tried to deliver my Don Hertzfeldt DVDs, but they wouldn't fit in my mailbox. Now I have to wait until Monday to pick them up from the post office. Oh, and just so yous guys know, I've got a little freelance project I'll be working on for the next week or so, so I probably won't post again for another week or so. Anyways, here are some more Snapshots to hold you over until then.

Snapshots 04

Some People I Admire

So it turns out that this is the time of year where all of my favorite artists decide to come out from hiding and do things like attend festivals and conventions and put out new work. Needless to say I'm quite too poor to do all things I wanted to do this fall. I'm not able to attend NYC Comic Con and it turned out I didn't have the funds to travel to Maryland to go to SPX like I wanted to. However, I think I made out pretty good with being able to see and get some pieces from some of my favorite artists.

Friday I was surprised to find that an original watercolor piece I ordered from Koyamori (her real name is Cynthia) finally arrived in the mail. I was even more surprised to find that it came in a cute personalized envelope with a nice little note and a couple of postcard sized prints for free! I've followed Cynthia for years on Deviantart and now follow her updates via her tumblr site. She is extremely talented and prolific. Cynthia, along with an artist named Aya Takano (whom I've mentioned on this blog before) are my biggest influences when it comes to inks and watercolors. I'm so excited to have an original piece of hers and can't wait to get a frame for it and hang it up along with so many other pieces I've collected from other artists I admire. 

 Friendly Fisher by Koyamori

All the other goodies I got from her!

If you like what you see, she has many other original pieces as well as prints and stickers available for purchase on her online store.

Also on Friday I got the chance to go to this awesome event put on by the Brooklyn Book Festival featuring Los Bros Hernandez. At the event the brothers Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez, did some live drawing, talked a little about their process and their experiences making comics, and did a Q&A. I've, unfortunately only read a relatively small selection from their many many stories (they published their first Love and Rockets book in 1982). However, they are huge inspiration in my comics making. I admire their ability to tell the stories they want to tell and not have to bend to the comics industry standards. Their artwork is beautiful, I absolutely love their style of drawing. So, anyways, the event was a lot of fun and inspiring and afterward I got the chance to meet them briefly and tell them how much their work meant to me. I also got two more books to add to my collection!
  

So last night I got the chance to see another comics idol of mine, Julia Wertz! This event also put on by the Brooklyn Book Fest featured seven comics artists including Julia Wertz all reading pieces of their most current work along with slides of the artwork. It was an absolute dream to see Julia in person, she was very funny and often made little side comments about things she was thinking about or how she felt while writing or experiencing particular stories. I love how honest her work is and she has been a huge inspiration in my own journal comics. I only wish I was half as funny as she is. Anyways, I got to walk out of the event last night with her newest book, The Infinite Wait and Other Stories. 

And lastly, even though it won't arrive in the mail for another month, I should mention that just the other day I pre-ordered Don Hertzfeldt's new DVD, Don Hertzfeldt vol.2, which includes his short animated trilogy turned feature film It's Such A Beautiful Day. As much as Don Hertzfeldt will consider himself a filmmaker as opposed to an animator, he has been one of my main animation/filmmaking inspirations. It's Such A Beautiful Day is a beautifully tragic yet funny trilogy and I can't wait to see all three films together as one. I've gotten the chance to meet and see Don live in person  a few times and the reason he is so inspiring is that he just always keeps creating. He puts out film after film and uses the money he makes on one film to fund the making of his next film. He has to be insane with the amount of work that he puts into animating especially since all the animation is hand drawn on paper, filmed on film, and all the effects are done in camera using double exposure and other fun camera tricks. I can't express enough how crazy the man must be, but regardless he loves what he does and his persistence is inspiring. 

Farewell To Sketchy-Magee

So, another sketchbook has come and gone. I was so intimidated when I first started working in it. All of the sketchbooks that I am used to are much thinner. I also have a bad habit of not filling sketchbooks all the way up, but I did it! I have filled the whole thing up. I am quite proud of myself. I started it on August 29th and finished it on November 11. Most of it is scribbles and homework, but there are a few gems here and there. So, without further ado, I would like to take a look back on the life of Sketchy-Magee.

Panda

Concept stuff

John in a pool

Don Hertzfeldt's autograph *

Banana

Bat boy!

* So I went to see Don Hertzfeldt show his new film "I Am So Proud Of You" here in Chicago. Afterward I got to say thanks and I asked him to doodle in my sketchbook, and he did a little something. My boyfriend, John, also got to meet him and he some how got him to sign a banana.

And here is a bad quality photograph of me pretending to squish Don between my fingers.