So What Have I Been Up To?

The thank you cards are in the mail and I am now officially done with everything wedding. The past two months have been quite busy and fun. Unfortunately I didn't take the time to update my blog and I apologize. So to answer the title question. Wedding stuff mostly.

So, a month ago yesterday, my husband and I had our "wedding ceremony/reception". I wrote that with quotations, because we have technically been married for two years, but we just now had our ceremony. A lot of planning and work over the past year went into the whole shebang-a-bang. 

Here is a picture from when we originally got married in Chicago on August 29, 2011.

The event was held in the loft space at Kitchen Chicago. It's a beautiful space, but brought about some challenges: planning the whole thing from NYC and doing all of the planning, decorating, etc ourselves. So there was a lot of DIY that went into the planning of this wedding.

Kitchen Chicago

I designed the invitations...

...and these cool labels for the favors.

I dyed doilies.

I spray painted an easel.

I put together a collage

We made the candle holders and table dealies with the names of Chicago neighborhoods and NYC boroughs.

We had to set everything up ourselves the day of. Here's what the table settings looked like. Garrett Popcorn ftw!

On top of all this, I also designed and my mom sewed my dress for the wedding! I got a hand crafted one of a kind dress made with love. It was awesome. Thanks mom!

Here is the original drawing I made for my mom to make the pattern out of.

Here is the final dress (front).

You can sort of see the back in this picture.

Lastly I want to thank all of the vendors who made this night awesome! We started it out with heartfelt vows officiated by Erika Sowell of Sowell Mates, We had some great music courtesy of DJ Donnie. Delicious, delicious food from La Villa Restaurant in Chicago. And maybe most importantly, we had some amazing pictures taken courtesy of our good buddy Dave Gall.

Awesome photo by David Joesph Gall.

Check out Dave's website. If you like what you see give him a call or like his facebook page.

Anyways, enough of all that stuff. Here are a few other things I've been up to.

After missing the last two months, I finally got the chance to catch back up with the people at The House of Twelve for another NYC Comics Jam. Here is a link to some pictures that Darryl Ayo Brathwaite posted of the event: http://darrylayo.tumblr.com/post/65745935438/house-of-twelve-nycity-comic-jam-first-friday.
Here's a couple panels I drew.

I drew this last panel of dad tossing his son to exile on Staten Island.

I drew the third panel on here of the ant submitting to the furious noogies of some stranger.

Oh, and another thing. I just finished working on an illustration for my aunt to put on her business cards for her jewelry making business (Just so you know, she made my awesome earrings for the wedding. Go ahead, scroll back up and take a look. They were pretty nice!). Here are some pics of the process.

Original sketch of her character.

Final sketch of the image of her and her cat.

Inked version.

Colored in Photoshop.

Alright. That's it for now.

TL;DR: I got married and stuff.

A Couple Sketchy Self Portraits

An accurate representation of how I've felt all day today...

Why Did She Even Go To The Beach?

Inked drawing

 Colored in Photoshop

Disregard Blog Post: Au Revoir Sketchy Magee

So last week I finished another sketchbook. I'm sort of sad to see it go. This sketchbook had everything...

Bad sketchy comics...

Drawings of me...

Drawings of John...

Drawings of random other couples...

 Drawings of women with varying amounts of clothing on...

Batman...

A kangaroo...

 Some kid in a panda suit...

And lots and lots of bad Star Trek drawings.

Bonus!
So, earlier this month House of Twelve had their 12th Anniversary Comics Shindig Jam or whatever you wanna call it. I got the chance to hang out and draw a couple panels and John actually joined me a did a little drawing of his own. Unfortunately, I don't have links to all of the contributors websites, so hopefully they won't get mad if I don't site them as the artists for their particular panels. Also, sorry for the lack of context all of these panels are part of larger ongoing stories with several contributors.

This one is from a goofy sci-fi comic. I contributed the last panel on this page featuring the "Celine Dion Ray".

Another goofy story about a one eyed monster trying to evict a naked squatter. I provided the panel featuring said monster retrieving his sword from his banana hammock. 

I won't try to summarize this story within a story, but I drew the second panel of the girl at the psychiatrist and John actually drew the last panel featuring Dr.Bird's prescription pad. Good times.

A Couple More Drawings of Internet Strangers

Keeping up on drawing via Reddit Gets Drawn. Here are my little ditties of internet strangers. Enjoy!

Original picture.

Pencil drawing, inked, and colored in Photoshop.

Original picture.

Pencil drawing, inked, and colored in Photoshop.

Original picture.

Pencil drawing, inked, and colored in Photoshop.

Mildly Interesting Coincidence

Quick story. So, last week John received a notice of delivery for a package in the mail. He went the next day to the post office to pick up the package. The postal worker regretted to inform him that they could not find his package and he went home empty handed. Now, neither of us had been expecting a package and have not ordered anything online in quite some time. However, we frequently get small packages from John's sister in the form of free samples that she signs us up for online. We figured it was probably just another free razor or fabric softener or something like that and just said "forget it". It wasn't worth the trouble of fighting the post office over some free sample we hadn't even really asked for. So, fast forward to this week Wednesday. Mail comes and John receives another package delivery notice, this time stamped "Final Notice". Still thinking it was nothing we didn't pay much attention to it. Thursday both John and I had off of work and decided to make a little day of it. We were gonna grab a bite to eat and finally go see Monsters University in the theaters. We had to run to the bank on the way and decided to stop by the post office too, just because it was on the way. Why not. So, John goes to pick up the package while I run to the bank. I meet John back at the post office. I noticed that John had ripped a small tear in the package and is smiling. So I ask him what's in the package. He hands me the package and says "Merry Christmas". I open it up and I couldn't believe it... it was The Art of Monsters Inc book. 

John explained that he bought this for me for Christmas from Amazon. According to Amazon it shipped the 12th of December. When it didn't come in by New Years John messaged Amazon and they said it must have been lost in the mail and gave John a full refund for the book. John had mentioned to me several times in December that he was still waiting for my last Christmas gift. After messaging Amazon in January, he told me that I would never be getting that extra gift after all, but never told me what it was. We both forgot about it after that. Then, unbeknownst to both of us, the package ends up being delivered to us and we picked it up on our way to go see Monsters University. Interesting coincidence.

To add slightly to this coincidence... On Wednesday, the day before we picked up the book, I heard some song playing that reminded me of "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas". I started to sing the Christmas tune, despite hating Christmas. I told John that my jolliness might be stemming from the idea of Christmas in July, a holiday we don't actually recognize. 

Wow, if anybody actually read this, they must be pretty bored. 

 Here it is in all its glory!

Bonus!

So I've actually been in full wedding planning mode and haven't had much time to draw, but here is a little sketch I did on the envelope for John and my twin nieces' birthday. They like ponies. John insisted that I draw us in My Little Pony style. I'll probably regret posting this. Either way, enjoy!  

Unicorn Tea

Decided to do a quick commission for a fellow tea lover on Reddit. Rianna Hardesty creates signature tea blends for the website Adagio and was looking for a few artists to design the labels for a tea blend series based on mythical creatures. So I decided to give it a go and did a quick little piece for her unicorn inspired tea. 

Inked drawing

Final piece

You can see my art in action or buy some of this unique tea here on Adagio's website.

Bonus: A quick picture of the tea I'm drinking right now! Woooooo!

Drawing Internet Strangers

WARNING: If you are offended by by real life human bodies in sexual poses avert your eyes! 

So I've been sick now for 2 weeks now and have been feeling pretty awful and not drawing as much as I should. Anyways, I've been trying to keep up with some sketching with the help of Reddit Gets Drawn, a subreddit (online forum) where people post pictures of themselves and artists of varying levels draw them. Any ways, I've done a couple here and there over the past couple weeks. So here they are. 

Original Picture

My Sketch (Red pencil)

Original Picture

My Sketch (Pencil)

Original Picture

My Sketch (Duckfaces are hard to draw. Done in pen with no touch ups.) 

Original Picture (The user who posted this said this was for her boyfriend, let's hope it wasn't something creepier. This is the internet, so you never know.)

 My Drawing (Pen sketch, colors in Photoshop)

Original Picture 

My Drawing (Pen drawing, colors in Photoshop. Not sure what's up with the hair, it was hard to tell from the photo.)

Original Picture 

My Drawing (Pen drawing, colors in Photoshop. I had a lot of fun with this piece.)

I like doing these Reddit Gets Drawn drawings because it's low pressure and an opportunity to experiment and have fun. Plus someone gets a cool drawing out of it!