Tag Archives: pink

Turned Diamond Mandala

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The flaws in the pattern almost give it an Escher-esque dimensionality. 

I was a little bit sick last week, and a lot painting (more on that tomorrow) but mostly I was low and apathetic and in need of a vacation after my non-vacation vacation. Usually I take a little break around Thanksgiving and again around Christmas but I didn’t take off any time from the blog the entire 2 1/2 weeks we were on the road. I’m hoping I’ll have lot of cool projects to showcase at the end of the year anyway. If I can stop feeling low and apathetic. Which I could do. By distracting myself with cool projects.

It’s just hard. The forces of darkness seem to be surging.

Blue Web Mandala

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Looks like a dropped a stitch on the bottom right. 

Whew! Busy weekend! The Man got a year older, which happens to people even when they’re so old no one really cares anymore, so I tried to jolly him up. Friday night we went to a carnival and Saturday night we went to a cabaret where he got to celebrate his birthday by being dragged onto stage by a troupe of belly dancers. I also accomplished 2 pieces of art in that time, but very few hours of sleep, so now I’m kind of goofy and unfocused, so I’m just tossing this slightly askew mandala up here and then trying to persuade my brain to turn off in the next couple hours.

Actually, I’m pretty pleased with the direction things are going. Sometimes I wonder if I can deliver on the things I promise but there’s no reason to believe I can’t. But then I wonder if that fear is the real reason I haven’t come as far as I wanted. Somehow, once other people’s money is involved, my self-confidence begins to question itself.

Star Scallop Mandala

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A little bit feathery, a little bit pointy. 

Productive weekend! Got a really nice comic finished for tomorrow, which is helpful, because tomorrow is the day I go to the Fox’s house and we sit and silence and write for 2 hours, and also the day that I volunteer at the elementary school, and I have another engagement as well, so that doesn’t leave a lot of time to make comics. Also got a good chunk of the next day’s comic started, which is helpful.

Also, I got a new phone, because my giant ZMAX died an ignominious death after an entire week of not really letting me play Pokemon Go. Sadly, they don’t make this kind of phablet anymore. The Man found one on Craig’s List but someone else got there first, so he bought me an LG, which will probably be OK, once I get everything arranged the way I like it. How anyone can not organize their icons by alphabetical order is beyond me.

This is a really pretty mandala, only slightly askew.

And that’s Labor Day weekend. There goes summer, once again. The autumn always gets me a little bit down, and it’s hard not to compare the year to my life, i.e. if my life were a meteorological year beginning in the spring, it would now also be the beginning of autumn. On the other hand, The Man and I went to the last late night of the season at the Desert Museum on Saturday, and in the weird fluorescent light of the bathroom, I thought I’d found my first gray hair. But it was just the lighting. So maybe it’s still the 4th of July.

Weird Wide Web Mandala

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Gonna be honest. It’s not my most coherent work.

Originally, we were planning to go camping over Memorial Day weekend, but then we realized we were invited to a wedding, and also that I was supposed to be the photographer for that wedding, so we did the wedding instead. I’ve heard some horror stories from the Vampire Bat about the trials and tribulations of being a wedding photographer, but the brides were pretty laid back about it, and the only one coming remotely close to freaking out about details was Mrs. Kitty, who was the wedding planner. It’s a little nerve-wracking, because wedding picture are a big deal to the people whose wedding it is and it would feel terrible to mess them up. And of course, my camera did jam a few times, probably due to the intense heat, so I was only able to get a single shot of their first kiss even though they were kissing for about 30 seconds. Plus, when I got home, the computer starting seizing up and I was terrified it was going to begin deleting photos (this has happened before) but after an hour of messing with it, things were set to rights. There were some pretty good shots. And I got paid. So all is well. Now I am eating leftover plantains (the wedding was potluck) and trying to think of a comic for tomorrow.

That was my third paying photography gig and people are starting to ask me if I am going to start a sideline business. On the one hand, money. On the other hand, every time you take a hobby you love and start exploiting your talent for money, you have one less hobby you love.

Perfectly Pink Flower Mandala

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It’s a mutant plumeria, or something.

It’s been a rough month in Dragon’s Cave. The deadly beast insomnia (second only to gravity in the “keeping-Dragon-down” pantheon) keeps rearing its ugly head, which can be kind of debilitating. On the plus side, I have beaten my own personal record for most consecutive hours of consciousness. The previous record was 36, in which time I took 2 cars, 2 planes, and 4 trains from Chicago to Prague. This weekend, all I did was travel to and from the town of Bisbee, attend a late night stand up comedy show at an underground club, and fail, repeatedly, to fall asleep.

Picture me, hour 39, in the front row of a club hazy with the green-tinged atmosphere of a Dutch coffee shop, looking up, as if from the bottom of the ocean, at this big black comedian who’s explaining to the organizers of a local Pride Parade that Chik-Fil-A is so good that he doesn’t care if the organization is homophobic, that he would eat Chik-Fil-A if they were openly racist and made him sit in a black-only segregated area of the restaurant, while the civil rights lawyer on my right side is actively booing him. What am I doing here? I ask myself. Is this really happening? Also, if I stand up to go to the bathroom, how likely is it that I will fall over and injure myself? How am I going to get out of this club, anyway? Will I have to walk? Am I actually already asleep and having a weird meta dream about insomnia? And so on.

Round about hour 41, my brain finally relented and I got 9 hours of unconsciousness (not uninterrupted, as The Man got up and made a smoothie halfway through). I bet I could have slept another 2 hours at least, but also there are the kids, and when you’re a kid, “being quiet” and “banging the door of the front-loading washer 17 times in a row” are somehow not mutually exclusive activities. But you can’t make up lost sleep, can you? Like, I should have slept 16 hours, right? Not an option. So, I’m not wholly recovered. I may never be.

Here’s a pinky-pinky flower mandala with an unusual symmetry based on the number 7, drawn in less stressful and more well-rested times.

Crystal Power Mandala

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Feel the power rising within you!

Feel the power rising within you!

For once, I’m ahead of the game! Here’s Monday’s mandala, all sparkly and intense, rosy and blossoming, like the gem of wonderment from a cartoon quest for the empowerment of little girls in 1984. Gotta love it. Plus I’ve just finished Tuesday’s comic, and I managed to sketch out another page and a half of the big black and white story in the spaces in between even though I spent the rest of the weekend immersed in my typical rarified debauchery. I didn’t quite accomplish as much as intended but a good time was had by all.

This is a sweet design.

The only other art news is that, as the end of September appears, my mind tends toward thoughts of–my Halloween bulletin board. I’m thinking: black cat. But who knows? My schedule is so relaxed right now I could probably spend 10 or 12 hours, at least. Maybe something 3-dimensional? The need for something powerfully good seems apparent. You don’t get that many thrilling ways to celebrate Halloween once you’re old enough to buy your own candy.

Pretty in Punk Mandala

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My love is amorphous, like a single celled organism dropped in a vat of acid.

My love is amorphous, like a single celled organism dropped in a vat of acid.

What’s black and red and pink and spiky and full of love? This lopsided septagonal mandala which potentially looks like a Hot Topic exploding over an Orange Julius stand at the mall. It appears to be comprised of equal parts death, hearts, and sugar. It looks sharp. It will probably cut you if you try to pick it up. And it’s probably ornery, too. I bet the tips break off in your hand and you have to dig them out with a sterilized sewing needle.

On a wholly unrelated note, if you like webcomics and/or binge-reading, and you haven’t already, why not head over to Panels and check out my new article about webcomics you can read straight through, beginning to end, online?