Oh, What Would I Do Without You?

My darling cousin Colette and I used to share the "finished" basement in the house.  When we first moved in last year, the basement needed some serious work.  We busted our asses and turned the basement in a beautiful, liveable space.  Bright yellow walls, furniture in coral pink and teal and gray, lace accents.  Since we each had our own side of the room, our sides echoed our personalities.  Colette's side was rustic chic with more lace and flowers and antique feel.  My side had black framed art and my full book shelves and black and white comforter so it was a bit edgier.  Anyway, now that I'm upstairs, Colette has the whole room to herself.  I wanted to do a piece for her to hang up that fit with her scheme.

 

The background is gray with some pink and blue accents.  I originally had the lettering in silver but it was really hard to see, so I went over it in gold.  The words might be hard to see.  It's the song "What Would I Do Without You?" by Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors.  The lyrics read "You've got your sunshine. I've got rainclouds.  You've got hope.  I've got my doubts.  Oh, what would I do without you?"  We deemed this our song a while ago when she played it for me and I realize she is a sunny and bubbly person and I am more withdrawn and prefer cloudy days.  So with that color palette in mind, this is what I created for my other half.

Fandom Life

Another piece I did for my new friend Cathie (another friend courtesy of having a boyfriend).  She's super geeky and nerdy like me so I had too many ideas for what I could do for her.  I was having a seriously hard time narrowing it down.  Really.  But then I found basically the best idea ever.  A combination of fandoms.  I found an image that did this, but it included Lord of the Rings, which Cathie isn't as huge of a fan.  So I switched it up and did something instead of LotR.  This was the result.

 

A Deathly Hallows of all things nerd.  A Star Wars lightsaber in Cathie's favorite color.  The sonic screwdriver of Cathie's favorite Doctor on Doctor Who.  An arrow for the Hunger Games.  The Elder Wand from Harry Potter.  And instead of the one ring, I took all the factions from the book (soon to be a major motion picture *squee*) Divergent.  Anyone who is a nerd like us, if you haven't read Divergent yet, DO IT. Seriously.  If you like HP and HG, you'll totally love Divergent.  But the factions go from the top: Amity, Candor, Erudite, Abnegation, and Dauntless.  Each section of art is based on the faction in the book. I should really start trying to sell paintings to people.

Fighting the Good Fight

As previously mentioned, I volunteer at Rape Response which is how this art therapy kicked off.  We do a lot of amazing things at the crisis center.  And I truly believe much of it couldn't be done without our fearless leader Meg.  She's got such a fiery and passionate spirit that you can't help but be inspired by her.  She's been an amazing role model for me the past eight months and I wanted to do something for her as a thank you for her leadership and being our mama duck at the center.  I had tons of quotes that I thought would be good for her piece.  I narrowed it down to two and eventually picked the one I thought was sassier.

I loved this saying and originally her piece was going to be a purple background with orange and yellow stars.  Well I screwed up and tried to fix it and it didn't look as good, so I put that one up in my room unfinished (much like life yes?).  And I started this new one for her.  I was much happier with this outcome.

Be a Cupcake

My coworker and I have been working every Saturday and Sunday together since November.  With the exception of a few days she has taken off and a few days I've taken off, we're always together on the weekend.  We've gotten to know each other and become friends.  I wanted to do something cute for her birthday and for her to hang in her new apartment.  I saw a cute saying a while ago and decided it would make a cute art piece.

Obviously based on the quote, the picture needed to be a cupcake.  I had mixed up teal for a different painting so used the leftover for this one.  And I decided pink would be a good frosting color pick.  I want to do another one like this for myself.

Nana Nana Nana Nana Batman!

One of the awesome parts of starting to date my boyfriend was, well him actually, but also getting to know his awesome friends.  When I started painting, I was very much like Oprah.  "You get a painting! You get a painting!  Everybody gets a painting!"  My new friend Hannah loves Batman.  I mean, who doesn't?  But I knew I had to do something Batman related for her art piece.  I went through a lot of quotes and ideas on what do for the imagery.  But I finally came up with what I wanted.

 

So we have a quote from the Joker, overlaying a silhouette of the Joker on the left and Batman on the right.  I wanted to do a silhouette of the two and I originally wanted to find one where their faces melded together but wasn't liking anything I was finding.  So I just found silhouettes of the two and did my own thing.  I was also running out of colors so I decided to stick with grays for the color scheme, which ended up working amazingly.  She loved it, so it made me feel all warm and fuzzy!

Why I Deserve Girlfriend of the Year

One of the things my boyfriend and I first bonded over was the amazing show Firefly and its follow up film Serenity.  Because let's face it: Joss Whedon is the shit.  He's a genius and he owns part of my soul.  So when I decided to do an art piece for the bf, it had to be something Firefly related.  I considered doing something Taylor Swift related because he is in love with her.  But I gave him the option and he picked Firefly (wise choice).

This is the schematic for the space ship Serenity.  With a handy little legend for the areas of the ship.  This was all freehand and took quite a while, but it was totally worth it.  So I'm pretty sure I deserve girlfriend of the year for this one.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics

A while back, one of my best friends Kali recommended a book to me.  Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl.  From the title, I was unsure of what to expect.  If it was actually about physics, I knew I wouldn't enjoy it.  Because why would I want to read about physics if I don't study physics?  But I was happily surprised and it quickly became one of my favorite books.  Kali mentioned that she had something in her new apartment that she wanted to cover up, so I offered to create something for her.  For a while, we couldn't figure out what to do.  I was thinking a cd or album cover or maybe a book cover, when I finally realized what I obviously needed to do.

 

I recreated the amazing cover of the book for Kali to hang in her new apartment.  I was super pumped how it turned out because admittedly, I stayed up really late waiting for layers to dry so I could keep working on it.  This is one of my favorites I have created.  I have heard good things about Pessl's new novel Night Film so I'm putting it on my Christmas list

Here Kitty Kitty

So once my grandma saw my new proclivity for arty business, she requested something of her own.  She didn't have anything specific in mind but she did want a certain palette of greens, pinks, or reds.  Since she's fan of furry critters, especially cats, I found some great quotes about kitties and picked one for her piece.

 

This was my favorite quote about cats that I found.  "Cats are a mysterious kind of folk." from Walter Scott.  The background is a coralish pink.  The only part that I was unhappy with was the eyes.  I had done a first round of the eyes and they were ok.  Then I tried to do something else which didn't turn out well, so on my third pass at the eyes, I just turned them black.  Which I was not thrilled about doing but thought it would look better than how they looked before.  So if I could do something different, I wish I could have changed that.

The Cake is a Lie...

If anyone has read a post from my other blog, it might be known that I spend my off days volunteering with Rape Response.  It's the career path I've chosen for myself.  Got a Master's degree and everything!  But obviously this is heavy stuff to deal with on a daily/weekly/monthly/yearly/life basis.  When you're an advocate who responds in these hard situations, you have to have a healthy outlet for yourself when you're done.  You have to go home after finishing a case and do something warm and fuzzy for yourself to remind yourself that the whole world is a dark and miserable bastard of a place.  That good people still exist, and not to give up on life.  What became that process for me was a painting.  And when I say painting, I don't mean real life stuff.  I can't shadow or shade worth a damn.  But with an idea and a color palette, I can create some original stuff.

This was the first piece I did, that started my art phase.  For anyone who hasn't played video games and hasn't heard of Portal 2 and hasn't played co-op, these are the characters you play through the game as: Atlas and P-Body.  Because my best friend Meredith and I are the shit (seriously, we are), we played through the game together and beat it in co-op.  So when it came time to do her birthday present, I knew what I wanted to do.  This. So I created this and sent it along.  Fyi, all artwork I upload on this blog is my own creation and completely freehand.