Simple Simon

Long time no see...  I have been hit and miss with this blogging thing and slap my wrist every night in penance. School, life, art, and writing have eaten my time but I suppose there could be worse things to complain about.

So, last minute as always, I decided to try my luck at this year's SCBWI Carolinas Art & Writing Contest and as is the way of the Travis, I am rushing all out with as little time as possible- I double entered, writing and art!  ;)

I submitted the first chapter of my YA book AND entered the art contest-

Said art contest asked for a piece based on the SIMPLE SIMON rhyme of old:

Simple Simon met a pieman,
Going to the fair;
Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
“Let me taste your ware.”
Says the pieman to Simple Simon,
“Show me first your penny.”
Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
“Indeed I have not any.”

I may have run a little TOO LITERAL as I actually MADE A PIEMAN!!! 

Poor PIE-RATE...  hehe

I made the thing with watercolour and prismacolor and am pretty pleased with the end result...  I'm crossing my fingers because I may have a hard time attending the conference this year if I don't win with one of them...  

Doubtful but I am optimistic to a faultline...

Tshirt catchup edition

Been wrong too long so here is a barrage of what I've been doing.....  I am sad to say that my facebook page has gone and usurped most of the time I previously devoted to this blog...  I also have been in t-shirt craze mode trying to get lightening to strike twice.

Good news is I am getting more and more proficient with Photoshop.  I find myself often reading tutorials on various techniques and slowly growing in skill.  All of my old anti-digital attitudes have gone the way of...  the traditional artist-

Well, that's not true, as you will see, but...  Here is a mountain of t-shirt art with no explanation!!

 

The Flux Ambassadors!

!!!  I am EXCITE!

One of my shirt designs ACTUALLY printed on shirt.woot!

Just when I was starting to give up on all that shirt nonsense (hehe) -  I am SO HAPPY because not only do I really like this (lame) design, but I feel future prints will be easier now.  That is my hope anyway.

You can go and buy your own for 15 bucks until (probably) Monday at 1AM (I am assuming it will no longer be available after that point).  At some point in the future it will be available again, but it will cost 18 instead of 15 and be a digital print instead of a SEXY SCREENPRINT.

Click here to go to the store page! 

Act while you still can!!! Unlike Marty, if you miss out, you cannot go back in time!

Also, if you buy one, you will be able to vote on my designs in the future!  Come support the team. hehe-

OR - You can get one for FREE!!

On Friday, January 18th,  I am going to be randomly drawing a name from the list of people who have LIKED my new facebook page.  That lucky person will be win a FREE SHIRT!

WOOHOO!

Come on by!!!

Thanks to everyone who has supported my t-shirt obsession so far!  It is starting to pay off!

MC Escher (Escher-esque) and update-

I know I said I was going to post on book stuff and lay off the shirts for a bit...  WELL- this week pushed me back into shirt mode...  See HERE!

Anyway- to help promote my t-shirt designs, I decided to open a facebook page.  This is a big deal for me as I have actively avoided facebook since I first heard of it like a decade ago (has it been that long?).

However, most everyone on woot who takes it seriously has a facebook page for their shirts and it seems to be a GREAT way to grow interest and get votes.  So...  COME VISIT ME...

My page is RIGHT HERE!!!

Come on by and gimme a like!

On to things.

This week's theme was Escher-esque-  This was awesome.  I, like near anyone, love Escher and the thought of doing some art in his style/honor really appealed to a large part of my brain.  I didn't really make art that would appeal to the normal woot audience but I had a great time making 6 color/ halftoned/ printready art.  It was great practice regardless...

My first piece I titled Tesseract to the Soul.  Its based, obviously, on his awesome work EYE.  Making a tesseract in photoshop was pretty tough.  I am sure there was an easier way to do it but I felt like a genius when I was done.

I ended up making a second version of that piece, with stars marking the lines like constellations!

Lastly, I made a piece I called Restructure...   Its odd but I love it.  I wanted this piece to be completely free of Escherisms while still feeling like it belonged in the same genre....

Did it work?

More on nonshirts next week.  Hard to shake it currently!

Fake Bands!

This derby was a blast!

The theme was to create tour shirts for fictional rock bands...

I came up with three!

The first, a back to the future CHEESE BAND!

This one is my fave, and is actually doing quite well!  This is the first shirt design I have made for woot to be ranked among the top 9, which they call THE FOG!  This feels like a bigger deal to me than it should but it is a good feeling after 6 months of trying...  I am keeping my fingers crossed that it prints!  If you have ever bought anything at Woot before and possess the ability, jump by and give it a +1 for me. ;) 

This next one is based off of Neil Gaiman's sandman comics...

And lastly...  my Lord of the Rings shirt!

For some reason, tour shirts made me think of 80's hair metal so most of the designs had that vibe. Such fun!

In trying not to COMPLETELY turn this into a tshirt blog, I will be updating next week on my book...  Been on hiatus lately BUT inspiration is bearing its mighty paws and I have been reworking a lot!  More soon!

The rush...

Christmas came and went with all of its pointed luster.  Santa this year, among other things, left me the flu, which I still carry in slight.  *Cough*

It was all pretty wonderful though and sharing it with my little family and our bigger families was simply perfect.

I did a lot of tshirt art...  as expected I'm sure...  The theme was Animal Slogans!!!  Such fun!