Adventures in Standing

Behold: my new "standing desk."

Two weeks ago I was developing a lot of tension headaches after working at my desk. I started pining over the idea of a standing desk.

image source

I wanted to be as happy as that girl. I mean, look at how chic she is, with her Apple computer and Zooey bangs and venti-sized Starbucks latte and fancy footrest but surprisingly lame shoes.

But man, standing desks are expensive. I researched all sorts of options, including modifying cheap IKEA desks and whatnot. I whined to my husband, who wisely pointed out that I could probably just build on top of my current desk. I grabbed my nightstand and some cardboard boxes and voila: my standing desk was born.

I've been using this standing desk for about 2 weeks now. I bought a tall bar stool on Craigslist, so that I can rest my legs from time to time while still using the standing desk. I alternate between standing and leaning on the stool pretty much all day. I feel great. Tension headaches are rarely a problem anymore. I am a standing desk convert.

Tribute to Buck

This custom pet portrait was commissioned through my Etsy shop. The customer wanted to commission a portrait of her boyfriend's beloved dog Buck, who recently passed away. Buck was an English lab, who always wore a handkerchief around his neck.

When I sat down to draw this portrait, it suddenly hit me: I have to draw a black dog in pencil. That is a lot of value to have to build up. So I broke out my graphite powder, brushing it on the paper with a soft, dry brush. This allowed me to quickly cover the area in a medium grey wash.

From there I used 6B pencils to add shadows, a kneaded eraser to pull out highlights, and a soft tissue to blend it all together.

In the end I was very pleased with the range in values I was able to quickly achieve, thanks to the graphite powder. I sprayed the drawing with clear fixative to prevent smudging, and shipped it off to the happy customer.

I hope the portrait brings back happy memories to Buck's owner.

I'm An Artist

(AAU's graduation ceremony. I'm the tall one)

After graduating from college with a fairly useless degree in Japanese (long story, no I am not fluent) I worked at a mind-numbingly repetitive office job and spent a lot of time wondering what I was going to do with my life. At parties, when people asked about my job, I said I was an "online content management team member" and then had to explain what that was and then felt bad because after all that explaining, it wasn't even very interesting. People were just as confused about who I was as I was.

One day my husband said to me, "Maybe you should become an artist."

People have been saying that to me my entire life, but I always shrugged it off. This time I actually considered it. I pondered it for a few weeks. I imagined myself introducing myself to people at parties, saying, "Hi, I'm Kelley. I'm an artist." I liked that. There was something I would be proud to call myself.

Fast forward three years. Yesterday I passed my final review at AAU with flying colors. The judges were very positive and expressed a lot of confidence in my work. I still have one week of class left, but I've been going around to my website and online profiles, changing my job description from "graduate student" to "freelance illustrator."

Hello world. I'm an artist.

Art school is not for lazy people

In the art school vs. self-taught debate, some people act like art school is for people who aren't driven enough to learn on their own. Sometimes they rather haughtily imply that it's an option for those less-motivated artists who aren't willing to really discipline themselves.

Nothing could be further from the truth. After 3 years of art school, I can confidently say that art school is for self-motivated, self-taught people. The students who flourished and developed during their time at AAU are the driven ones, the ones who love what they do, who make personal work outside of class, who love talking about art with their friends, who go to conventions, who email teachers for advice. The ones who didn't were the lukewarm, insecure, bored, complaining students.

In the world of art, there are no successful unmotivated artists. Whether you attend art school, are self-taught, or a combination of the two, you need passion and hard work. Art school is not a substitute.

Abandoned Books

Of these four, I have only read "Wicked" and I do not recommend it.

Of these five, I have read LOTR and Atlas Shrugged. LOTR is amazing but definitely difficult to get through, especially the beginning. Atlas Shrugged was just kind of ridiculous, but unlike the Fountainhead I actually managed to finish it.

A lot of people have this idea that you shouldn't abandon a book for the principle of it. They say that they don't want to "waste" the time already sunk into the book, or don't want to feel like the book "defeated" them. I disagree; there's nothing wrong with abandoning a boring book. I absolutely do not regret abandoning the Fountainhead and Wuthering Heights, but I do regret sticking with Wicked all the way to the end. As someone said, life is too short to read bad books.

Here's GoodRead's original article, which has a few more interesting infographics. One commenter quipped, "I look forward to abandoning Atlas Shrugged."

Are there any classic books that you couldn't finish?

Drawworm and long-distance relationships

9x12 two-person pencil portrait by drawworm

 5x7 two-person pencil portrait by drawworm

These pencil portraits were commissioned by this couple through my Etsy shop. They have a long-distance relationship, so I sent one portrait to Canada and the other to Hong Kong! Lovers united by the power of the Worm!

Usually I work with clearer, more professional photographs than the ones this couple sent. However, spontaneous snapshots like these have a lot of genuine emotion in them, so I decided to embrace that quality rather than fight it.

Here are some in-progress shots:

5th Anniversary

Photo by Timeless Treasure Portraits

Today is my 5th wedding anniversary! This picture is my husband and I getting absolutely pummeled with lavender seeds as we left our wedding. I bought way too much lavender, and I guess the guests thought that they absolutely HAD to use ALL of it, so they were chucking handfuls of the stuff in our faces. We were picking lavender out of our hair for several days afterwards.

It's my favorite photo.

Grace's Portrait

I made this portrait of my friend Grace to match the one I made of Alex. Why the luna moths? I don't know, it just seemed to fit Grace somehow. Maybe because she stays up all night.

On Monday, after Professional Practices class, I went out for pizza and french fries with Grace and Alex. We discussed Grace's problem of a mouse in her apartment. We went to Walgreen's and helped her pick out a mousetrap that would hide the mouse corpse inside a tidy little capsule of death. Then I went home.

What a glamorous life I lead! Every day is like an episode of Sex & the City!

Illustrators are Pioneers

“Illustrators are pioneers. They are tough, they don’t talk much, and they are loners. The journey is not easy, and not everybody makes it. But if you are a fighter, and you can handle bad coffee, it’s worth it.”

– Nicholas Blechman, Art Director of The New York Times Book Review.

"Bring your dreams to life"...with Kelley.

Well look at this. My art is being used on my school's front page! A friend pointed this out to me today - I didn't even know. :P

Last month of art school!

I can't believe I only have one month of grad school left! There's been a constant stream of helpful feedback on my art, from teachers and classmates, for the past three years - it's going to be weird not to have that!

This photo is from the last day of my previous semester. For our final project, we had to print our work on huge 30x40 foam boards. It took me a while to even find a print shop that could print at that size, but eventually I found a little local shop called Precision Graphics that would print my work for a good price.

They did an amazing job with the prints! I was so relieved. I recommended Precision Graphics to several other classmates, who also had excellent experiences.

After the class, I wondered what to do with these giant boards? They were pretty, but too large for my apartment. But I couldn't bring myself to throw them away.

I ran into my teacher and his gorgeous wife (seriously, she was really pretty, go Joko) at the Spring Show, and she told me how much she liked my Island of the Blue Dolphins illustrations.

"Do you want my boards????" I practically squealed.
"Um...don't you want them?" my teacher said.
"Nope! You can have them!"
"Oh well, I'll have to think about it..."
"Here's my business card! Email me when you're ready!" I said. They backed away from me slowly.

Eventually I did manage to pawn off my boards on my teacher. Go me!

Applied Arts Student Awards

I just found out that this piece won a student award in Applied Arts magazine! Look for it in the November/December issue.