Fuzzydragons

The last prompt for March meet the maker is 'Product in use/wild'. I don't have time to paint at the moment, but here is an older quick painting hanging up on the wall. We have mostly blue walls so any blue paintings fit right in.

Prompt #30 is 'Support'. John, aka Mr.Fuzzy is pretty damn supportive. I've always loved this photo of him and our Rottie down by the pier in  Normandale. Taken in 2005, so very long ago.

Prompt #29 is 'Most difficult make. This etching of a Harris Hawk is probably up there for being difficult due to all of the feathers and the really odd angles lol

Prompt #28 is 'Packing'. I don't have packaging, so here is some packaging I made for a uni project a few years ago. We had to design beer branding. I combined ideas from Scotland and Nova Scotia to brand my beer. I would def change a few things, but overall I really like how it turned out.

Prompt #27 is 'Anything goes' , so here is my diploma. I don't care that is not the best of marks, I still got the diploma and it took 4 years, well more like 7 years (if you include college), to get the damn thing lol I prefer the design of John's diploma from the same uni a few years ago, this one has way too much open space to the design. And hopefully I get another one for the MLitt I am doing. 

Prompt #26 is 'Self Care' Like time off?? Whats that? Between artwork and my masters at uni I don't have time for self care. I need to read these for research for my dissertation plus a lot more books and journals lol

Prompt #25 is 'How its made'. With etchings they are made with a sharp pointy thing lol I've stabbed myself a few times with it, and yes it hurts.

Prompt #23 is Top tip or advice. Practice practice practice. As much as you can, even if that is one hour a week or everyday, just practice. Its National Puppy Day today, so here is a tiny Sky. She did grow into those ears, sort of lol

I missed a few days because I fell and messed my hands up, the left pinky finger might be dislocated but meh, nothing to do about it but let it do what it wants, (typing with one hand is a PITA though). Prompt #21 is Throwback and this cassowary etching is from 2015, so not that old but its still a throwback. Prompt #22 is Proud of, I'm pretty proud of this Eagle Owl etching since it pretty big at A3 size and I'm happy with how the feathers turned out.

Prompt #20 is Design Process. With anything I do, things start with a sketch and then I either transfer lineart to better paper for colouring if it is traditional work, or if its digital I just open the sketch in a program to colour it. The program used here was Adobe Illustrator, (which I no longer have because I refuse to pay monthly for it when I am not going to uni for an art course). If I wanted a more traditional look to the work I could have used Corel Painter. And the finished work done for a uni project. I got rid of the hockey stick from the sketch, since it didn't really work for the final piece. 

Prompt #19 is Dream collaboration. Another easy one for me, dream collaboration would be to work with Robert Bateman. I have been a fan since I was a kid. I had one of his brothers for a teacher for one semester in high school but.., we didn't get on because I was always drawing fantasy creatures and he didn't like that lol

Prompt #18 is Mistake or Lesson. This could be either, remember to properly clean your printing plates or they will end up looking like this, which is fine if you are done printing with the plate, but I wasn't lol

Prompt #17 is What I am working on. Too many things lol A digital cartoon dragon, a coloured pencil Kestrel, but mostly uniwork. I have to write 2 4000 words essays, plus a dissertation abstract,  another presentation, read 2 more novels for this semester, and edit journals. Lots of work lol Not much work done on the Kestrel other then the lineart for it, uni work def come before traditional work.

Prompt 16 is Workspace (tidy/mess). Well, I have too much stuff lol (I really do need to have a clear out one day though, get rid of stuff or buy more shelving for it, but poor student right now). Yes, I know its a mess, but honestly the rest of the house is more important to keep clean than a room used as an art studio.

Posting catch up post for March meet the Maker since I have no uni work today to do, tomorrow is another story though lol Prompt #13 is photography. I use my phone for photos mostly but do have a DSLR that takes really great photos when I remember to use it.   Prompt #14 is How I learnt. Thats easy, practice, practice,practice. I was 11 when I drew the above. This was done 4 years ago, still going to keep practising. Prompt #15 is Motivation/goal. I don't think I have an end goal, I just want to keep practising, digitally and traditionally. 

Prompt #12 is Hands at work. My hands using my drawing tablet, so very exciting lol I prefer using my Huion tablet over my Wacom and not just because it is cheaper and bigger. It is just easier to draw on the surface on the Huion than the Wacom.

Prompt #11 is Reducing waste. I don't have a lot of waste, I try to recycle as much as I can in this area and about 75% of my supplies are second hand. Working digitally doesn't create physical waste unless you print out things and I try to recycle print outs. I guess you could say the computer and tablet would be waste but I don't often buy new tech and keep things until they are dead beyond repair.

Prompt #10 is YOU, and yes I have posted these photos before, but this is me, well before the age of 3 so they count as photos of me. Plus a photo of my extra finger.

Prompt #9 is Story behind name. This is easy to answer, I like cute and fluffy things, draw a lot of dragons so having my business name be Fuzzydragons just made sense.

  Zazzle    Prompt #8 is Product Range. Most of my stuff is sold online through shops such as Zazzle, Redbubble etc plus the occasional traditionally done original. This is because I do not have the energy to make all of the products myself due to the MS, it can make creating sometimes difficult. Hence why I don't usually do craft/art fairs or cons. I just do not have the energy to, simple as that. My body when tired just shuts down, like moving in cement. So while I would love to do art fairs etc and make more physical stuff myself, its just not possible. Redbubble

Prompt #7 is the less glam side. I had no idea what to do for this prompt since I don't have time to get out the 'messy' art supplies and posting photos of paperwork is boring, so quickly grabbed some chalk pastels and made a simple 10 minute apple. I love pastels, I just don't love how messy they can be.

The prompt for today is Full or part time. I am a full time artist working in traditional medium and also digital. Plus trying to complete a Masters course at uni where I need to write a dissertation of 18,000 words for the end, ack! lol

Prompt #5 is Detail or close up. So here are some close ups from one of bird etchings. I really wish I had more time to start another etching because I love creating them, but between reading all the books for my Masters course and creating other artwork, finding the time is pretty hard.

Prompt #4 is Tools and Materials. I went from having really only a few sets of coloured pencils, some pens, and some watercolours to have too many art supplies to count. I bought some of it over the years, but got A LOT when a guy was giving stuff away for free. Needed storage space so this was the solution and it still wouldn't all fit and this tower is 5 feet tall. I will never have to buy chalk pastels ever again lol The stationary drawer Oil paints, which I don't have the time to use at the moment Coloured inks. I have stuff under my desk, on shelves above my desk, and in other boxes in the room. I def don't need anything else, I even have stuff to make stained glass windows which is great since I have always wanted to try. I'm not saying this to brag  just find it funny I go from having a few art supplies to having so much I don't know what to do with it all (and I usually tell people to wait and see if I have something before they go and ...

Prompt #3 for today is Flatlay , so used a photo of my desk. Looks a bit cluttered lol The jar of pencils is not always there though.

Deleted my Google+ account and thought I had deleted the whole blog as well. Total meltdown and panic stations, couldn't log in at all. John noticed that the blog was still online and he could log in, so obviously I hadn't killed the blog. However my account name was showing as "unknown", he couldn't remove my account from the blog either oddly despite blogger saying "deleted" (was going to try remove and readd to see if it unborked it) I then tried an old link I had saved for blogger and it prompted me to choose a display name, did that and everything seems to be working as normal again. So looks like I had my blogger account tied to Google+ and me deleting Google+ borked something, luckily recoverable though. Heart stopping moment along with my usual deflection "I was gonna quit anyway" (John saw through that lie in under a second :P ) Backup user account created as a precaution against further issues....

Prompt #2 for today is how you started and I was seeing people post either photos of them as babies or photos of their parents for the prompt and I thought it was a good idea. So here is me looking very angry at something haha and yes I was born with A LOT of hair. Probably also where my love of dogs started.