collage

Angels Dark and Dumb Releasing on Kindle Vella

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Sharing one of my favorite horror collages. These were originally done to identify where to read horror, but I’ve decided to remove the banners and just go with the collages going forward. I like how the orange lady bugs create contrast in this one. Lately, I’ve been thinking of pairing these with a horror poem. I may have mentioned this already in a post a couple weeks ago. Then I look at my task list and laugh. Yeah, fit in yet another project. What am I nuts.

Angels Dark and Dumb News: I started releasing the series on Kindle Vella. It starts with Fall for Freedom and goes through the series from there. Click here to go to the series page and read.

Short and sweet this week. Have a great day!

Quick and Simple is Likeable Too

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Today I’m presenting a piece that shows the insanity of creating art pieces. I love the way this turned out and I did it in 10 minutes. Other times I can take hours, days, or months to complete a piece and I absolutely hate it in the end.

Maybe I’m a little crazy to keep every single piece of art I create, be it a sketch or partially completed piece or a complete work of art. I do the same with every story I write. Throwing them away is like killing my kids. Even worse, our diva beagle who rates much higher in the order of children.

Anyway, I really like this piece. It’s a lot of fun to take everyday items from around the house and throw together a collage. There’s just something about shapes and my brain that go well together too. Building or creating with your hands is so satisfying.

Every time I look at this one, I feel inspiration to do something similar. For a long time I’ve wanted to hit all the thrift stores for items to use in a collage. Professing it here may get me out there quicker.

Have a great week!

Ladies of Horror: Grace Jones as Vamp

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Another blast from the past with the movie Vamp, starring Grace Jones. The movie was released in 1986, and I remember seeing it in the theater. The 80s horror movies were filled with students getting in trouble with various types of monsters, and this movie is no different. For the trivia piece, Grace Jones doesn’t speak at all in the movie. While I went with one of her beautiful portraits that’s used on the movie poster, seeing her in true vampire form is worth a look. I love the red wig! I strayed from the usual purple color scheme because she needed the red hair and contrasting skin colors. I’m kinda regretting not giving her the striking blue eyes, but I can always change it later.

Reminder that this series is a mix of Ladies of Horror from TV and movies done in a Patrick Nagel style. I started these to better learn the Pen tool in Adobe Illustrator, and they’ve become an obsession. If there’s a lady you’d like to see, leave her in a comment.

Minor news on Angels Dark and Dumb. No news this week on cover progress and such. I have started a series of collages based on the characters I have in full body by the cover artist, Atrtink Covers. Look for them on my social accounts, links at the bottom of the page. Some for Margery have already posted. I’ll change to her full-body caricature once I get it. More coming for her and Barry, Trisha, Azael, and the hellhound in coming weeks.

Until next week…

Drink Til You Puke

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Going back to an old class project again this week. The assignment was to choose some art styles, and this one is Punk art. This style tends to have words and look more poster-ish. Did this in Canva and Adobe Photoshop.

Have been playing around with Adobe Express, which used to have a different name. It’s basically equivalent to Canva. I think I prefer it because they are doing a better job of integrating their AI image generator. I generally prefer navigation around the screen there too. I have used Canva forever and I think I just got too settled using it.

Minor news on Angels Dark and Dumb. I was able to review updates to Barry on the first 2 book covers. And Margery is done, but I’ll wait until next week to reveal her. Everything should be done by then, and I should be able to republish everything as well.

In other exciting Angels Dark and Dumb news, I’m making progress on the updated outline. I finished a pass through it and am still happy with the general story. I’m not happy with Barry’s character arc, so that will require another pass through the outline. The good news is that I plan to release the book on Vella as it’s being written, so you won’t have to wait 10 years for another book.

Until next week…

Death of Medusa

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For the last week, I’ve mostly been working on other people’s or writer’s artwork and books, so I dug through the archives again. This is another school project I’m thinking I’d like to revisit with a different subject matter. Hmm… What might I do, because ideas are half the battle?

The subject of this piece is obviously Medusa. What makes it so fun is that it is a deconstruction as you can see in the second image. This was originally done as a construction paper cut out. Each side was in balance to start, and then I cut the pieces to complete the deconstruction.

Fitting for a horror comedy writer and artist to have a love of scissors. I do a lot of pieces by first cutting out shapes to create templates, especially if they are geometric pieces. Then I like to bring these into Adobe Illustrator and trace them.

Minor news on Angels Dark and Dumb. I received an updated look at the Margery character drawing and it’s a hoot. I can’t wait to unveil her. Otherwise, covers are almost done too.

Until next week…