Let's Make It Official

Things have been quiet around this blog lately because I've moved on from blogger to tumblr. I realized today that I never officially posted to say that I wouldn't still be posting here. I chose to move to tumblr for a couple of reasons: one, their upload process is faster, and more importantly two, they have much higher image resolution (and don't muck as much with the resolution YOU set). So, since this is in fact an art blog, I figured it'd be better to use a service that keeps my images looking as true to how I made them as possible.

So, the new blog is: vanessamakesthings.tumblr.com

I will eventually, probably sometime this December or January, have a full website going as well. I'll update here when I do! See you there!

Finally, a new topic: Fashion!

Sorry for the delay in getting these up here. After school let out for the summer I was finishing up a comic and then went to Maui for two weeks. Now that I'm back, I'm getting back into the swing of things, and enjoying being able to devote a lot more time to my own personal projects. This sketchmonth's topic is inspired by an assignment I had last semester where I had to make some fashion illustrations. I had so much for doing them and I have so many inspirations that are fashion related that I decided to make this month's (July, I'm starting early) topic fashion illustrations. I'm also using this as excuse to use my tablet every day. Cintiq, I'm afraid I've fallen in love with you.

Short Hiatus

In order to finish up some intense projects, I'm going to be putting this blog on hold for a month. After the semester is over, I'll be on a two week vacation, so after that I'll be starting up again here with a new topic. I'll still be posting bits and pieces of what I'm working on over at my other blog. See you guys in a month!

Cars: Early End, Review, and a Severely Allergic Story

So rather than post a bunch of half-hearted crap, I'm deciding to end this category a little early. Though I'm enjoying drawing cars, I'm not in the mindset to be super creative with my directions right now, so I'm basically just doing the same thing over and over again and I don't think I'm getting out of it what I should. Oh well, part of the point of doing projects like this is figuring out what doesn't work. As Edison said, "I have successfully discovered 1000 ways to NOT make a lightbulb."

In a somewhat related vein, I have a lot more answers regarding my health problems I posted about last time: I have iron-deficiency related anemia and I am apparently allergic to damn near everything.

Yesterday I had an allergy test done, which involves somewhere between 70-100 substances scratched into your back with a needle while you wear this silly little half-shirt. It feels somewhat akin to pricking yourself with a sewing needle, only about 100 times. Even before the nurse had completed the test my back was itching like crazy and I started to have giant hives. Normally you wait for 15 minutes to let your body react before the doctor comes in, reads the size of the reaction, and determines how allergic you are to each thing. I made it about 7 minutes before the nurse went out into the hallway, where I could hear her going, "Um, I think you should come in here." By this point, my back was itching like crazy, I was nauseous and flushed, and both of my forearms were bright red and covered with a rash. The doctor came back in, speed-read my back, and then said, "Well, you're definitely severely allergic," and then to the nurse, "Will you get some epi ready?" (Read as epinephrine.) Dear lord, I thought, laid down on the little table and presented my shoulder for a giant friggin' needle. "I think it's ironic that on epi-pen packages they say step 1, inject yourself with adrenaline, step two stay calm," I joked with the nurse as she injected me. "Yeah," she said, "That's not going to happen."

Yeah, it's not is right. Epinephrine is just adrenaline, and when you already have plenty of your own pumping around in your system (and you're small), a giant dose of this in your arm makes you shake uncontrollably and cry uncontrollably - talk about embarrassing. You're aware that it's superficial, that you're not actually that terrified, but your body is convinced that it is, and it makes you freak out. So I laid there, shaking like crazy for about 20 minutes before this strange sense of, "Hey, it's gone," came over me and the rash had disappeared, I could breathe totally normally, and was only mildly convulsive. I was, to be frank, impressed. That, combined with the zyrtec I was given, made me feel drained, shaky and exhausted for hours (and unbelievably forgetful - in about three hours I left my cellphone or purse in three separate places). I think I slept around 20 hours yesterday and today.

The funny part? I wasn't even tested for shellfish, the thing I already have an epi-pen for. So here, for shits and giggles, is the entire list of my allergies in decreasing order:

shellfish (shrimp), dustmites, grass, trees, cats, dogs, cockroaches (ew), ragweed, lettuce (who knew you could be allergic to lettuce!?), broccoli, walnuts, corn, oats, oranges, acacia gum, almonds, bananas, barley, cashews, cherries, cinnamon, grapes, spinach, and pineapple.

Fun. For now, I'm cutting all of them (besides my doggies!) out of my life and then with some of the lesser ones near the end of the list, I might try to add them back in one at a time to see if the chronic hives return. Suffice it to say, I have a pretty clear idea where the near-daily hives were coming from!

Cars: Day 10-14

Sorry to be posting these so late. I got a new computer last weekend because my laptop's hard drive was making the sound of a pencil stuck in a plastic room fan and it took a while to get my scanner set up on this computer, but here's this week's sketches. I was away from my house a lot this week thanks to having to spend almost three hours in my closet due to tornado warnings (I'd much rather spend severe thunderstorms in UIUC's sturdy basements than my husband's over-crowded closet), so these are in pencil.

I also started up a tumblr blog for my general blog where I'll be posting more completed works than what'll go here. I want this to be a sketch exercise where I'm not concerned with making things perfect because I'm forcing myself to draw things that are new, which also means that there'll be plenty of crap in here while I'm figuring things out. My general blog will have much more than just illustration. I'll be posting graphic design, sewing projects of mine, comics and basically tid-bits from every little thing I'm working on.

Check it out what things Vanessa makes at: vanessamakesthings.tumblr.com

I've already posted some design projects.

Girls: Recap

Well, here we are at the end of the month! I plan on taking a moment at the end of each topic to write down how I think it went so I can learn from the experience. Certain things worked really well this month, and certain things obviously didn't.

I enjoyed having a personal project that had nothing to do with work or school. It helped keep me inspired and actually made me really productive on all of my work because it was refreshing to work on something personal when I was getting frustrated with a design project. It's also very helpful for me to shift gears - if I've been designing all day and the last thing I want to do is kern or mess with point sizes, I can do something a lot more open and playful and without rules. It's inspiring.

However, I sort of took this too far. :) I focused so much on channeling all my illustration ideas into my sketches until they weren't really sketches anymore. Part of the issue I realized is that this is my only blog currently and though it's called "sketchmonth," I started combining it really early on with other personal projects of mine so I was determined to make everything perfect and flawless. I think I'll be starting another blog soon (I have the url, but it's not up yet) for my regular work so that this project can be what it was intended to be: sketches.

Along those same lines, I'm probably going to change the structure of this project a little. I'm going to give myself weekends. I have a tendency to overbook myself and to expect myself to work seven days a week. I've done this ever since high school and I haven't taken consistent weekends since I was a teenager. Though I still have enough projects that I'll still be working on the weekends, thank you two jobs and school, I'll be letting myself take weekends on this project. I don't want to burn out on it.

And finally, I'm not ever sure how much personal information to put into blogs (I generally err on the side of next to none), but this is a bit relevant, I guess, because it affects my productivity. I was late in posting my last couple of drawings due to some medical problems that like to reassert their ugly little heads every now and then. Since 2005-ish I've had varying levels of thyroid problems (originally I was hyperthyroid, now it appears to be going the other way) and chronic hives (daily for the last four months). The list of symptoms of this is long and whiny (including such lovely tidbits as chronic fatigue and hair loss), but suffice it to say it's debilitating. I get to go back to the doctor again Monday and have my levels re-checked and hopefully I can finally convince them to send me on to an endocrinologist. The internet seems to imply that synthetic thyroid hormones can also alleviate chronic urticaria, so that'd be great. Just don't let it be lupus. :P

Anyway, all whiny shit aside, I'm enjoying my little project here and I intend to keep it up, no matter what my stupid body tries to do to me. I'll be posting again on Monday (taking that much needed weekend) with my new theme: cars. :)

(By the way, I mentioned a picture of Josephine and Arlen a few posts back that I never uploaded. That is because, like a total dumbass, I spilled ink on it! Yay! And because the damned thing is 13x19ish, it was too big to redo quickly. I'll post it when I get a chance to completely retrace and reink it, because as you may have noted, I am a perfectionist and it's pissing me off.)

Announcing Sketch Month!

My name is Vanessa Lynn and I'm an illustrator, graphic designer and comic book artist. This blog will be the home of one of my art experiments: each month I'm going to assign myself a topic and every day I'm going to post a sketch or drawing (with varying levels of completeness) on that topic.

The goal of this project is to force myself to draw every single day something purely for myself and not for an assignment. I want to push myself to be creative in my drawings and try out different styles and rendering techniques. And finally, I want to get myself into the habit of drawing things outside my comfort zone. All of this is to grow as an artist.

My first topic will be what I'm best at: girls in black and white. I'm picking my favorite thing to draw first so that I can get into the habit of posting daily.

I'll begin with this topic starting March 1st. See you then!