Bwa Ha Ha and stuff

Hooray Hooray, I made a friend who likes to do the same things we do, isn't a boozehound, likes dogs, and is only a block away from my house!

*happy dance*

Oh guys, I did a terrible horrible thing today..
I accidentally turned poor Mortimer into a poodle.. -sigh- poor lil' guy.
I had the clippers out earlier today to do his face and feet, as he's sliding around the floor now, and had to stop about midway because they were overheating.
I come into the 'puter room, and become immursed in my Bioshock medical pavillion boss battle, and awhile later get up to go to the bathroom,

right now I'm sitting here watching old pro bowling tourneys on youtube.. been looking to get myself a nice new ball, (a real one this time, not plastic ya' know.) and accessories.. bowling shoes, bag, giant see-saw (those shammy things for the balls), bag, wrist brace, the whole shebang!

I am miffed with the west coast though. Our sports stores don't carry bowling stuff!! How crazy is that? I've been told that a few of the bowling alleys in sacramento carry balls and etc, but good lord that's going to be pricey. alleys charge quite a bit more for items than msrp.
I may have to end up breaking down and ordering them off of bowlingball.com

here's the compare list I've got up there.. I really like Hammer's Cherry Vibe (dirty people lol)




but yea, anyways thats my day..

see ya'all later!
-------------------------------------

--by the way, I accidentally left this up all night, so now it's Sunday the 30th, and Joe and I are heading off to Guitar Center to get some kindof distortion box for his violin (and my future guitar, he says) :grin:

-bye!

Hey everybody! Happy New Year and all that Jazz

Just a thank-you journal :thanks:

Thank you thank you mom & dad for the tom tom!! WE LOVE THAT THING!! Haven't tried the dvd player yet, it's awesome too though. and mom, I can't wait to try out that color-adjuster thing for my screens.. It will make my life oh so much easier..

Thanks to Chrisann for the photo album of Joe's baby pictures, and the lovely Ulu knife and to my sis-in-law Elizabeth for making me all of those gorgeous earrings! -and Mortimer loves the toys you guys got him!

and thanks to my hubby for the two Jim Shore Disney Traditions figurines


and

new The ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 video card, new books, and BioShock!!!



AGHH! I love this game.. Socreepy, too!

I may have to do some fanart of it one day.. . I dunno though.. we'll see.



Current Projects

Right now, I'm working on...

1) Tiffany: 30% initial sketches and starting painting of 1 character
another digital poster for a yaoi FMA picture, and a couple prints of my Bowie painting

2) Stephanie: 20% doing a digital background, still need payment to buy paint
a giant acrylic painting on 9 smaller canvases.. it will be a romantic Paris night portrait

3) Ducky in the rain for children's illustration.. 98% need to scan it in now.

4) coloring ''million shades of grey" by overweightcat for fun.. painter keeps closing out in the middle of doing it though, so I don't know what's up..



Very Merry Christmas and
A Happy New Year

not feeling so hot

I really haven't been able to draw or paint since the accident, it kinda sent me into shock.. I'm a little behind on Tiff's commission. The whole ordeal threw me into a terrible cold, been puking my guts out, ect ect.. (I'm so sure you wanted to hear that..) just generally a teeny bit stressed out..
doesn't help that i don't have a single friend out here, -other than a really nice gal in Joe's squadron, but she is of course at work all the time.. -_-
and my family's all 3000 miles away.. none of my friends back home really seem to care about me anymore.. not that I blame them.. I understand lots of people have trouble with long-distance relationships.. its so easy to fall out of touch.. It feels like we've got nothing in common anymore whenever I talk to someone..
and we're stationed out in the middle of nowhere, which doesn't help.
OIY! I can't wait until we're done with the military. .
They made the poor man come into work today! good freaking grief!

I'm just so frustrated today with the way things work.. I'd go into detail, but its probably not a good idea.

bye for now.. sorry my journals always seem so complain-y.

and heres our photos

in case anyone wanted to know where I've been

My poor Joe..
-warning semi-gory details-
He was hit by a car early this weekend.. didn't obviously break any bones, we've got to get followup x-rays done.but he crushed his leg pretty badly.. He's ok, and he's home right now, in a wheelchair.. we spent almost 12 hours in the ER though.. he was starting to get Compartment syndrome, -when the swelling is so severe that the veins are crushed, and circulation for the entire body stops.. it would have killed him, or they would've had to amputate his leg if the ambulance had arrived 2 minutes later..

So, they stuck giant needles all the way through his leg, and partially cut it open to release the pressure. he had to be on oxygen..

NOT FUN. good thing is that Tri-Care is covering it all.. one less thing to worry about

anyways, just keep us in your thoughts..

thanks, kat

ah, nostalgia

Hey all..
Today we're going to finally go out sledding, or at least pinecone gathering... Taking Morty of course :)

Right now, I'm looking up some of stephen king's tales from the darkside tv show adaptations..
I've only read the 2nd collection of stories though, so I've got to be careful which ones I watch. I don't want to spoil myself, lol.

Right now I'm watching "The Moving Finger.." man, that would creep me out..
It's kinda comical to see it played out though.. what I imagined was alot scarier when reading the book..
here's part one & two.. here's some more episodes

Playing with the pup -december-

Hey all!
Just wanted to share some photos with you of Mortimer, playing in the front yard with Joe :)

end of november

Tomorrow, or at least this weekend.. We're going to go get a Christmas Tree! A real one!
It will be my first non-artificial Christmas.. How lovely :) Also going to be picking up lights and decorations and such... Got to get the chinchillas more hay too, they're out.. poor babies.
Ah, and maybe I can get some nice chunks of wood to carve.. that'll help relieve some stress.. I don't know what happened to the other two pieces I had.. they must still be in Oregon somewhere..


--and now, Artist's Rantings ..mainly about money.. you can relate...

Forewarning.. Don't take this too seriously, I adore art, it's what I do. and doing pictures for people makes me happy.

I'm... . just pissed with the economy and such..

that and I have nowhere else in the world to rant about such things. I don't want to spend all my time complaining to people, so typing it out feels better..
--
So, I've known for awhile that I'm really not making that much when it comes to my art. But today, I sat and calculated it out.. .

This year, I've had a little bit of money come into my account for commissions.
After subtracting all the costs of prints made, shipping, slight amount for gas (to get prints) tax, and fees... I've only "made" roughly 30% of it! .. and I've spent a good chunk of that on art supplies.. just not direct commissions...

So, I've had offers from 3 local art galleries to show my art.. From what I know, I can lease out a few pieces to them, and they'll sell prints, and give me a percentage.. probably 20 or 30 % of what they'd sell them for, plus the initial leasing fee I'd charge.. I was against doing this when I was first asked a few months ago, but over time, I've come to the conclusion that it would be better than just collecting dust, right?

Now what I need to do is get my act together..
Gather up my favourite pieces.. go spend a (very) small fortune getting a set of prints of my pictures made, (about 1-2 bucks for an 8x10) I've got alot of them, thats for sure..

Then I'll head out to Michael's I s'pose, buy some nice matting and cardstock, and a giant art binder, probably one of those over sized scrapbooks? I've got a huge one full of wedding photos, I think it would work.... and make myself a portfolio..

I wish there was a "How to establish yourself as an artist For Dummies!" book.. That would be so lovely..

I need to work with Joe and get the website's print-buying shop up..

I'm very hesitant to sell prints directly, because of the fact that the technicians at both of the Sam's Clubs' nearest to us are generally morons and ''break" the printer constantly.. I don't have a reliable, fast way of getting prints at the drop of a hat..

I really do want to get a professional photo printer with a printing girth of 60" but we're talking thousands of dollars, plus quality paper and ink ect. Ah, to be able to do my own canvas prints.. Wouldn't that be something!

We plan on getting one eventually, but I'm thinking it's not going to be while in the military.

So, for my own brain organization, theres my to-do list..

Merry Weekend to you all, and to all a some good cheer. something or other..

just a w.i.p. shot

a work in progress screenshot of something that I sketched out and am now painting in Painter.

Much much more difficult than photoshop.. It's taking a while to get used to..

You actually have to paint, mix, and take opacity and amount of oil/wetness of your media into account, just about like real life.. its REALLY weird.. but I like it..


ps you can click it to see a bigger view..


well, its almost 11.. got to go and pick up Joe from work..

maybe I'll take morty with me.. but he did get carsick last time.. I'll just let him chill in his kennel.. he's really taking well to it! He's gotten to the point where he'll just go and lay down or play in it on his own.. (which I calmly reward and praise him for.. a 'good boy! and a nibble always helps)

I can't wait to go and get some decorations.. as soon as we get a free day, off to the stores we go! I wonder what kindof stuff Target has this year.. they've always got interesting ornaments..

shaking in my socks

I'm nervous.. An online friend of mine is commissioning me to do a portrait of herself and her boyfriend. In acrylic. On 9 sheets of canvas..

*keels over*


this isn't the layout its' going to be in, but you can see why I'm a little intimidated.




here's the actual layout we determined to be the best.



So yea.. wish me luck!

I'm mainly concerned because I've got a really good concept painting on my pc, but I'm not entirely sure how to go about painting it in real life.. *sigh*


anyway, that's all for today..
just trying to keep busy, not think about how much I miss my family right now. .
you know how it goes..

Dad mentioned that he and mom and Chuck might come out for Christmas when I talked to him on thanksgiving..

haven't heard anything since that though.. so, we'll just wait and see..


ciao
-Kat

an affair to remember

So, my dear hubby managed to get me a copy of Painter 9, and I have this bizarre feeling of guilt, as if I'm cheating on photoshop.. -sighs-

In other news, we had Thanksgiving today with our friends Yesi and Anthony.. ^_^ they have work tomorrow, so we decided to do it a day early..

Joe and I bought a ton of food yesterday, and then hauled about half of our kitchen supplies (and Mortimer) to their house and I cooked us all dinner :)
It was super fantastically delicious.. I've never really cooked turkey and whatnot before, and wow, it was darn near perfect. The very first time I've actually liked roast turkey in my life. what a difference seasoning *and not turning it into jerky* will make..

We all watched Donnie Darkko while we were waiting for the bird to finish cooking, what a trippy movie!

While eating, we put on The Princess Bride in the other room, and we all started quoting lines from the movie at random... we're an odd bunch ^^

after cleaning up the kitchen, we then munched on pie and played wii sports for a couple hours..

I kicked some butt in wii boxing.. *woot* i pwn you Anthony!

But by far my favorite is bowling.. we've decided that we should go find a real bowling alley somewhere and play together.. (the alley on base is $12 a game, plus $5 shoe rental!! CRAZY I tell you) I really need to get myself a new ball and shoes..

Myball is back home with mom and dad, but at 17 lbs it is just a bit too heavy.. the thumb hole is too far from the finger holes, too. Last time I played with it, I partially dislocated my middle finger and thumb.. Ouch!

My shoes were too small too.. they're only size 10 and I'm an 11. at least. Joe seems to want to get his own ball too, though he's not really the most serious player.. I hope now that we've got someone to play with he'll be more enthusiastic.

He hates bowling with just me.. says I'm too serious and make him feel bad because I'm better at it than him.. Awwww poor baby.. So one of these days we'll go bowling ball hunting

Morty was extremely well behaved, and loooved their big fenced backyard, which has the plushiest grass I've ever seen.. it really is comparable to a green mattress.

Oh yea, and the other day, we went to the colonel's house for a little party, I was chatting with his wife Lana about Morty, and with her permission, I asked if I could run home and grab him.
We had a little introduction with their doggy in neutral territory, and after some sniffing and wagging of tails, seemed to give him permission to follow her onto the back deck.. He and their big old mutt Sydney got along so well.. it was fun watching them play together :) Morty had such a blast!

Its really sad to be so far away from family at this time of year.. -_- no kids running around, no snow, *giggles* no family quarrels or far too noisy card games..

So, I sit here, thinking about how I should go about decorating our little house.. where we put our lights when we moved here.. ect..

listening to the Sega genesis' Sonic soundtracks.. i really want to play sonic 3 right now.. Tails is awesome

and heartlessly cheating on dear photoshop with my newfound love. I tell you this program is amazing. . watercoloring is soooo much fun.. *geeks out*


toodles

oh one more thing. turns out the santa track project is pretty much just going to the folks at beale.. being sent out as a newsletter thingy, and will allow people to sign up for tours of the santa tracking headquarters. It will most likely get printed on t-shirts and sold at the event..

Media is micron pens, watercolors, photoshop to darken and touch up, added moon.

a little bit of coolness

So, guess what guys?? I get to do new graphics for the Beale Division Norad Santa Tracking Website, as they're doing it this year. Neato Magnifico

Most cool, huh!

In other news, we got our pup a nice big airline style kennel today.. finally..

Ah yes, and Mortimer became the new Simba for a little while today!



if nobody gets that, I shall cry.

November's Pile of Art

So, I would like to show ya'all what I'm working on..some of it I just got finished with, and the urge to show someone and ask what they think is very strong..


not a commission..merely for my own grueling learning experience..
oh my lord the proudness of this piece.. it oozes out of me.. this picture has probably over 400 hours of work.. Been working on this for months on and off.. Oh, its also HUGE in real life.. cant' wait to get a print of this..



older commission, just got re-touched and sent. chinchilla and jet fighter


not a commission, but a contest-prize.. a portrait of my sweet online friend Michi and her love!




Cozmik, yo! This one's a secret birthday present, so I'll hide it.. not that any parties of whom it's for even know about this blog, but hey.. can't be too careful
**don't click if you are a friend of tiffany** http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v690/kjsbrk/5001.jpg

just a bit of cuteness of one of my clients and her boyfriend..


Random People..



A Phantom Poodle.. cause I think they're cool.. wanted to make it look like a snapshot


A stylized poodle named Prince.. trying for a watercolor look with photoshop..


A fallen angel.. trying new coloring methods, and just having fun drawing different perspectives..

wolfy project

So, haven't been up to a lot lately.. Mailed off a picture, working on a commissions, not a really big one, (well i guess literally it is.. poster sized ya know.. ) but it's nice to have something to work on. I get burned out sometimes.. can't think of anything to draw.. writer's block some would call it.
though, I am currently working on a weird anthropomorphic picture.. I've never really done a true anthro piece; thought I'd give it a try..
here, this is her head.. I'm doing it in photoshop, but its beginning to look like ballpoint pen..interesting how that happens..
I really like how it's coming out though ^^

utterly confusing

hello again, folks..

I have a quick question...

how the heck do you get your dog to stop eating dirt?

Mortimer runs out into the backyard, pees, and then looks for dirt to sink his teeth into..

I can't figure it out.. I yell at him, drag him away, give him something good to chew on, but as soon as possible, he goes right back to it..

he's especially fond of dirt that has been stirred up by moles.. oh, and potted plants, too.




Oh, I also made up a neater composition of my commission prices..

Remember to fill out the order form to get started.

This is what your order will look like when I receive it.

photoshoot with the corgi gang

Well, as I still can't find my camera's usb cord, I was prompted by boredom to sift through cd's I'd burned of my trip to Oregon..

Here are my favourite pictures from Carolyn's backyard.. :) I really wish I'd gotten more.. but ah well. . . starting off, Digger sitting on my lap! Also in here are a couple shots of Phoebe and Hux

town & country and other stuff

'Cause I forgot to stick this in the last journal, Here's a great example of the Town and Country clip photo taken by stock artist/ dog groomer http://crystalspics.deviantart.com/

By the way, commissions are open, if anyone would like me to do a picture for them! I really need some help buying a good pair of clippers to trim my little beastie...

November commission info

Yesterday, I managed to get Morty to hold still and let me trim his face.. *cracks up* but noo, I have really loud, hot, shaky and scary clippers and he decided to jerk away suddenly and I SHAVED the area inbetween his eyes.. poor little thing.. luckily his hair grows out really fast, so he'll look ok by next week.. I'll have to get a photo later..

ooh, and I made the most yummy chicken noodle soup and pumkin bread yesterday!

the soup had carrots, cabbage, zucchini, celery, red bell pepper, potato, garlic clove, red onion, broccoli, peas, fresh parsley, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, salt, pepper, paprika, chicken breast, wide no yolks egg noodles.. and I think a couple other things?

crap.. my usb cord for my camera has disappeared.. I'll have to upload a pic later..

Moved miss mika back into our bedroom.. Morty is doing well with his housetraining, he's able to hold it all night now (though boy is he happy to be let out first thing in the morning! He flies out the door)

Stuff about the furball

Hey, folks!

Ok, some stuff about Mr.Mortimer. . He's 3 mos, and is starting to get his new teeth.. Very
..umm.. what would the word be.. chompy? lately.

He weighs about 18 lbs currently (was 16 lbs at 12 1/2 weeks, but I know he's gotten a tiny bit bigger since. His dad is 61 lbs and mom's 50 lbs. Very pretty, nice dogs, too!
He was one of the smaller pups of the litter, (more the size of the girls then the boys) and it has
been estimated that he'll grow to about 54 or 56 lbs.

(a brother of his is a giant and going to reach min. of 85 lbs apparently!)

what else would be useful.. When we got him, he was on iams puppy smart, but we've
switched him over to Purina puppy chow for now.. but .. I would like to feed a homemade diet, (like raw diet, only I might cook the meat knowing how extremely sensitive I am to germs.. we'll have to see) but what I'm trying to get at is that I don't really know where to start..

When he grows out of his puppy hair, I want to keep him in the ''town and country'' clip. Tis' my
favourtite. I really need to get some new clippers.. I'd like to get the speed feed wireless
rechargeable kit made by Laube. They look really nice, and I've talked to and seen a few people use these. nice and quiet and they don't get hot!
They come with 5 blades and 4 combs, 2 rechargeable batteries and dual batt. charger to put it
in.

-morty with a new chew toy-

would you believe it

We got a puppy dog!!

For the past year, it's been up in the air with us whether to get a standard poodle, or a corgi. We'd decided to wait on getting a corgi until we have older kids, and a nice farm for him to run around on..

Plus, after visiting with Carolyn, all the way home I was having rather bad asthma symptoms.. couldn't breathe well and my air passages were closing constantly.. Really sad becuase I adore corgis.. :(

So, after a couple weeks of hard thinking, debating, and wringing of hands, we called up some poodle breeders, and went to visit a couple..

Though I was looking to get a white or parti-color, I absolutley fell in love with a little black male, just a total sweetie.. We clicked instantly, and that was that!

Here are some photos of our new baby, Mortimer

before haircut pics

after haircut pics

I've always wanted a standard poodle, but I was convinced that Joe wouldn't want one.. I was pleasantly surprised that he was all for it! (he doesn't like the minis and toys)

I know that poodles are alot of work, but I really enjoy the grooming process, and Morty dosen't seem to mind either for that matter. he fell asleep while I was clipping his feet.. *aww*


Just thought I'd post that ^_^

In other news, it's been a really rough week.. I've had a few people flaming the crap out of me and calling me a lier, ect ect.. all sorts of other fun stuff.. all because of some technical glitches and lack of mailing addresses.. gotta love the internet, right? *sarcasm*

Jasmine progress

It's a nice rainy day.. I love to draw on rainy days.. and listen to music..
right now I've got coldplay on in the background. and weird al. I'm a strange person.

Right now I'm working on the Jasmine picture..

Here's a step-by-step of how I'm going along..







I apologize for all of the watermarking on the last picture. I have problems with people stealing bits of my finished pictures and selling them as icons and whatnot.

Just sat down to have lunch and drop a quick note.. I'm taking a break from cleaning and stuff..
I decided to re-arrange my living room.. It's a really awkward space, and we never use it because there's no real place to sit and do anything.. I'm in a doing-stuff kind of mood today..

Last night, Joe and I moved my gargantuan desk out of there, and now I'm set up next to 'da hubby's computer in our "office" aka spare bedroom.

All the junk I had crammed in my cabinets is all over the living room and in rubbermaid containers.. slowly making my way through it all..


Oh! And I'm in the midst of painting our bedroom just about this color, but have run out of paint, and have to wait a bit to get more.. We only got one of those tiny tester buckets, and I got almost 1 whole wall out of it. Yeay! I know that we're going to probably be moving within 6 months, but I really can't stand the white walls anymore.

(plus we got the painting supplies before we found out about the whole deal)

ok.
I'm probably boring you all to death.

ciao for now!

thursdays are boring

Not really, but this particular thursday is..

Got up today, and I wasn't feeling so hot. Something about the water on base the past month or so has been making me extremely sick, and silly me forgot to double boil it thismorning and just drank a coffecup of it.

So, I sat and read the news, got on the computer and watched old episodes of Disney's Wonderful World of Color, Disneyland (the show) and umm, some Silly Symphonies. Still feeling sick, but a bit better. Joe got home at 12:30 or so and picked me up, we were going to go grocery shopping, but he was hungry so we stopped at the base x-change and got a sandwhich. Made us both sick so we just came back home.

What a day! *cringes*

I just sketched this up.. going to do pretty linework now, and color it.


back to sitting here wincing as my stomach does acrobatics..

perhaps not so bad after all

Ok, as of today, I now have an actual copy of said lease, as well as floorplans and details and the assurance that they won't be tossing us out on the street when they tear our house down.

--which they are going to do, poor old house, I just don't know when yet. Our house was built I believe they said in the 1940's, and it practically oozes aspestos. They've been demolishing the homes like ours all around us the past few months, taking out entire streets at a time.

Looks like they're renovating the 80's houses, so that's cool. I'm hoping we'll be lucky enough to get one of the new 2 story models, but hey, I'll be ok with the other options too.



I'm just incredibly relieved at knowing that we'll have a place to live, and that our neighbor had a few things backwards.



Turns out that there will be a large allowance for utilities, and if we go over said amount in a month, we'll have to pay the difference. Nooo problem. It will pretty much be the way it was before, only a little more fair.


They will be paying for all moving costs, too. Haven't gotten to talk to the housing office yet, cause of the weekend and then, get this, they're closed today because of Columbus day. Come on, people!

Anyway, our designated lease signing day is tomorrow.


sorry for crappy pic, its what they had up.
Oh and do you want to know something weird? We're not allowed to have our own gardens. I guess I'll have to get a million pots and dig up all of my flowers and shrubs and such that we planted this summer.. keep them on the deck or something..

One good thing, lease says the landscaping is free.

I'm beginning to think this will be ok after all. . Sure it was sprung on us with no warning, and I've spent the past few days literally worrying myself sick and not sleeping..
But I feel much better now.. *whew*