No rest for the wicked.

I’d forgotten how much work school is and am paying for that mistake. I’m working 30-35 hours the last two weeks, plus a 5-class course load this semester and the resulting homework, plus commission work, PLUS an upcoming art show. I’m getting little sleep these days.

I know this isn’t much of an update. I’ll have a write-up for the Back To School Skate Jam show soon. I’ve also got an incoming group show called “30 Under 30” opening Oct 7th, so watch for the Facebook event posted both here and my FB page, and a write-up on it soon after.

This whole thing depends on amnesia and madness.

I went and did it.  After five years of being an art school dropout, I finally went back to finish my degree.  My old school Chester College of New England accepted me back and managed to squeeze me into the Fall semester just in time!  I had 52 credits from my previous years, and they managed to tranfer 34 credits from my time at UMA (thank GOD my time at UMA did not go to waste).  So the 86 total credits puts me at just under Senior status and means just 3 semesters to go! I’m super excited. I started last Wednesday, and my schedule consists of Art History 1, World Civilizations 1, Primary Studios, Figure Drawing (all 100 lvls), and Professional Practices For Artists (400 lvl). I’m especially stoked for Professional Practices – it’s going to give me some really good advice and techniques in being a professional artist, from networking advice to artist statements and getting into galleries and grad school (more interested in the galleries – i’m so done with school for a while after this).

However, it’s a bittersweet return. My parents aren’t nearly so estatic about my returning to school. You’d think parents would be pleased that their oldest child would be getting a degree in ANYTHING these days, but all they can worry about is the price tag and how supposedly I can’t get a job with my degree that’ll make the tens of thousands of dollars in loans worth it. I understand their fear – it’s a hell of a lot of money! But I’m bettering myself and arming myself with the tools necessary to survive in the art world, and that to me is worth every penny. It would be much worse to never go back and make all the money spent thus far worth nothing at all. But, parents. What can you do. At least my sisters completely have my back. It feels good to know someone in my family doesn’t think it’s a waste of time and money. But it hurts to know my parents don’t support my decision at all. It really really hurts. And the thing is, for all their worry and trying to talk me out of it, I’m still going back, and they have nothing for their trouble except tension between us now. That really kills me.

Another thing that isn’t helping my situation at all is work. My hours are being cut in half because of my schedule. 16 hours this week. 16. I can’t survive on hours like that, even at what I make. I need at least 23-24 hours to clear $200 a week after taxes are taken out, and that will barely get me by. I’ve talked to everyone over my head who has anything to do with my schedule, the general consensus is “We’ll see what we can do.” This does nothing to assuage my panic. Getting a second job is going to be very difficult, just with juggling all three schedules, and it could in fact hamper my schedule at my main job even more. There are too many risks and not enough concrete-ness going on, and that makes me horribly afraid of the future. Better yet, my department will be switching to the Cronos program for scheduling, which bases hours on availability and could either make my situation better or much worse. I hate this. But I REFUSE to quit school because of these bastards. I won’t.

So my best bet is to just peddle my wares even harder, focus on fantastic grades and a kick-ass portfolio and tackle more scholarships for next semester, and thank God I have my roommate/better half who has graciously offered to help me with bills and cover rent while I try and get my situation to straighten itself out (for the better, hopefully).

Expect more pieces showing up in my shop and two blank skate decks becoming available for commission on my FB page.

And may the saints preserve me, for the love of God or whoever is listening.

Granite Skate Back To School Skate Jam

Come one, come all! This’ll be fun. :3

Back from the dead!

So yeah, hahaha, apparently I’m infuriatingly fickle with some things, including this. I admit to forgetting about this blog, went and made another at blogspot, then recalled I had this and decided to come back (because my website will be made with WordPress, so it’ll just be easier to integrate my blog if it’s here already). So sorry guys!

I’ll be backdating a few entries from my blogspot blog, then closing that and resuming here. So please bear with me if some of this stuff looks familiar.

It feels good to be back though! Anyone miss me? ❤

Why hello there, SAI

 

 

A new character happened while I was experimenting with paint tool SAI (i may keep this instead of dl’ing photoshop again) while waiting on a commission. LOOK MA, I CAN ACTUALLY PAINT digitally and not just do cell shading all the goddamned time. No excuse for the lame character sheet however.

His name is Jed (short for Jedidiah – shuddup), he’s a lop-eared hare (shuddup again), and i love that shade of green in his coat. He’s a friend for Sparrow who isn’t as scary as Ail. He’s (tentatively) a traveler and something of a conjurer. Like a busker but instead of playing music he makes pretty lights and smoke things happen. And he’s a mad collector of watch parts and brass things and bells.

My anatomy is getting away from me. :< But i do have to be proud of that ear and his nose/mouth. Also, watch gears are HRD.

Now to go back to something useful…

Best artist advice ever.

Someone I watch reblogged this on Tumblr and not only did I reblog it in turn on my own account but I had to add this here. Because it is really that important. I’m not even kidding.

KOU on Facebook!

Finally got to making a Facebook page for my art! I’ll be posting anything art related there instead of to my personal FB – new art, updates on upcoming shows, anything! Of course, if you want the full story on anything, then come over here where I will spout on and on with more info than you’d probably care about. :3

Also I’ve got a Twitter account now, mainly for alerting followers of new posts here and new items in my shop!

Like KOU on Facebook!

Follow me on Twitter!

Come follow me, guys!

New skateboard deck finished!

_{“Cosmic Love”
acrylic and pencil on 8″ Canadian maple / 2011}

Finished my very first skateboard deck EVER. This was quite a learning experience for me, never having worked on such a shape or material. It’s solid Canadian maple and it’s surprisingly forgiving for pencil but really wants nothing to do with wet media. It took a lot of babying and ibuprofen to get through the wet acrylic section of the figure, but it was worth it as I got to keep the sketchy pencil outlines that I wanted to keep so badly. Do wet media again though? …When I’m feeling more adventurous and masochistic.

Have some work in progress shots!

_{This half-painted stage I actually like better than the finished product, personally.}

This deck will be shown and available for purchase at the Granite Skate indoor skate park in Nashua, NH on Sept 10th, then at the Steez Gallery from the 11th til the end of the month! I’ll be posting more about the upcoming show as soon as I know more information.

Peace out!

4×4 Show at the Steez! – July 8th-31st 2011

Well, having an art blog, you’d think the first thing I’d write about was art shows! Hahaha, consider that remedied now. It’s kind of exciting for me to write about art shows as I never really got involved in them with exception of a couple I got into sort of randomly in the past few years. It’s different now, because this’ll be my second show in a matter of months instead of a couple years in between! I missed out on writing about the Salon Style and 4/20 at the Steez Gallery in Nashua, NH back in May, but I’ll make up for that by writing about my current show.

We got a bit written in the Hippo about the show! I’ll save you the trouble of having to read the same information I was about to write that the Hippo clip provides for me.

This show is especially exciting for me for a number of reasons. I had participated in the open-call show Salon Style at the gallery back in May, my first bit of participation since the launch party of Marginalia Studios in August (if you count that as a show – I did get to show off work, so I guess that does count!). Aimee Cozza, the gallery’s art director, liked my work and invited me to join in a special four-person show in July. Obviously I jumped on that in a heartbeat, and I’m incredibly honored to have been asked to join in in the first place. This is the first time I’ve ever been asked to return to a gallery before.

This is also made awesome because of my fellow artists in it. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Sam Paolini, albeit briefly, at the opening reception, and I’ve gotten to talk to both her and Sara Richard on Facebook. I haven’t gotten to meet James period, but here’s hoping we’ll cross paths eventually. Showing alongside such talented people has both utterly terrified me and made me absolutely chomping at the bit to make more work.
Still giggling at the “nomadic artist” bit I got in the Hippo article. It was a bit of a joke title (that I now seem to take seriously) because of when I moved four times in as many years. I can’t sit still it seems! And it seems I’ll live up to the name yet again come February, but that’s for another time.

The Steez is such an awesome place to get to show work at. So many gorgeous hand-blown glass pipes all over the shop. Makes me want to learn to do it too! Always room for more skills, am I right?

(p.s. Many thanks to Aimee Cozza and the Steez for permission to use their photos.)

I chose 5 pieces to show and almost all of them originals. Hung here, clockwise from top left:  “Cu Sidhe” – acrylic on canvas / “Like It Rough” – digital work, gliclee print / “El Sastre” – acrylic on gallery-wrap canvas / “37mm (1 + 2)” – acrylic on gallery-wrap canvas / “Persephone” – acrylic on masonite

The opening reception was quite fun! My home-girls backed me up like what, and it was their presence that kept me sane and stable through the whole thing (so many thanks and love to Draco, Nicole and Kelsey)! And a coworker and her husband came to represent, complete with a handful of bra-hogging sugar gliders. (Magic trick – here’s two!) And the bands The Awkward Robot and Comma came to entertain us, to our delight and notsomuch delight of the cop-calling neighbors.

All in all, it was successful and I’m looking forward to more! Watch for a custom-painted skateboard/longboard show come September. I will at least have a couple decks for sale – completely usable as boards or just to hang on your wall.

Peace out!

Zvezda

Update on the painting from this entry. :3

_{“Zvezda (Star)”
acrylic on canvas / 24″x36″ / 2009}

JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN USE ALL THE COLORS ON THE COLOR WHEEL, DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULD, KOU.

Yeah, that about sums up this painting. It came from a sketch I had floating around in one of a stack of half-filled books, and I liked it. So I used it as an excuse to create something retina-melting. Also a good excuse not to have to mix a proper skin color.

That and I like bikini tops with long skirts.

Original painting for sale HERE in my Etsy shop!