I gave in and I hopped on over to wordpress.com. Although I love blogger like a lost child, wordpress offers pages, and can be tricked into looking like a web page. So here it is, the launch of my new blog:

http://lobotomybunny.wordpress.com/

You can still follow my new wordpress from your blogger page, so no worries. Thanks for following!!

Pages 10 - 11

YES!! I love getting things done. :D I am more than halfway through my book and am on a roll. The text in this image has been edited and can be read if you so desire, although I really do suggest waiting until you have a hard copy in your hands; I've worked hard on this, you know!!

Boston!

Its been a really rough month, but I'm getting through it. Spring break was much needed, and a few of my friends and I went on a pretty amazing road trip this past few days to Boston. We went to the Aquarium first, where we stared at the little penguins for about 10 hours. I am by no means a photographer, but I certainly love color in a way that can't be explained, so I snapped some of these photos while I was there.
We traveled over to the ICA after that to see the Shepard Fairey exhibit, which is totally worth seeing, if you haven't already. Rachel made a point to photograph all the Shepard Fairey graffiti around the city once we got there, which was fun to look for and to point out. The best was this, over in Chinatown:
There I am in front of the wall of awesome art work. It was pretty great to see, especially after seeing the ICA exhibit.
We spend the previous night making stickers to tag around the city, and our best spot was this street sign, where we spotted a Shepard Fairey sticker... we added our friends to keep him company.

There was just too much to see. We're going to have to go back. As for blogging, I'll be adding more later. Thanks for reading! :)

Did this one today. I've been working pretty much non stop this week, and Lobotomy Bunneh is screaming at me for it. He says I haven't been eating enough ice-cream. I should get on that.
Again, the text hasn't been edited yet. So either don't read, or read with discretion. Thanks. :)

Oh yeah, and why aren't I watching Battlestar Galactica right now? wth...

Page Updates

Here's the newest page from my book, as well as the previously seen image completed. The text on both of these are unedited, and are only being used to see how the overall image will look with text etc... I'm happy with them.
In my newest page, I was playing with combining digital with tradition, and I'm going to be working with that even more in my next layout. I'm very excited.
I've worked my butt off all week, between working on this and finishing the story (YES!), and writing some papers, as well as fighting a possible cold real hard. :) Now I'm proud of myself.
Its a great feeling and I hope it lasts as long as it can.

I also fixed up some of the flaws in this one, and now its much better, and will flow more nicely with the gutter of the page.


Oh yeah!! And Scott Pilgrim #5 came out today!! Justin ran out bright and early this morning to buy it and he's currently reading it as I write. I'm jealous, I want to be reading it right now too! The cover is shiny and special. If you haven't picked up the Scott Pilgrim series yet, you really should. It's pretty hilarious and is loaded with some awesome art by a very cool dude, Brian Lee O'Malley. I would like to say he stole my middle name, but I probably stole his. Go buy it, preferably at Casablanca Comics, where they love you.

Does anyone out there have any good suggestions of young-adult type illustrated books I can check out? I'm trying to direct my book to 10-14 year olds, while still having it mature enough for adults and innocent enough for kids. I've been looking at a lot of Gaiman/Mckean, who do this kind of thing all the time, but I for some reason I can't think of more.

Also, I'm going to have my draft ready for people to look over and edit by Tuesday, it would be super helpful if any of you guys could read it for me this week and get back to me on edits and what doesnt make sense, etc.

Thanks :)

Edit: Neil Gaiman's illustrated version of Stardust by Charles Vess is exactly the type of thing I'm looking for... it is a young-adult age story, but it has illustrations! Its size gets it clumped into the Graphic Novel section.. even tho its styled like a childrens book for adults...
Do I make any sense?
Does anyone know of any other book that does that?

Here's a little thing I finished working on last week. It was originally formatted to be a two page spread for my book, which was going to be 8x8, but I have since changed the format to 6x9, which didn't take a lot of work, and actually looks much better. Its nice to be working digitally again. My father bought me my tablet as a high school graduation gift, so its always been special. But for some reason MECA and its staff were against the use of digital work for my first few years here, so I stopped working this way. Now I'm back and working away with a vengeance. I did the line art traditionally, and colored it up cell-style.

I admire the painterly styles of some digital artists, but I've been unsuccessful with it myself, so far. I plan on giving it another shot. But speaking of painterly, my boyfriend gave Comic Book Tattoo for a Christmas gift this year; its filled with some pretty amazing digital comics by various artists. Its also huge, and loaded with inspiration. Apparently all the comics are based off Tori Amos songs, but I'm not really a fan of her music. The book is definitely worth looking at anyway.


On an entirely different note.
I'm spending an awful lot of time in the studio lately, and though extremely tiring, I'm beginning to realize how much I'm going to miss it after graduation. I realized that the studio and the people in it, my friends, some of the most amazing people I've ever met, are the reason I was meant to go to MECA. I've become so jaded and so angry with the school and everything about it, that it is amazing to finally see the good in it all. Was it worth all the bullshit? If just for the little moments in the studio that stick out in my mind at the end of the day, then yes. It was.

Hey guys. Its been a rough start to my last semester at MECA. Lobotomy Bunneh is trying to keep me happy and positive by giving me lots to keep me busy, but my head wont stay out of the dark. The people at MECA make me want to scream. Students, faculty... The people in the offices don't know their right from their left. They've taken to actually harassing me to get their money, which was paid in full last monday, and yet, I just received a brand new bill for the exact amount of my last two payments. I would like to go down to the offices with the wrath of hell on my side, but you get more honey with bees, or something like that.
The students (most Illustration and Graphic Design kids excluded here), just make me angry. I am astounded by how many people claim to be open and original and declare themselves free thinkers when their minds are actually locked so deep in a box of their own design that they can't remember what it's like to care about someone else. I am amazed at how many people succumb to the "we are art students, and there fore we are different, original, and worthy of a special kind of attention" mentality.

I need to remember to go to my old high school to get my old transcripts. It's SMCC applying time. :)

I read a lot over winter break. It made me immensely happy, and it readied me to start writing my own story, for my thesis. I used to be a big writer. I almost went to school for writing. I'm rusty now, since I gave it up shortly after my father passed away. Writing was always something therapeutic, but it became something that just reminded me of everything in my life I wanted to forget. So I stopped, and now I've started again, so I'm sure I will make plenty of errors. That's fine.

I started my reading binge with Water For Elephants, by Sara Gruen, a love story set on a traveling circus show, with one of the best endings I've read in a while.

Then I got into the spiritual, and picked up Buddha, by Deepak Chopra. I am constantly soul searching and trying to find myself in religion, being raised alongside religious beliefs, but never having quite come to terms with it. So Buddha was pretty amazing to me, as it told the story of Sidartha and then some, as the story of a man, and not of a god. I reccomend it to anyone in the same boat with religion as I am.

After that I decided to finally read some of my boyfriends Kurt Vonnegut collection, and I busted through Galapagos, and Cats Cradle in about three days. Kurt Vonnegut has a way of being delightfully funny in places where most authors would have chosen a more morose point of view, and he didn't want me to put his books down. I am a sucker for wit, and for anything to do even mildly with the future or with science, so Kurt Vonnegut is a perfect fit for me. I'm reading his Slaughter House Five, at the moment.

I took a break from Kurt before the semester started, and I read the newest book from Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book. It was reminiscent of young adult fiction, and it felt like Gaiman wanted it to be a much longer series, but it was still pretty amazing. They included some fantastic illustrations by Dave Mckean which were actually pen and ink drawings, something that's kind of rare for him. It might not be the best book to start with if you've never read Gaiman before, but its a must if you're a fan.


So it was pretty eventful winter break, as far as my reading went. Now I'm back and working hard on my thesis, and trying to decide what I should do for other projects, and have no time for reading more. I've built a little pantry of snacks and teas in my studio and plan to spent most week days in there getting as much done as possible. Hopefully I will remember to blog about it. ^_~

The Bunneh is Worn Out

Here is a picture of some of Lobotomy Bunneh's extended family. He's looking forward to visiting them over Thanksgiving break. I'm also looking forward to visiting my own family, and taking a much needed break from the Bunneh. We are worn out, and quite frankly, not getting a long as well as we usually do. We both hope to return from our short break with our friendships restored, ready to start a new chapter in our careers.

This little girl is a special Hot Cross Bunny that was commissioned from an awesome girl through my etsy store. She's based on a sweater found at Lolita Kisama. I love her! She's one of my favorite Hot Cross Bunnies, but she's already been sent to her wonderful new home. In response, I made myself some Lolita Bunnies that are currently in the BFA Show at MECA.

Here's a quick snapshot of my set up for the BFA show. You can see the two Lolita Bunnies on the first shelf. The pink one is embellished with tiny strawberry buttons, and will be going up for sale in my shop on December 6th. The black one is my own personal bunny, and wont be going anywhere except my apartment.
Unfortunatly, because of it's location beside a set of stairs, I am out there every day dusting off my shelves and paintings. No, the BFA show wasn't well thought out this year.

I Say

Lobotomy Bunneh has decided to dress all fancy in honor of our 44th president, Barack Obama.
"I Say!"

Lack of updates due to lack of confidence. Sorry guys. It's coming back a little. It's just so hard to motivate myself when all I hear is how sub-par my peers and I are.

But on a positive note, I've been working a book project, which is the image you see above. That is a series of Lobotomy Bunneh trading cards made from collage and fortune cookie papers. I've designed a great little book-like box to hold them in, and I'm rather fond of it. So much so that I would rather skip ahead and make several versions to sell in my Etsy store. We'll see where that takes me.

I am still working on the erotic art piece from a few posts ago. I've gotten some feedback from my fellow students and I'm going to finish that up within a few weeks. I've also been invited to submit art for The Dirty Show in Detroit, and I believe I'll be sending in that piece. I feel like it stands a decent chance of making it into the show, and if not, than at least I gained some experience with entering.

I am looking into other academic schooling for next year. I will graduate from MECA with my BFA, but then what? If I believe the things I hear, than I will be hopeless and empty and destined to work retail the rest of my life. So my next option is to go to a University, like I should have done in the first place. I may simply go to SMCC for a quick tech job, and be done. I can have a stable carreer and make my art on the side as I see fit. Perfect. But I'm still up in the air about it.
I have come to the conclusion that if I want to continue in the art field, I have to regain confidence. A guest speaker at my school today said that we have to have confidence in ourselves even when no one else will. I believe I am good, and I am learning, and I will grow. I am at a big cross roads. Do I go forward, or do I take a step back?

Lobotomy Bunneh checked my mail this morning on my way out the door, and look what was waiting for us! I hadn't expected these to come in for another week or two! What a surprise! Yes, they are infact... DANI LEE EVANS TRADING CARDS!...

Mia has collected them all!

Wait, no. These cards are actually awesome little postcards meant to advertise this very blog! Decorated with a lovely reproduction of a four foot tall painting, one would wonder why I didn't simply make a smaller image and save myself the trouble. It's a long and laborious story, and maybe Lobotomy Bunneh will tell you some day.

Another upsetting day. Lobotomy Bunneh tells me everything will be okay so long as I can still laugh at ugly orange cat creatures.

I just ordered the fourth and fifth Scott Pilgrim books, after busting through the first two. Its genius, really, and we think you should give it a good read before they make the movie and your opinion gets all skewed. Plus, if you read it now, when the movie is released you can say "I was a Scott Pilgrim Fan before it became mainstream!"

Why do people think that making live action movies after something hand drawn is a good idea? C'mon, people, take a clue from Persepolis and stop being dicks.

Anyway, I'm going as Doctor Horrible for Halloween, and Justin (my.. boyfriend?.. Life partner?..) plans on being Captain Hammer. Do you know what I'm talking about? If not, watch here: http://www.drhorrible.com/mushortio.html

Redundancy

Today in our Senior Seminar class, we learned how to make blogs! As you can imagine, I was rather bored.


Here is a picture of a work in progress piece I am doing just for the sake of doing something because I want to do it and no one can tell me how they want it to look. (Ouch! Jaded, a little?)
You can see my tiny kitten in the lower left, helping me with my work. She is such a little doll!

It isn't a new theme of mine to be so frustrated with the art school world. In fact, 90% of the time I'm battling over some inner dialog about what is pissing me off the most at any given moment. Sometimes I just get so upset over the things that are said. I mean, c'mon professors; would it kill you to compliment us once in a while? I feel like we are always bombarded with what we should be doing different, never what is good enough to hold on to. Well, that's my two cents on that.

Lobotomy Bunneh's 24 Hour Comics advert got a makeover, but you don't get an update picture. I apologize.

Bunneh Debut

Lobotomy Bunneh makes his public debut in an advert poster for Portland's 24 Hour Comics Day, held at the Maine College of Art, right here in our little studio of doom. If you're currently calling the Northeast your home (I pity you), you should give it a shot.

Last year's 24 Hour Comics prompted some crazy work from some crazy people, and some of us are still tired a year later. But its a great environment, and, i heard rumor of free food.

...and it is totally not cool to make comics about Scott McCloud.

EDIT!: Lobotomy Bunneh just reminded me that this is not, in fact, his first public appearance. He was actually unveiled during the MECA Merit show last year, which was such a fiasco I had erased it from my memory.
Here is photographic evidence that the show actually did happen, for your amusement:

Some of my Merit show, in which I soon discovered the social context behind why Painters Hate Illustrators.

...more on that subject on a later date.

My return to updating.

Alright alright. So I took the summer off to help my mom through some rough patches, and to just focus on work that I wanted to do; which meant not updating this blog, apparently.
Oh no! Don't take that the wrong way, Interwebs! I do want to ramble aimlessly into the eternal space that is the world wide web! I swear! There is just something about typing out my hopes and dreams to no one in particular that makes me feel like a hobo on a soapbox about nothing. You understand, don't you?

So this marks my return to blogging. Perhaps we will come up with a very intimate type of bond. Or perhaps we will fight in silence like two roommates with opposite personalities and totally different views on reality.
It'll be a surprise.

Lobotomy Bunneh has come a long way, as you can tell. He's cuter now. But still a menace to society. Sometimes he keeps me up at night and makes me share Super Peanut Butter Ice Cream straight out of the carton. I had a pet bird but he ate it.

I hope you enjoy this picture of a fat and mildly confused walrus.

So, I have this thing about bunnies. ;)