Nov. Update! Just in time.

I'm gonna blame my lagging on the L-tryptophan. Anywho, a few recent thingies. All digital. BOOM.

First image, personal work. Second, a killed illustration for White Wolf and the last one, a new cover for Terry Ervin's anthology "Genre Shotgun." I don't know guns from laser blasters, but Terry provided some great refs. So thank you, sir! Many happy sales!

Updatery!

I've done a couple of cool book covers and a really fun bit of fan art for this month's update ... huzzah! Heather Massey's Steampunk romance will be available through Lyrical Press and The Black Knight Chronicles, an urban paranormal with humor, from Belle Bridge Books.

I'm really itching to fiddle with traditional media and do more conceptual art in the very near future. We'll see how that goes. Ciao, babies!

Time for my bi-monthly post?

New covers to flash at anyone still hanging on to this ol' thing!

The top two are from Dreamspinner Press, and the second two are courtesy of Belle Bridge Books. The first one is a watercolor, with some digital tweaking; the rest are straight digital. And there we go! Hope everyone had a divine summer but MAN, I can't wait for the kids to go back to school. Shoooooey.

Blarg, I'm a lousy updater!

I'm going to try to update my blogs a little more often, as warm-ups to my day instead of staring, mesmerized, at the internet. Man, the internet is a time-suck. A joyful one, albeit, but it doesn’t allow me to grow and accomplish like I wanna.
Okay, so here’s what I’ve done (professionally) lately:





But more imporatantly (to me, anyways) is my decision to work on the skills it takes to develop a graphic novel. To this end, I've joined up with a few of my art buds, and we're taking part in a communal blog, dedicated to bettering our artistic skills: Artist Ambition. So look for me there too! The stuff will be more experimental and study-ish, but art nonetheless. Have a great summer, gang...find direction!

When did the New Year happen?

Sorry, my few hallowed followers! I've been sorely neglecting this place. There are just TOO many sites for social networking and I hate repeating myself. So here's something up-and-coming, a preview just for the handful of youse guys who pay attention to this sad little blog.

Just released from BelleBooks, my latest cover ditty, White Witch.


Whoops, seems it's available! You can get the book here, if you're into YA urban fantasy: Belle Books/BellBridge Books

Happy March 1, babies!

Time for my monthly blather!

It's gonna be a little bit of a rant, here, so be prepared or go do something else, if you're not feeling up to my yammering.

About my so-called art career...I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place, or more accurately, swimming up-stream. Art is all I know how to do with any sort of expertise, and even that's a bit dubious. My dilemma is the whole freelance set-up. I'm not a commercial arts person; I draw and paint. I can't figure out how to make that pay off, w/o committing massive amounts of time to creating the quality of work that will make me proud and lead to bigger projects, and still earn a fair wage. Why won't anyone pay more than $100 for quality book covers or ccg cards? I don't get it. I mean, I DO get it: if you can wrangle a great image for peanuts, why not? But it bites me in the ass and kills my spirit.

I think maybe I'm just getting old and jaded and running out of steam. I'm becoming far less patient. This is my one life, yanno? Why can't I make myself happy? Part of it is certainly my husband's attitude. He asserts that art is decorative and subjective, therefore it's not serious. It's not important. It's not worth paying for. He doesn't see why I can't just get some office job for $15/hour tomorrow and earn my keep. (I know he wouldn't put it that way TO MY FACE, but I feel it.) He's not creative in the least, but he IS a very hard worker; he's a mechanical designer--heating, cooling, plumbing, that sort of thing. In fact, here it is, Sunday, and he's at work because we need the money. And I'm practicing my art and writing. Making not a dime.

Guilty conscience, thy name is Cris.

How do you guys make it work? How do you keep creative, whilst cranking out low-paying work subject to someone else's approval and still keep your spirits up? I need some virtual pick-me-upping, gang.

More Traditional Portraiture

The last of Team Free Will, or rather the actor that plays him. ;) It's fun to see them all together and extra special fun to work with traditional media. Once again, charcoal and white chalk on toned paper. Wee!