dROARing class

Back in August, while on the lookout for a good fall art class I could take, I scrolled through Fleisher's adult art classes listing like I do at the beginning of most semesters.  I grazed over the Watercolor Technique class and the Figure Sculpture class, waiting to see if something really grabbed my attention this year.  I stopped scrolling when I reached "Dinosaur Drawing Class". As my eyebrows raised, I clicked on the link and read through the description.  This was exactly what I wanted to spend my fall doing.

I emailed myself the link so that I could meditate on it for a few days before investing in the class, as it was no small investment.  As I mulled it over, I realized that this class might be the first opportunity for me to learn from a professional how to structure an animal drawing from the bones on up. I feel like this could really benefit my accuracy in my drawings. In this dino drawing class, we would learn how to draw the bones first, then fit the muscles on, and finally lay the skin and decoration ontop of it all.  Yes, please! I signed up for the class.

The class takes place in the Dinosaur Hall of the Academy of Natural Sciences here in Philly. I had been to Dino Hall once before, back in the late winter. It was inspirational then, but now I get to sit and sketch the beautiful specimens after-hours, without gaggles of schoolchildren around me. That is glorious.

My visit of awe and wonder last winter

Dino Hall's full Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton. You know. No big deal.

The first 15 min of class is warm-up. This little guy is a swimming dino.

This is a Torosaurus Latos female's skull from the Cretaceous Period

Last week, a journalist & photographer from the Philadelphia Inquirer came to class to gawk at us nerds.  They went around and talked to some of the students and I thought I was safe from them. But then while they were across the room, I heard a series of shutter clicks and knew that I had been captured. Looking up, I watched as the photographer checked out the photo, started to chuckle, and leaned over to his co-worker to show him the picture. They both started quietly laughing and then pointing at me. This has not happened to me in about 20 years and I got a bit flush.  They asked me some questions later and I guess they liked the most mundane thing I said, because they quoted it in the article they wrote a few days later...

http://articles.philly.com/2014-10-03/news/54603911_1_art-class-fossil-hunter-students

I'm not sure this picture quite captures the adoration for this creature that is in my eyes...

This is what I drew that day. We started by drawing the skull, then erasing the skull and drawing the muscles, then erasing the muscles and drawing the scaly skin.  Good thing I have thick paper.

This class is pumping me up this fall. I'm learning a lot and making a shit-ton of mistakes, but its a blast and I wouldn't spend my Monday nights any other way.  Also, if you have a dinosaur documentary you like, let me know what it is. I watched all the ones on Netflix already.

Dragon Mural

After 15 years of staring at this unfinished dragon on the wall of my old bedroom in my parent's house, I have finally finished the piece. My folks decided to remodel the room this year. It was still covered in glow-in-the-dark star stickers and Eric Lindros posters from my teenage efforts to entertain myself, but at last my mom decided that it was time for the little room to become a real guest room.  Down came the posters and up went new curtains and a layer of paint.  She has always wanted me to finish this dragon, though, so a block of space was saved around it for me to "do something with".  So I did something.  I don't think I'll ever be completely satisfied with any piece that I complete, but  this is what I did.

childhood dreams

It's funny to think about now, but I have this very distinct memory from when I was a kid- maybe 7 or 8- riding in the back of my parent's Oldsmobile Silhouette minivan, gazing at the billboards that were sliding across my view.

I said to whoever was driving, "That's the kind of art I want to make when I grow up- billboards! Everyone sees it and you can make an influence on soooooo many people!"

I'm pretty sure that at that point, my parents started pointing out all the different types of art I could make if I wanted to.  Glad for that.

But today, as I was hopping on the subway back home, I glanced across the tracks and saw my work on the little billboard there.  This is the day I get to check off that childhood dream.  Did it, little Megan.  This one's for you.

I never wear purple.

It was today, exactly twenty years ago. But that day almost seems insignificant when I think about the years before it or the years after it.

A century ago, when someone got sick, it wasn't unusual for them to die from the sickness, whatever it was- measles, tetanus, the cold. And relatively quickly too. Maybe a few months of illness and then POOF.  All gone.  And as terribly disrupting and traumatic as it may have been to experience the loss of that loved one, there was a bit of a difference from what we commonly experience with illness in our modern world.

In this world, we experience the big "C" all the time.  Caaaaaaancer. The terrifying word that dooms someone to prolonged suffering, but gives them winks of hope at every corner. Maybe the resilience of their body along with the doctors, the researchers a million miles away and their own will to live are going to take back their health for them and they will WIN.

But sometimes that takes a while.  Sometimes it takes months. Sometimes years.

Sometimes you win. Sometimes you don't.

You never really know how it's all gonna go down when you first hear that the battle is on.

So you fight. And fight. And fight. And pray. And fight. And rest. And fight. And get weak. And fight. And you howl and punch the wall. And fight. And lean against the wall for support. And pray. And fight. And sit down. And look up. And you don't know where to go from there.

This is the struggle I was raised on.  This is the struggle I remember today.

Learning How To Drown

One of my oldest friends, Patricia Noonan, has written a play that she has named "Learning How To Drown".  This heart-wrenching story swirls through three generations of women as they realize their different forms of autonomy from family myth while struggling with the choice to love. This play is a project Patricia has been working on for a couple years and it has been a pleasure to watch it grow and change over time.  Recently, she booked an official reading of the show in NY, complete with beautiful songs written by Amanda Jacobs, actors, a director and producer.  It's a really exciting time full of anticipation. 

She asked me if I would make a poster for the show.  I have read the show a half dozen times over the past year or so, and quickly sketched out this piece, then immediately flipped over the page because it was too simple.  Nothing is that simple.  I kept sketching, elaborating, and adding to the piece, but kept bending the paper back to sneak a peak at this sketch one more time.  I finally decided that this had to be it.

It is uncharacteristic of me to create such a simple piece and I'm glad I went through with it. It's a good reminder that sometimes less is more.

I also did this watercolor inspired by the play. 

If you're interested in hearing some of the music and seeing a video about the show, and maybe to donate toward its completion, check out her kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1582144598/learning-how-to-drown-a-musical

sneak peak

I'm going out tonight and I don't care what my conscience says about it. I have so much freelance work to do right now that I could work for the next 20 hours straight and possibly not be done.  My brain needs breaks.  This is exhausting.

The Punk Rock Mommy poster is a design I did for my friend Jon's photography show coming up in May.  The show highlights a photography project he did with our friend Andrea who had breast cancer and passed away in 2008. She was a straight up punker her whole life, but had 6 kids and was an amazing mother to them and many other people.  Jon was allowed to be at her side, snapping photos, from the first doctor's appointment all the way up to a couple days before she died.  She wrote a blog during this time- a total of a year and a half- called PunkRockMommy.org and got a ton of press for it. Thousands of people read it daily.  Check it out if you get a chance.  Now, years later, Jon is fulfilling her wish that the blog be turned into a book.  Jon, myself, and this guy Chris have been working on it since the beginning of the year and the gallery show is promo for the book coming out.  The book is going to be beautiful- mostly designed by Chris, but with a ton of influence and guidance by Jon. The man has a vision and I'm really enjoying being a part of it.

 These two Jazz Fest posters totally shouldn't be up here for others to see. They're not completed at all. I just did them over the past couple days and sent them off to the lady who needs them yesterday. Our next steps are for her to choose colors, give me more info to put on the bottom of the posters, and then we'll tweak the designs for the next few days until we send them out hopefully on Friday to the printer. I'm just excited about them.  I like making "music art". By the way, as I type, there are three men sitting on my roof doing shape-note singing. It's beautiful and inspirational. Abstractly, I don't know why humans make music but I'm sure glad we do.

...when you only have an hour...

As I get older, I'm getting worse at remembering to get people presents for fun occasions. It's terrible and I feel like a jerk. I should make a resolution to remind myself a month before each event/holiday. And I have less money, so I make more presents, which takes more time. So when I am forgetful and then I remember that I have to make someone a present in the next HOUR... these kinds of things occur.

This was make very quickly for my friend's kid's 1st birthday.  I didn't have time to scan it, so I took this low quality phone picture.

On the flip side of things, I'm making flyers for my job now. This one is just kind of cute. I'm trying to stretch the bounds at work to see how much time I really have to design and how much time I have to dedicate to admin work.  So I didn't spend too much time on this and it's not amazing, but it's a start to hopefully at beautifully hand-drawn aesthetic.

I also make things more along these lines:

I get immensely self-conscious about my design work. I'm an almost 100% self-taught designer. I don't know tricks to making type very interesting like "real" designers do. Every day I gather reference and inspiration to copy, twist, mimic, and learn from. My "inspiration and research" folder on my desktop has thousands of images in it from poster designs to website layouts to typographical tricks to email headers to everything else you could imagine. My mantra for years has been "ugh! i just need to get better at this!" as I spend hours and hours trying different layouts.

But then today I showed one of my co-workers a design I made for her and her jaw dropped and she told me that I make magic happen.  She is usually very generous in her compliments and doesn't know how to design herself, but it made me feel competent  in my work, which helps everyone once in a while, you know?

I'll get better at this.