The Little Pixie in All of Us.

I know I know, I said I don’t like doing self portraits of myself, but I have good reason for this one. Last year, Kermit posted a picture from when I was younger that caught my eye, and inspired me to complete this piece.



You would never find me wearing anything like that when I was younger, and the closest you can get me to wear something similar is as long as I’m wearing a pair of jeans underneath. However, for as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a pixie of sorts. And after reading so many books and stories, legends and myths, and various accounts, whether true or fictional about the fae, I am a firm believer that any creature from the old world, be it elves, dwarves, dragons, faeries, unicorns, including the deities of the world’s ancient cultures have existed before and still exist to this day. We simply need to put faith in them, just as we put faith in ourselves, our families, and our friends around us.

And it is in my friends and family that I believe I’ve seen the most of the mystical creatures. I know a family known for producing twins whose men are born with the slightest of points to their ears. Over time their ears become rounded, but upon looking at the natural beauty of their daughters only proves to me that fae or elf blood runs through their veins. And it was through the daughters of this family that my eyes were open to the beliefs that were deep seeded within my heart, and that perhaps some mystical blood flows through my own family’s veins. My family is rich in Irish and German descent, my father being the grandson of the German man who worked his way into America. My oldest sister is wrapping herself up in our Irish heritage with her curly red locks and learning the art of Irish toe dancing. I still need to save up a bit of money so I can fly up to see one of her recitals.

My middle’s sister’s voice is far more entrancing than any other voice I’ve heard, which makes me wonder if some form of siren was mixed in through the generations; which might also explain my father’s knack of sensing large bodies of water. He gets so confused whenever he comes down to visit me, since there’s a river north of the city, as well as the coast to the east; but since the river is closer, he subconsciously thinks it is east instead of north. I shouldn’t forget what my middle sister won’t let up on me about. She claims that I’m hiding the whereabouts of the fountain of youth from her, but it’s all around her. I can’t think of anyone in my family that looks their age. A part of me blames it on the media, since TV and movies rarely get actors and actresses who are teenagers to actually play teenage roles, but instead get 20+ year olds to play teenage parts…so it’s only natural for some people to get confused as to what someone is suppose to look at a specific age. But I also think that we’ve been blessed to with a youthful bloodline that helps us age more gracefully than others.

We shouldn’t forget the major diversity in the human race. Science has it’s reasoning as to why one person’s skin is darker than another, but there are some things that science has yet to explain, or at least sound all that plausible or less confusing to me; too many long and technical terms. To me, science takes away the magic behind the myths and legends and the mystery in life. It’s so clean and straight forward, no room for the imagination to run away with itself and to cause the need to seek out a different truth…to find the adventure through the unknown. There is no unknown anymore, except in space which requires a bit of science to explore for the moment. It’s probably the hopeless romantic in me, and as much as I adore using the computer to escape from the world I currently live in, a part of me would rather explore a dense uncharted forest in hopes to find a creature of legend.

From what I’ve read in a book my parents bought me during their last visit, Iceland still holds onto their old world beliefs despite being converted to Christianity, all while thriving in modern conveniences. I would love to visit Iceland someday, if not actually live there just to immerse myself in the folklore of days gone by.

Yes…with my inability to wear metal, else I break out in a rash, my petite and youthful stature, as well as my crazy scary temper only affirms myself in believing that there’s more to the world than the human race and what science has to offer. Whether or not anyone else wants to believe it is not up to me to decide. Everyone is entitled to believe what they wish, and I’m not one to stop them from doing so. I only ask that they try not to convince me that I am wrong in where I put my faith, as I will never do so to them. The fact that anyone has faith in anything is a miracle in itself, to which I think is a wonderful thing no matter what they put their faith in. I just wish people would give me that respect…as it’s something that’s very hard to find where I am living now.

Black and White, and a Little bit of Grey.

I have a degree in Sequential Art, but my first one was in Illustration. I was thrilled to be able to write up a general storyline and draw it out. Came out with two issues of a comic before the college I transferred to took up my time. That comic was completely in black and white, as it was cheaper to print it out that way. In one of my classes, though, we got to dabble with pre-printed tones, patterns, and dots. I fell in love with them, but unfortunately, couldn’t afford to get the sheets, or even find the kind of printer transfers to be able to make using them cheaper. Below is the two pages I used the transfer sheets on.





And then last year, my boss bought the left over transfer sheets display, as well as other tools that are used by Japanese comic artists from one of the paint companies we supply at the shop, during an art show the college here sponcers. The packaging was naturally all in Japanese, but came with an English order catalog, to which I perused to see what they had. Ooooh the patterns and designs and dots and everything to make a black and white comic pop out even more! However, I didn’t buy any of the sheets. I think thus far, the only thing that’s sold out of the hole display were the inking pen nibs and inks. Why the sequential department doesn’t take an interest in our shop? It could be because we don’t supply the Col-Erase brand pencils they use, or the blue line paper that are said to be what the professionals use. I learned from my degree that what you use to draw, ink, and color with doesn’t really matter as long as you make good quality work; though I learned the computer coloring is better only because it’s preset for printers. Coloring outside of the computer is bound to lose its original luster and colors because scanners don’t convert the colors to printers very well.

Anyways, buying the sheets from the display would have cost me more money in comparison to buying a CD of prints and patterns. Yes, I found three different pattern CD’s in the catalog to order. So, while ordering another batch of paint for the spring quarter, I put in an order for those three CD’s. Saved me a lot of money, and now I get to play with over four hundred different patterns with my drawings! Each came with a little booklet that gave you a preview of each design and pattern, and a registration card to fill out that gives you full legal rights to using the patterns. I have yet to fill out these cards I have, as it was completely in Japanese…

…I’ll email them about it later. Anyways! Here are a couple of drawings I did while playing with my new toy, as well as the logo up at the top. Enjoy!