To My Lady in Red…

I dedicate and give this piece to you, the one of a few who I still hold dear in my heart from a life long past.



No friend can compare to this beautiful woman who opened up my spirit to a world filled with strong feminine heroines and dynamic duos. She was my opposite in personality and life style, but the one who encouraged me to explore my imagination and bring out the heroic character in me.

When I first heard of the Lady in Red, it was through a classmate I had known since Junior High. We were friends in a sense that I felt bad that everyone else made fun of her, and I wanted to be the good and compassionate person that could see past the imperfections and find the wonderful person within them. But even I get annoyed with people. So by the time High School came around, I was tolerating the classmate’s presence more than enjoying it. When she told me of how the Lady’s stepmother was co-workers with her own mother, that we would all surely be best friends, I put it in my mind that I needed to avoid the girl as much as humanly possible; put up my walls and not let her in. I won’t deny it; I am a horrible person.

We had home room together, and I too was the one that was made fun of because I didn’t fit myself into the time’s style/personality mold. I drew on my jeans, took all sorts of photos that I would look through by myself…and none of my friends were in the same homeroom as me. When the Lady in Red was seated next to me, saw how I never stood up for myself, but instead kept quiet despite everyone’s criticism and withdrew deeper into my shell…she reached out to touch me. She wanted to see the photos, see what I was drawing, pick my brain of the ideas I had. She wanted to get to know me…she wanted to stand up for me and tell the jerks off for making fun of me.

I can’t say we had a whole lot in common first, and I’m not entirely sure how it was we clicked so well. She was in love with driving, and raced microds. I hate driving. We both watched Xena: Warrior Princess, X-Files…and explored the growing anime interest by watching Sailor Moon, Devil Hunter Yohko, and Dirty Pair; all of which had strong, female heroines. We went to the Renaissance Fair the first summer we hung out and got matching black and red princess hats. The first time I spent the night at her house, I ended up staying for three days in a row! Her stepmother taught us a little bit of self-defense, training herself to teach a class. The Lady in Red was amazing, and inspired me to create the comic behind the images in the painting above.

But, we didn’t…and probably still don’t keep in touch all that well once we graduated from High School. When I moved in with my grandmother and the Lady was in town for the summer, she couldn’t believe how much I had changed. I had hair down past my hips when I graduated, and so when she saw me chasing her car down the street when she past the house for the third time, she thought I was a 12 year old boy. That’s how short I had chopped my hair off to. And then we both moved to separate states; she to the west coast, and I to the south. She was pursuing her career in communications while I was furthering my education in comic books. We talked less and less, but occasionally managed to call each other out of the blue to play catch up. We still do at least once a year.

She’s back in our home town now, and went to our 10 year reunion. Apparently most of the people we once knew managed to get out of town and didn’t come back to relive the memories. I don’t blame them, I didn’t either. The fact of the matter is that those memories are just that…memories; a part of my life that is over with. And most of those people I once knew I really have no desire reconnecting with. There are a few, very few that I still feel so fondly about, such as my Lady in Red, the Earth Warrior, my Twins, and Fabio…but I can honestly say that I’ve moved on from that life. I’m no longer the same person I once was, maybe an evolution of that person, but definitely not the same.

And so I painted this piece for my Lady in Red, in memory of the times we once shared. I’m sure time will reconnect us again on a more regular basis, as I am a firm believer that we were meant to be friends through the thick and thin. So I patiently wait for that time, and pray that the bonds of our friendship will forever remain as strong as they once were.

I try too hard to work on crap.

Yeah, even I don’t know what I’m doing or talking about at times, but I know I try too hard on an idea only to end up ruining it. A sales representative came by the shop a week or so ago to get my boss to buy their product. Nothing new, she’s got some sales reps she likes (especially those who are awesome enough to buy everyone at the shop lunch when he’s lunching with a teacher down the street), but like all sales reps, this guy was giving us free samples to try out. So naturally, I got to play with some products that I had never used before. The main thing he was trying to sell were water soluble stuff, like watercolor pencils. Things you can draw with and then add water to make it look like a painting of sorts. I don’t know, I’ve tried the watercolor pencils and aren’t all that thrilled with them…or the water soluble pastels he was pushing. They’re ok, but I couldn’t really get a feel for them. Below is a mixture of the water soluble pastels, plus some oil pastels by the same company. I’m not too thrilled about it, but I guess it’s the purist in me. If I want to draw, I’ll using drawing supplies. If I want to paint, I’ll use painting supplies. I guess I don’t like combining the two into one product.



It just feels so forced in my hands. So I decided to play with some regular chalk pastels again. However…I have a problem. I stick my face too close to the picture, and see everything that’s wrong with it instead of stepping back to see that it has some good qualities. So in a sense, I’ll never really like my own work, because I try too hard to fix the problems that make it look…ok? Does that make sense?

The perfect example can be seen in a painting I did for my dad. Unfortunately, I don’t have a photograph of it to show, but that really wouldn’t help. You simply have to see it in person. I found a picture of the Seawolf submarine my dad was involved in making earlier in his career, and thus I painted it using gouache…an opaque watercolor over a black board. I worked on it for two weeks, keeping up close to it while I tried to get the colors right. I was so sick of it by the time of the first critique, that when our teacher gave us an extra week to fix any problems, I simply left it behind. When we returned for our final critique, he explained how I was the only one who didn’t take my piece and how it sat in his office. He also said that it didn’t need any fixing up, that as loose and incomplete it looked up close didn’t matter when you stepped back; when you step back, it tightens up and makes the picture. To top it off, when I showed it to my dad from across the room, he thought it was a photograph I had cut out of a magazine. I got hounded by a couple of my other teachers for not producing the same quality work after the fact.

So for those who are wondering what to get me as a gift…a really nice gouache set. Not acryla gouache, as I really can’t stand that stuff…as I mentioned before in my post with the train.

That, or firearms replicas. A friend of mine has a project for me, and looking for pictures with the right angle of a gun is really hard to find. And since I don’t really want a gun in my house until I’m in my 50’s and can start on my dream of being ‘that crazy cat lady who smokes a pipe and sits on her porch holding her shotgun to keep the hoodlums off of her lawn’…not to mention the fact that I don’t own a gun license, I figure collecting replicas would be the next best solution to my reference needs.

Oh! But I got off track again! Right, because I was really talking about these drawings below! You know, the ones with the pastel chalk! So…where did these come from…? The cemetery. I live down the street and around a couple corners from one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the country. So when I had a couple of friends come down to visit me, I had to take them there to enjoy Nature’s Cathedral…and naturally take some pictures! Duh! If I have pictures that I take myself, then I can draw it up and sell it myself! Weeeeee!




The café that we normally order breakfast from during the week actually offered to let me put my work up on display…and maybe to sell. They’ve got someone else’s work up at the moment, but she seems to have left town without taking it with her. Either way, it’s a good way to get some exposure. So, I’m working on some pieces to actually hang up. Just need to figure out a way of hanging them without framing them. Framing…get’s really expensive after a while, and since it’s summer I don’t have the extra cash flow to pay for something like that. Plus, I’ll be putting one up in the window at the shop, as I used products that we sell at the shop, and my main goal is to help my boss sell the supplies. I figure if I can help her make some money first, then I’ll have a better chance to make money for myself later down the road.

It’s a karma thing.