in which the dailies take an indefinite hiatus.

hello, everyone. it's a bit of a melancholy day here in the studio, since my beloved dailies project, well, how to say this, um, tanked this week. i completed half the week as normal, and then, boom, catastrophe. not in the form of something dramatic, like chernobyl and the hindenberg combined, but in a quiet, sneaky way. before i knew it, my ever-growing list of things to do (like that weird fact that if the population of china marched past you in a single-file line, the line would never end due to the rate of population increase? if that's the case, china and my list have that in common) had grown out of control and my dailies were the sad casualty.

especially since this year's dailies are designed with a "be better" sort of purpose in mind, i wish i had the time to treat them that way. instead, they feel like an afterthought. so... until i get out of the "oh (expletive deleted) i'm (expletive deleted) graduating (expletive deleted) (expletive deleted)(EXPLETIVE DELETED)" woods, the dailies will have to wait quietly on my desk to be resumed. tentative plan? my birthday is in may. birthday day will be the day.

well, now that all that unpleasantness is out on the table, here's the first of my thesis pieces in the what if? series, "what if we could talk to animals?"

apparently, if she could talk to animals, she would have forest-storytime. wouldn't you? while i was thinking of these strictly as a series of adorable for kids that would allow me to work with whimsy and narrative, whitney sherman suggested they might accompany a fictitious monthly short-story installment in a kids literary magazine. I THINK THAT'S A GREAT IDEA, CRICKET/LADYBUG/SPIDER ART DIRECTORS.

i'm trying a couple new things with this series, so this one is an ink drawing with a gouache painting layered in photoshop. i'm pretty okay with the process, it's doesn't feel/look too too digital for me, almost. stay tuned to see how things progress! i should have two sketches this week, and since my dailies took a nose-dive, i think i'm going to start posting some of my sketch-phase work (pencils? color studies? something?) so as to not completely neglect the blog here. i'm working on the next one, a "what if flowers sprouted with your every step?" i'm not 100% sold on the language for the title, but you get the gist of it, like the king midas effect, but with flowers and your feet.