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Yey, I've finally finished the painting I started two years ago!
A scene from one of the chapters of the book I’m writing- Alex and Raúl are resting by the stream after a long and tedious trek through the forest, unaware they have ventured into the territory of Mortikye the wolf. Their presence is not welcome…






I’m really pleased with how this turned out considering I did'nt rough it up and more or less painted it as I went along.

I’ve updated the sculpture section of my site with some photos of the pen toppers ive made and sold on ebay. – http://www.elysiumrain.com/Sculpturedpens.html

Val and I have set up a calendar of the picture book 'Alex and Friends' on lulu.com – http://www.lulu.com/content/lulustudio-calendar/alex-and-friends/7079356
We hope to another for the second book when its finished.




And last but by no means least, a little bit for Fi-Fi (not my choice of name lol), my hamster who passed away today.







She was by no means the friendliest critter but she was definitely the cutest. Will miss you lots Fi-Fi mouse X

Here's the finished illustration featuring some of the characters from "Forts Book 2: Liars and Thieves." I like how this one came out. In fact, I liked it so much that I've already gotten started on the illustration for the third.

Am I getting WAY ahead of myself?

Without a doubt.

It's what I do best.

Steve

Finished!

Finally!

I have no doubt that if you were in the room with me, you would give me a congratulatory high five, would you not?

Steve!

I put the kibosh on this piece at around 1AM while sitting in my darkened home office watching MST3K on DVD, and listening to my wife snore loudly in the next room.

Life is a wondrous and splendid thing, is it not?

Some good news is that after a bit of a hiatus from my novel, I dove back into it yesterday. I think the time away from it did me good. Recharged the batteries. I'm on the homestretch now, and hopefully I'll be finished with my first draft of this thing in a month or so!

Steve!

I was finally able to finish this one up last week. Overall, I don't hate it. Is it the best in the series? Naw. Is it the worst, Naw. It's decent, and decent is good enough for me at the moment.

It was sort of an uneventful weekend for me. The wife and I didn't really do much. I've had to take a bit of a break from writing the book in order to get some other stuff done, but hopefully I'll be able to get back to it sometime this week. I'm at a point (somewhere in the middle of the story) that has me a bit stumped. I know how the story is going to end, but I've written myself into a bit of a corner and I'm having trouble getting over a hump. I had hoped that taking some time away from it would help me sort things out in my head, but it really hasn't worked.

Not exactly the most well thought out plan, I know.

I saw a really good movie called "Son of Rambow" over the weekend. A really sweet little story, well directed, funny, had everything really. It didn't change my life or anything, but without a doubt it was a good flick.

Steve~

WOW! Last week was about as busy a week as I've had in a long time, and the really weird thing about it is that I didn't do a single piece of illustration or design work. Not one!

This week is my wife's first back at school and it's a new school to boot. Because of that I spent all of last week moving everything from her old classroom that we had plopped down into storage, out of storage and into her new room...by myself.

You may not think that sounds like a whole heck of a lot, but this woman has collected a LOT of books in her twelve years of teaching and a lot of books mean a lot of heavy boxes. We actually had to rent a 16 foot U-Haul in order to move all this stuff.

After the moving was done I spent a good eight hours a day, every day, moving desks, moving tables, organizing papers, papering her walls, hanging stuff on those walls, creating more stuff to be hung on those walls, then hanging that created stuff up!

Toss in the fact that the air conditioning wasn't working because the school was still being built, and it was well over 100 outside and you've got a recipe for a tired and very stinky me.

Anyway, all is well that ends well I suppose, and her first day back went decently so I guess it was worth it.

She's going to owe me though...oh yes, she surly is...

Hopefully I can find some time this week to put the kibosh on this darn monster piece.

Steve~

I was able to put the ol' kibosh on this piece in just a couple of days. It's strange how one piece can take me hour upon hour to finish off, while another (with pretty much the same amount of work) can get finished in two days.

Usually getting paid makes me speed things up a bit, but I didn't earn a single dollar for this one, so who knows?

Steve~

FINISHED ANOTHER ONE!

Once again I defied the laws of time and space and managed to find an opportunity to complete the second piece in my monsters chasing a kid series. I think the next one I do is going to feature the gang on top of a train, though I haven't started work on it yet. As far as this snow one goes, I kinda like it. I think the kids outfit is good, and I like the composition for the most part.

Hope everyone enjoyed the Easter holiday. I spent it with my wife and her family, which always provides for more than one awkward moment, but then I guess that's what families are for, right? Awkward moments I mean.

The four year old daughter of my wife's cousin was asked to give me a hug by her mother but instead she took one look at me, put her hands over her eyes, then proceeded to yell at the top of her lungs "NO! SCARED! SCARED! SCARED!"

Everyone laughed.

You know...because apparently I'm scary.

Steve~