I feel like talking about art right now. Why? Because, that's why. And it's my damned blog, and I will talk about what I want to. So, nyah. Or something.
My absolute favorite artist is Van Gogh, I think. I absolutely love post-impressionism art, even moreso than I love surrealism. Of course, I do not attempt anything even remotely post-impressionist, since my last art class was freshman year, and I'm not interested in becoming that sort of an artist. The class still helped me quite a bit...my artwork improved a great deal after that.

Of course, it hasn't improved that much, and anything that you see at vera dicere or even here probably took me several hours to weeks to finish. It takes me a very long time to get something right; all of y'all who see me every day know this, and have seen me cursing at my notebook or my stack o' paper day after day. The picture that I'm currently working on has been a work in process for the past three weeks, I believe...maybe longer. Probably longer.

I have a process, you see. First I come up with an idea. Actually, that's a lie. There is no method to my madness. First I sit around and doodle all over every availible blank space- occasionally this blank space happens to be a sheet of white paper, and when it is, and I like the way my doodle looks, I'll dig out either a pen or a marker and I'll ink it. Then I'll either clean it up on the original sheet or I'll trace it. This is where it starts to get difficult. I don't have a light box or anything else, so I'm forced to either ink with thick, messy lines that I can see through the new sheet of paper, or I can tape the thing to a window on a sunny day and work at a bad angle, or I can dissassemble the shadow box on my wall and balance the pane of glass between my knees over a table lamp minus the lampshade. I don't do that too often, because it's just a Pane o' Glass, sharp edges and all, and by the time I'm done it looks like I've gone through a cutting session all along the inside of my thighs or on my hands. And since I'm really not into that sort of thing, and since it hurts but it doesn't bleed, I usually just eyeball it and use messy lines.

Once I've gotten a clean copy of my drawing, I'll forget about it for a day to a week and a half, before deciding that I ought to get off my lazy ass and do something with it. I usually scan it in and ignore it for another day or two; I don't like using colored pencils, because quite frankly, I suck at using them. I have only just recently come into the possession of flesh colored markers, but I suck at using those too, and I don't have the proper paper for markers or paints. (I do now, actually, but I'm afraid to use it.) And anyway, my red marker has developed some sort of strange fungus that was there when I got the thing, and now it has grown, so I just keep that one capped and try not to aggravate it; I'm rather afraid that it's going to take over my desk one of these days. And I ask you, what's a girl supposed to do without a red marker, hm? Nothing. I like red. I especially like the shade of red that the marker is, but I'm not about to use it when it might object loudly and hold a grudge. So, I scan my outlines in and color them in photoshop.

I have Photoshop 4.0, but I may be able to get 6.0 soon due to a certain felon in my family. I can spend anywhere from two hours to two weeks coloring something, depending on how neat I want it to look and how much detail I want to put in it and how much time I spend getting side tracked.

I don't draw much fanart, simply because I'm really not a very visual person- I can hear something much more easily than I can see it. You've no idea how long it took me to visualize my own characters in my own stories that I've had bouncing around in my head for ages; trying to visualize other people's characters is twice as difficult. Fanart for games and anime is different; I don't see too much of a point in doing that. And there are always other people who are so much better at it than me, and I can never get things to look the way the ought to...plus it requires too much thinking. Thinking requires too much effort, and we all know how lazy I am.

Fanart for other people is a slightly different story- I'll draw that if the mood strikes me, more or less...as I said, there is no method to my madness. Of course, if you ask me nicely, or even if you just say "Hey, you, yeah you, draw me something" chances are I'll do it. Nothing is more flattering than a request, in my opinion. Of course, it might take me weeks or months or years to finish it, but if you ask, I'll draw you something. What can I say, I'm easy. (Wait, I didn't say that. Honest. ;)) A detailed description always helps, of course...and if you give me free reign to draw whatever I want for you, I'm not guarenteeing that it won't be vaguely disturbing.

So, there you go. I'm done talking about art for the moment, i think. Who knows. *shrug* doop.