Back to Black Mountain

About a week after AMA my husband and I decided we needed a change of pace and scenery, so we decided to spend a couple of days in Black Mountain, NC. I grew up in Black Mountain. It's a fairly small town in the mountains of western NC. It has a fairly artsy-craftsy feel down town. It is now home to my favorite fabric store in NC--Carolina Fabric Outlet--which used to be located Swannanoa. I'll have to post pics one week of the new fabric gems I found on this last visit there. It has a great selection of quilting fabrics, and their satin is amazing quality and very well priced. Anyways, I digress.

Aside from lazing around, playing video games, reading, and visiting (my brother and grandmother still live in that area), one of the more fun things we did on this trip was go hiking. Hiking used to be one of my favorite hobbies. In high school, I would be out in the woods most every day I wasn't at drama or band practice after school. The Black Mountain/Asheville area has some amazing places to hike. Here are the very few pictures I got from the hike--I totally meant to get a lot more pictures and share them on Tumblr, but that didn't really work the way I'd planned it.

This was at the start of the trip. You can see my dad here. The picture doesn't really do justice to how pretty the environment was. This area looks very similar to where The Hunger Games movie was filmed. Watching the movie was a little weird because so much of it looked like my old back yard. This is the start of the Graybeard trail in Montreat.

 

This is Ty and Logan (Luke wouldn't get in the picture, and Sophie was riding on my back in a back pack carrier and I was taking the picture, so...). This was maybe 1/3 of the way through with the hike? At least getting up the mountain. 

 This is the picture I got at the end of the hike. Again, the photo does not do justice to the view at all. The hike was generally fun. We got rained on a little bit on the way down; it didn't last long, but it was enough to soak everyone pretty thoroughly. Logan had to stop to pet every mushroom on (and off) the trail from the 1/3 mark (2nd picture) to the top and again going back down. XD He was absolutely fascinated by their texture. All told the hike was just shy of 10 miles round trip.

Once Upon a Time

A couple of weeks ago I went to visit a friend while she was sick. While there she had me sit down Once Upon a Time with her. I enjoyed what I saw there, so over the last week or so my husband and I have been sitting down to watch an episode of it each evening and watch a couple of episodes of it (thank you Netflix).

For those of you who have not seen Once Upon a Time, it's another one of those "different take on fairy tale stories." This time the premise is that all the fairy tail characters are actually from the same world but because of a curse they all live in a community in our reality where time does not pass normally and with no memory of who they are. The main character is Snow White's daughter who was able to escape the curse and she is supposed to come back to break the curse. That's the first episode in a nutshell and pretty much the preview you get narrated at the beginning of each episode.

Some of the rehashes of the fairy tale stories are pretty creative and original. Some of them are slight variations on variations I've seen before. One thing I really like is how they tell the story. The show alternates between what's happening in reality and what happened in the fairy tale world before the curse. The part of the story in our reality takes place in a community called Storybrooke. This part of the story unfolds chronologically and is the core focus of the show. With the fairy tale side of the story, the show jumps around in time. I like this for several reasons. First, I don't get the whole story all at once. Second, I don't get the whole story in order. I think by doing both of those things the series keeps me guessing what's going to come next a little bit more. If I got everything all at once in chronological order, it would be too easy to see where things are going in the Storybrooke timeline. I think, telling the story this way also keeps it more interesting.

My opinion so far (I'm not quite half way through with Season 1): Once Upon a Time is a good show. Is it epically awesome? No. I can think of several shows that were better. If you're just looking for something fun to watch though, this could be right up your alley. Personally, I love the traditional fairy tales; those stories have always been some of my favorites for as long as I can remember. I will probably always watch/read variations on them as I find them, and I will probably always like them. Once Upon a Time is better than many of the ones I've seen.

WIP Volume 39

 So, what have I been working on since Anime Mid-Atlantic? The short answer is, not much. I cleaned up my craft room, which was a disaster area after 2 conventions. I have been working on a couple of commissions, one pretty much finished and just waiting on final approval before I print and mail it:

 The other, still very much a WIP. Aside from life being relatively non-cooperative with the amount of project time I've had, I'm taking my time with this one. This commission is for a mascot for the Chesapeake Bay Dive Center. When it's finished it will be printed on t-shirts for them--honestly I'm a little nervous about that (like many artists, I do no always feel like my art is that good, although I try not to voice those doubts very often) but I'm fairly excited as well. The store owner moonlights as a mermaid--I am learning that this is a very interesting subgroup of the cosplay world who take becoming the character (usually their original design mermaids) to a whole new level. I think it looks like a lot of fun, plus the photo shoots look amazing. You can see the young lady I'm drawing for on her Facebook page, here. Right now I'm still trying to get the sketch to some place where I'm happy with it. The arms are going to be leaning back on the dive center logo...

Aside from those commissions, I'm working on bags--like that Fluttershy one I made a couple of months ago for myself. Remember how I said a while back that I'm changing the focus of what I'm doing at the studio here? Well this is going to be one part of that. Here are fabric samples for 6 different bags. The first pic is of fabric samples for 3 bags: one will be fanart-ish (no character art, just in design style) and the other two will just be pretty, although there's a pretty good chance that at least one of them will end up with a panda appliqued on it, cause, you know, pandas are awesome. =P The next two pics are of fabric samples for 2 pony bags--see if you can figure out which ponies are going on those bags. =D The last pair of fabric samples are for a bag that is going to be mostly a collage of my art with those 2 fabric pieces filling in as needed. Maybe next week I'll have some finished squares to post. XD

Schoolhouse Disney for Real

Back in January, I made a big decision (by my standards) for my family (well mostly my kids and myself). I completely dropped the curriculum we'd been working with for that school year--just threw the entire thing out the window. We invested in something new for us. I won't go into too much detail on this cause I'm sure most of you reading this won't care about our homeschool habits, since this isn't you know a homeschool blog. What I have been doing up till now was following a pretty grade-specific generic curriculum for each of our boys. This wasn't too bad when it was just one, or even when it was two. When it became three, it was difficult--not really, only when it came to scheduling and time (this way was getting really time-consuming). When it became four--okay so it's still only three in school, but adding a newborn did make a real kink in my available time for not just school but everything else ranging from personal time to art to whatever, you name it. Anyways, what I picked up was a year-long, not-grade-specific, unit study. It mixes literature, science and history/geography together, so I can do school for everyone all at the same time. The actual work given to the kids is scaled by age, and math is, of course, still separate and my middle-schooler is getting extra science to prepare him for high school science. But, this has been a major time saver for me, and the quality of discussions has gotten better because I'm not feeling so rushed to get through things.

 This year we're focusing on a comprehensive world geography and ecology study. We're spending a little bit of time in every continent, learning the countries and the ecosystems found in each region. The studies are centered around 2-3 week case-studies focusing on specific countries. So far, we've studied Canada, US, Mexico, Brazil, Norway, France, and Germany. Right now we're in a 3-week study of Kenya. We got to spend last Wednesday at the zoo, since NC has some really amazing Africa-themed exhibits. We've also been able to integrate a lot of stuff my dad brought back from his trip to Kenya/Tanzania to climb Kilimanjaro--you might remember my post a while back on the quilt I helped my mom put together for him.

Anyways, that's getting off topic (only a little though, by my standards). This curriculum gives us a free 2 weeks at the end of the school year, which will fall in December (yes this has kind of messed up our school year temporally). I spent a little bit of time debating whether I wanted to add another country--but then I'd have to pick one, and there's so many fun ones to choose from--or maybe travel somewhere--but then where would I go. Well, skimming through some homeschooling forum posts, I was reminded of the World Showcase part of Epcot in Disney World. There are only a couple of countries that we're studying that are not represented there. It seemed like a great way to practically visit every location we're studying (or at least a lot of them). So, we are planning on spending our last week of school on a field trip to Disney. We'll probably spend about half the trip at either Epcot or the Animal Kingdom as those locations go with our unit study theme the most, but I'm sure there will be time for fun too.

We started planning and saving for this trip in mid-February since this is the kind of thing that we could not normally afford to do. We got a bit of a head start with this year's tax return, and for the rest of it, I've saved most of what I've made from Animazement and Anime Mid-Atlantic and from Etsy. We've also tried to cut out little things here and there and put the extra we've saved aside for the trip--like drinking less soda and getting less desert. Well, we just hit the point where we actually get to go last Friday (July 5)!  I made this chart right after we started saving to give us a visual of our progress.

The red and yellow sections represent the cost to pay for park tickets and lodging (we're going to be camping at the Fort Wilderness on-site campground because it's cheaper and we don't mind sleeping in a tent since it'll be December and not sweltering anymore). This will also cover gas and groceries (we'll be packing our own food at this point). Not bad for an 8-day Disney trip for a family of 6!

The four blue squares represent what it would take to allow us to visit the water parks or some of the other extra locations there--I've been to Disney's 4 main parks but I've never actually been to any of these other places. It's one of those optional things. The green is what it would take for us to be able to eat on site as opposed to packing our own food. Depending on how far down that part we get, I might put off the water park extras in favor of the food. Chances are, we won't need all that amount, but I'd rather budget extra than come up short and hungry. Also, I'd like some room to play and not just go for the cheapest of the cheap for food. One thing I'd really like to do is to take a day and go snack hopping where we go through every country in the World Showcase, and pick up a couple of snacks to share--everyone gets to try everything, and then afterwards we'll discuss what we liked and didn't like, compare flavors, etc.

So this is something big that's been going on in my life, and I'm super-excited that we're actually going to get to go. I really wasn't sure we could pull this off, and I want to send a big thank you to everyone who stopped by my art tables at AZ and AMA or who purchased something from my Etsy because you guys have really made this possible. <3

Animazement 2013

I spent Memorial Day weekend at Animazement in Raleigh, NC. This is my home convention, so to speak. I've been attending it every year since 2000, with the exception of last year, but that was Sophie's fault. Over all, I had a good time. I won't say it was my best Animazement, but it was far from the worst (that'd be the villains cafe year). I'd have to say the Slayers year and the FMA year (I identify years by cosplays worn because I can't remember the actual dates) tie for best. Anyways. I spent the entire convention at my table in Artist Alley. I stayed pretty busy--not necessarily a bad thing. =P

Friday was packed with people from the moment we got there at about 9 a.m.. This surprised me. I did not expect things to be that crowded that early on Friday--also not necessarily a bad thing. It did make things a bit chaotic when it came to setting up my table, but I had some awesome friends who helped me pull everything together. I spent Friday evening and pretty much all day Saturday drawing commissions, which was fun. I was probably better prepared for this convention than I ever have in the past. I actually had a flip book with commission information, samples, and pricing--credit for putting this together goes to my husband. This kind of thing was a first for me--not commissions, but having the information readily available for anyone who might have been interested. Anyways, that pretty much sums up my convention in a nutshell.

The downside of being so busy for most of the convention was not so many pictures. I saw some really fun cosplays, although unfortunately, no pictures. =( My favorite cosplay that I saw all weekend was a guy cosplaying Zoicite from the live action Sailor Moon. =D That was amazing. It was followed closely by a group of dwarves (Thorin, Fili, and Kili). I'm really motivated to try and put together some more cosplays right now. Curse you, cosplay! Why do you have to be such an expensive and time-consuming hobby? D= I have lots of great ideas but not enough time to make most of them happen (not to mention funds). You never know, though. Stay tuned. Something might happen this summer. =P

WIP Volume 38

Amazed and Other Things

So, it's been a while since I've posted anything here. I'm honestly amazed this place gets any hits at all--I won't fool myself. The hits I still get are probably just bots or something like that. I'm sure real people don't read this anymore, especially since, you know, there isn't anything new to read. =P

I am resolving (seriously making a huge effort) to really get this thing back off the ground again. I am planning on going back to posting on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays since we have dropped the homeschool co-op group that was eating my Wednesdays. I'm not just returning to my blog. I'm revamping my website, my table, everything that is Gothic Panda Studios. I've been feeling like things have been stagnating--I've been working at good things, but it hasn't really felt like it's been 100% the right direction for me. There certainly have been lots of distractions and a lot of other problems (severe postpartum depression, refrigerator dying, cars dying, and a lot of other things like that--but on to other more positive subjects, since I'm hoping these things are all in the past now). See, when I originally started Gothic Panda Studios, I wanted to hang out in artist alley with other artists and draw stuff that I loved drawing and maybe even drum up some interest in my original ideas. So far, I have connected with very few other artists--this is entirely my fault really. I'm sure there are plenty of awesome friendly artists out there, but I'm way to chicken to converse with any of them (I have issues and lots of social awkwardness). It took me 7 years to actually get up the nerve to even apply for an Artist Alley table (every year I would say, "I'd love to get a table this year in AA." And, every year cons would come and go, and it never happened). Maybe one of these days I'll get up the nerve to chat with the other artists. XD

One thing I have succeeded at is drawing what I want. I think this is part of why it took me so long to figure out what why the things I was working on didn't feel quite right for Gothic Panda Studios. I really like a lot of the projects I've picked up to do. I am enjoying drawing gobs of button designs. I really like the parody posters I've been working on. The thing that gets me is that it's all fanart stuff, or at least mostly all fanart stuff. I don't mind fanart. I really love fanart being part of Artist Alleys--I know this is a touchy subject for a lot of artists, but that's my stance on it. I really like seeing other artists' take on my favorite characters. The thing is though, Gothic Panda Studios was never intended to be nothing but fanart. I like drawing fanart--at least of things I like (outside of commissions, I will never draw a character or anything for a series that I did not enjoy). However, a lot of the button designs and things I've been putting a lot of effort in recently have been nothing but fanart. This was bothering me subconsciously; my artsy crafty projects have been missing the part where I get to play with my own creative endeavors.

So what's the big revamp going to be be? To quote Xellos, "Now...That's a secret." Not really. If anyone really wants to know, I'll tell them what I'm planning. =P I just don't want to plaster a bunch of ideas and plans here right now, especially since I'm not 100% sure exactly how I'm going to make it happen--I know what I want things to look like when I'm finished with the revamp, but the how to get there part is a little vague. This means that the revamp could be ready in a few weeks, or it might take a few months. I'll post more about it though as I get things worked out a little more. There will be some awesome new items for my art table--things that I don't think many other artists have tried yet. I'm excited about that. There is also, of course, going to be more of my original stuff--like maybe finishing some of the half-finished comic books I have laying around my craft room. Don't get me completely wrong though, I'm still going to keep drawing fanart; I'm just scaling it back to make room for some other stuff. =)

I am excited about the upcoming changes. I think things are moving forward in a positive direction. I can't wait to see what comes with the reset of 2013 for my art studio. =D