Added two new HP Tarot Cards. If I may say so, I rock for not abandoning this project after working on it 5 years (and still 34 cards to go!)

Molly Weasley as the Empress
and
Percy Weasley as the Prefect of Gryffindor. It's a Weasley sort of weekend, I guess!


Back to school tomorrow. Man, my sleep schedule is completely in nocturnal mode. *sigh* It's just my natural tendency. It's gonna be tough to get up tomorrow morning, especially since I'm still in a drawing mood and hope to get a lot more art done tonight. Though I should probably stop to eat something besides the package of rice cakes I have handy. And take a shower. Why can't someone just shovel healthy, delicious food into my mouth and give me a sponge bath while I draw? Now that would be perfect. :P

Finished up a new tarot card. It's rather more pink than I was planning. Why is it that it's always the card I'm not intending to work on that's always the one that I end up finishing? Strange. But as long as I'm drawing something, I'm not gong to complain too much. And now I MUST go to sleep!

My sleep schedule is completely screwed up. *sigh* Well, I'll be forced back into shape soon enough, when school starts.
The upshot to all this is that I got a lot of knitting and drawing done today, as well as cleaning the kitchen quite thoroughly and getting my laundry done. Here's what I finished today:

Ron on the Chess Knight as the Chariot Tarot Card
Harry and Ginny as the Lovers Tarot Card

Wheee, go me! And now, it's time to brush my teeth and try to sleep.

Finished up a third in my major milk, meat and fiber goats of the U.S.A.: the ever-charming LaMancha!

Got a computer desk. It is awesome. This is the first time I've actually had a proper computer set-up that can reasonably house my computer, printer and scanner since 2006. So, I scanned and posted the new tarot card and did a few other little tweaks to the Tarot Site, including bringing back Fawkes as the Star (moved the Patronus to Strength, and will put Neville (who was formerly strength) on a fitting Minor Arcana card).
Oh yeah, and by the way... did I mention that I'm halfway done with the tarot deck??? Because I am! 39 cards in a little under 5 years, haha... maybe the other 39 will follow in the next 5? One can only hope.

And now I am taking a nap. Haven't been sleeping well and I'm really tired and then I have to milk tonight.

Got a computer desk. It is awesome. This is the first time I've actually had a proper computer set-up that can reasonably house my computer, printer and scanner since 2006. So, I scanned and posted the new tarot card and did a few other little tweaks to the Tarot Site, including bringing back Fawkes as the Star (moved the Patronus to Strength, and will put Neville (who was formerly strength) on a fitting Minor Arcana card).

And now I am taking a nap. Haven't been sleeping well and I'm really tired and then I have to milk tonight.

Got my desk all set up (mostly) in my new house, and am finally feeling a bit of an artistic itch again...

( Sketch of Nefertete the goat )


( OMG, a Harry Potter art! I need constructive critique, please! )

And now I need to stop being on the computer because it's still sitting on a box and I'm sitting on the floor and my back hurts.

So, some of you who have followed this LJ for a few years may know that in the past I've participated in Blogathon twice. Once blogging for Elephant Sanctuary, where I drew fan art all 24 hours which were later raffled off to donors. Another year I blogged for Pasado's Safe Haven, and mostly blogged about goats the whole time.
Well, alas, this year I will most likely NOT be participating, so instead will be making pledges to my friends and also various causes that catch my eye, whether or not I know the blogger.
So, I would like to direct everybody's attention to my online friend morgi, who will be participating for the first time this year! Please read her post regarding this at her livejournal and tell me that ain't a cause worth supporting. To make this extra-awesome, she will be spending her 24 hours of fundraising doing a cross-stitch of one of my drawings (I won't tell you what, I'll leave that decision to morgi)! I'm pumped to see how it turns out, hehe.


Anybody else out there in LJ-land participating in Blogathon this year?? If I *do* end up participating as a blogger, I will make an announcement soonish.
:B

So, I re-drew the Nouveau Nubian, because it was too small and that caused me to mess up details around the eyes and hooves. I think this version (11x14 inch paper) is better:



So then last night I suddenly switched from the partially-started Saanen to the Boer. Dunno why I had to draw a Boer all of a sudden, but I did, and I think she turned out lovely:


Boers are meat goats, if you're wondering...


Then, here are some of the latest Harry Potter sketches, I doodled after re-reading 'Deathly Hallows' just recently. Doubt I'll ever finish them, so here they are:


Harry asking the Grey Lady about the diadem.


Harry and Dumbledore and the thing at the Kings Cross Station in Harry's head. They're not really supposed to be naked (except for the thing...) I just hadn't gotten around to drawing their clothes because I was more focusing on their body shapes being correct-ish. I like how Harry and the thing look (despite the proportional issues.. meh) but Dumbledore freaking sucks here. Also, I can't recall what they were sitting on, so I'll have to reread that chapter if I ever want to FIX DUMBLEDORE and continue this. But again, it is unlikely.


And finally, here are some Ghostbusters doodles. I was feeling the need to revisit the 'firefighter calendar' style drawings, refining/improving them and finishing Winston and Janine as well. So far all I have is a slightly-redone Ray and the beginnings of a Janine:






That's it for now. Try to go work on the Saanen or LaMancha, perhaps, both of which have sketches started.

Some of you may remember this doodle posted a long time ago... it's turned out quite differently than I was originally intending, but I really like this. I want to do every major goat breed and try to sell note cards or something. The Saanen is the next one in the works.



Copic marker on smooth bristol board with a little bit of computer editing, 4 x 5 inches. I might enlarge this and do it over, since I screwed up part (which I computer edited out) and in order to get cleaner details around the eyes and hooves. So, perhaps this is a prototype for this (hopeful) series....??? Might also be good to use an actual font for the writing, which would be much straighter lines than I am capable of doing freehand. I was also thinking of putting a little desert plant down by her front legs in that space, but ended up deciding against it, that the abstract sand dune background is enough. But perhaps a deserty shrub would be nice?
Constructive critique is welcome on this.

Finished up Kandi and Vanilla Bean's Blue Bags, the first of (I hope) many drawings celebrating, honoring, and documenting notable (and sometimes tragic) goats in my life.

( Large scans behind the cut. )

Overall, I really, REALLY like how this turned out.

...so instead of talking about anything, I'm just going to post Goat Glut Part 2:

( Behind the cut... )


Well, that was fun. I'm going to go call my sister now, and perhaps watch 'Psycho III' (thank you, morgi!! I actually rather enjoyed 'Psycho II', which surprised me, although I suppose it shouldn't because it was so damn much fun seeing Norman Bates again, even if it was 22 years later!! Fuck, why haven't I drawn Norman Bates yet?!?!?!? THIS IS NOT OKAY.

Here's a crumby little video I took of Prima Vera with her babies, only a few hours old. They have super-cute ears, the perfect mix between Nubian and LaMancha ears, heehee! Prima Vera is chowing down on the remains of her placenta, hence the carnage all over her lips, lol...




Well, I was going to write more about the goings on here, but suddenly I find I am not in the mood. I feel so overloaded and sick of this farm right now. Just *tired* of kidding, especially all this abnormal kidding, and the necessary paranoia and over-watchfulness and all that... and when I think about the fact that we have two more months to go... just.... ugh. ME NO LIKEY.


So, instead, since my sweet gorious has been sketching goats lately (WHICH MAKES ME SO HAPPY because she's AMAZING) she asked if I had any more goat photos for her to reference. Have I got goat photos? Momma, I've got like, nearly 4 years worth of goat photos, haha! So I've decided that since I've made some new friends lately who don't know me from my Heifer Project International Days, where I used to intern and where I was first introduced to these lovely creatures, I would go on a retrospective:
Going along through the goat-files in vaguely chronological and alphabetical order, posting photos that I like and that might be interesting for sketching. Some I've posted in this LJ before, some I haven't.

Let's begin!

( The good old days, part one... picture heavy )

End of Goat-Glut part one. I will post photos from every goat place I've been so far. gorious, I hope you find a couple that interest you! If not, there's more where these came from and I'll keep posting 'em. ;)

So, sweet little man Surprise went to his new home a couple days ago. Some friends of a co-worker had two pet goats, but one died (she was very old and arthritic and eventually couldn't stand and had to be euthanized). So it worked out that I had a sweet goat who was lonely and needed a home, and they had a sweet goat who was lonely and needed a new companion.
It was sad to watch him taken away in the back of their truck, obviously very upset... but I think that he's going to recover soon. The girl was crying about her dead goat, which leads me to believe that they truly are pets to her that she cares about. Plus, they gave me their phone numbers and said I could stop by for a visit in a little bit to see how he's settling in, so I think that I've made a good choice for him. Hopefully he will live out the rest of his life there, happily.
It's sad for me to give him up forever... even more sad than Rosie dying, in some ways. I dunno, for some reason it feels different to split the herd up by giving Surprise away rather than nature taking it's course.... we all die eventually. But it would be nice to avoid having to split them off to different people any more.
Well, at any rate, it beats being slaughtered, like the girl who had him was thinking of doing. I hope Surprise brings his new family much happiness, and that he's happy in his new life as well (I think he will be, judging by the bag of carrots his new owner brought for him as they took him home)

Goodbye, Surprise, I did the best I could for you.