Category Archives: my creations

Things that I created myself

finished kaleidoscope drawing

Kaleidoscope Artwork Takes Forever {finished piece}

finished kaleidoscope drawingAfter what feels like forever and a day, I finally finished my latest picture! To this day, it still amazes me how much harder it is to do artwork with two kids running around the house. When I got laid off from my job I had these grandiose plans of how much I was going to get done on my time off. Reorganize the closets! Go through the kid’s rooms and donate old clothes to Goodwill! Plant flowers out front! Artwork! Baking!

I kind of underestimated how much a demanding toddler, errands, laundry, yard work, and of course job hunting will take out of you. When I remember all these things, it makes sense why this picture took me over a month to complete. Oh well. Working on art is kind of like my reward for getting everything else done. Some people kick back and watch tv. I kick back, turn on some music or a tv show I can just listen to, and draw.

medium closeup of kaleidoscope marker drawing

Remember how in this post I was complaining how a certain someone hijacked my micron pens and scribbled all over my drawing? You can see the damage in the next two photos. Fortunately, if you take a big step back you don’t really notice. Well, the average person won’t notice. My eyes go straight to it every time, but I’m trying to not be crazy-obsessive about that.

I’ve been trying lately to do a better job of documenting the process of making art. This time, I actually did a pretty good job remembering to take photos along the way. If you’re interested, you can see the progression of this picture here, here, here.

finished kaleidoscope drawing with markers

The Mind is its Own Place {illustrated quote}

illustrated John Milton quote on sunset backgroundI came across this quote yesterday morning, and it’s been bouncing around my head ever since. Life really is as wonderful or horrible as you make it out to be in your mind. Such things are especially important to remember on a day that your toddler somehow gets her hands on one of your micron pens and scribbles all over the drawing you’ve been painstakingly coloring for the last couple of weeks. Not that anyone in this house would be stupid enough to leave her micron pens and aforementioned drawing unattended. Sigh.

I’m probably making it out to be worse than it is, and I’m hoping that once it’s all colored that will hide most of the scribbles, but from now on that scribble is going to be all I see every time I look at it.

Oh well. I guess we can look toward Heaven and call it our first ever Mommy-daughter collaboration.

Saturday Morning Sketchbook Flashback {v2}

black micron pen abstract drawingYou’re going to have to forgive me that it’s actually morning and not afternoon. I had to mow the lawn this morning. The dandelions are slowly encroaching on my yard and are preparing to consume us all. Or something like that. But seriously…yard work sucks, doesn’t it? But I digress…

I went through about a two year period where almost everything I drew was abstract designs in black micron pen. I was obsessed. I got this really nice hardcover leather sketchbook for Christmas one year, and almost a quarter of it is filled with black geometric designs and really intricate patterns. I remember one occasion when I brought it in from a car to show someone at a party (yeah, I know how dorky this sounds but my boyfriend of the time totally put me on the spot. “Hey…you should see Megan’s drawings! Go get your sketchbook out of the car!”) and someone asked me to draw something for them. Something that was (gasp!) IN COLOR and (bigger gasp!) NOT ABSTRACT! I felt like I’d tainted my book. Silly, I know.

Anyway, I went to Colorado to visit one of my favorite friends, and decided to take my sketchbook along to entertain myself on the plane. In fact, it was the only form of entertainment I had, since I didn’t have the foresight to charge my ipod and the battery died about ten minutes after we got the go ahead to turn on electronic. The flight ended up being incredibly bumpy, but after going through the in-flight magazines more times than I could stomach (it’s times like this I curse being a fast reader) I decided that I’d rather have a jagged-y lined sketch than read Sky Mall again.

So…here you go. My lovely turbulence drawing. Started seconds after the announcement that we were flying over the Black Hills of South Dakota….

black abstract micon pen drawing

black abstract micron pen drawing detail

black abstract micron pen drawing

Weekly Update {and some drawing progress}

detail photo of kaleidoscope marker drawing

Yikes…just realized that I haven’t posted anything in a week. Bad, bad, bad! Life has been pretty busy, but in a good way. My daughter was on spring break from school, so there was a lot of running around with the kids, which translates to NOT a lot of time to spend in front of the computer.

Tattoo update! I got some more work done last Monday and now it’s about 80-85% done. Unless we come up with some more cool stuff to add, which is always possible. We have to finish coloring some of the background and finish the sky area (all over my shoulder which was kind of painful and I’m not really looking forward to) then it’s done! You can see it in the picture below. Also…do you know how tricky it is to take a picture of your own arm with a cell phone? Of the approximately twenty I took, this is the only one I’m ever moderately happy with.

my almost finished tattoo

Not the best photos ever...but YOU try taking a good picture of your own arm!

We’re going to make great old people someday. Me and the BF spent the other night smoking cigars, drinking dirty martinis, and playing Bacci ball with some friends (which apparently I’m pretty good at). And you know what? It was awesome.

Newly obsessed with…Game of Thrones. Anyone else loving this show? I needed something to fill the void of The Walking Dead and American Horror Story. It’s very unusual for me to get SUPER excited about a show, but this one’s got me hooked. My BF made me watch the last episode of season 1 and the first episode of season 2 a few weeks ago and I loved it, which meant I had to start watching the entire first season on OnDemand to get a grasp on who all the characters were in relation to each other. And I felt like I was cheating because I already knew how the season ended. Anyway…yeah. Game of Thrones. Also, we decided that you could make a drinking game out of it. Every time someone gets beheaded…take a drink.

Instagram for Android is finally here, which I downloaded the day it came out (along with a billion other people). I’m the first to admit that I had quite intense Instagram envy of all you iphone users, and Android phone didn’t have anything even remotely as cool. If you want to follow me, my user name is megandowntherabbithole.

New site coming soon! Yup…I started working on a site redesign for megandowntherabbithole. I’m hoping to have it up by the end of this month if all goes well.

Amidst all this other madness, I did manage to squeeze in some more coloring on my drawing. It’s getting there! I actually had to make a trip to the art supply store to pick up some markers for the background work, but now that I’ve done that, I think it’s in the home stretch!

kaleidoscope marker drawing

detail photo of kaleidoscope marker drawing

detail shot of kaleidoscope marker drawing

How are things in your world?

Still working on… {teal & yellow kaleidoscope marker drawing progression}

image

I’ve been working on this project for a little over a week now. I wish I’d taken a photo before I started coloring everything in, but honestly I got sucked into working (in “the zone”, if you will) and straight up forgot. Oops.

I’m loving this color combination of teal and brown, which was inspired by a tattoo I watched my BF give the other day. The bright yellow is just there to give it a little punch, and the browns and tans calm everything back down. Looking at it I feel like it could use a third bright color, but I’m not sure what yet. I’ll have to get some scrap paper and start playing with color combinations until something agrees with me. The thought of putting in this much work and then royally screwing it up by picking the wrong color is always a little unnerving. ;)

Currently Working On {kaleidoscope art with Micron pens…my favorite!}

cup of micron pens and art suppliesOhhhh….Micron pens. How I love thee.

Seriously, I wish the makers of Micron pens would sponsor my artistic endeavors and just start sending me a box of microns every few weeks. I sure use enough of them. I have at least two of every size, along with the color ones that I just HAD to buy but never really found a good use for. I’m not sure I NEED every single size….I mean, is there REALLY that big of a difference between a .20mm and a .25mm nib? Wait – who am I kidding, of course there is! To this day, I still get excited when I go over to my parents house on Christmas and receive my stocking chock full of Micron pens and black Prismacolor markers. Does anyone else get super excited over things like that? No? Just me? Oh well….

Anyways, I found a partially started then abandoned drawing in the garage a few weeks ago when I was looking for materials for another project, and then THAT project got put on the back burner so I could revive THIS one. Fickle, I know. When I found the paper I just had the basic skeleton of the shapes sketched out in pencil, so I started going to town with my beloved Micron pens and filling in the details. I’ve probably put three or fours hours of work into it at this point. Don’t you love it when you start a new project and all you want to do is work on it ALL the time? Before I had kids I used to sit and work for ten, twelve hours at a time and get the whole thing finished in a few days. That can’t really happen any more but I’m happy with the progress I’ve made so far.

detail of kaleidoscope art done with micron pen

detail of kaleidoscope art done with micron pen

work in progress of kaleidoscope art in micron pen

 

Zooooooooooooo! {the day in photos with my new lens}

lounging tiger at Brookfeild Zoo

Have I gushed about the new lens that my BF got me for Christmas? Because it really is awesome. Crystal clear and sharp and zooms in oh-so-close. When I bought my camera (the bargain of the century – discounted over 60% because it was the floor model) I had the intention to start collecting different lenses as soon as possible, but then life got in the way. Cheap, they are NOT (Eeep, total Yoda moment! The BF has made me watch Star Wars a few too many times). Eventually I want to add a macro lens, a wide-angle lens, and a fish-eye lens to the collection, but I have a feeling it’s going to take a while.

Anyway, an awesome new lens just begs for use. I’ve taken it to the forest preserve, the Auto Show, to capture my daughter in the snow, and now the zoo. I was SUPPOSED to take it to the Hawks game a few weeks ago, but a certain child of ours cracked her jaw on the coffee table and had to be taken for the ER for what we thought was a split lip…long story short, it didn’t happen.

We had unseasonably nice weather (but crazy-windy!) the day we went. It actually was a little strange, because it felt like late spring, but still looked like winter. Looking around you saw brown grass, gray skies and no leaves on the trees, but I walked around comfortably in just a t-shirt all afternoon (and I’m a wuss about the cold). Plus we got there late enough that all the school groups had gone home for the day, so it was really empty. Perfect for taking photos.

close up headshot of giraffe at Brookfeild Zoo

close up of hawk at Brookfeild Zoo

sleeping wolves at Brookfeild Zoo

white peacock at Brookfeild Zoo

close up of horned owl at Brookfeild Zoo

close up of leopard at Brookfeild Zoo

polar bear at Brookfeild Zoo

Happy {Belated} St. Patrick’s Day!

green kaleidoscope design made of shamrocks

Happy (belated) St. Patrick’s Day! I made this cute little picture and had it all scheduled to post yesterday…then for some reason it didn’t. (Angrily shakes fist at computer). Oh well. Might as well post it anyway. No use letting the time I spend making it go to waste, right?

Did you do anything fun? Me…I just bummed around with the house with the kids. That’s okay though, my St. Paddy’s Day two years ago was so epic that I might still be recovering. By the way, I just learned yesterday that it’s always St. Paddy’s and never St. Patty’s. I guess Patty is only a girls nickname over in Ireland. Huh. See, this American girl learns something new every day.

I’ll have to have a Guinness the next time I go out and celebrate St. Paddy’s Day a little late. :)

Sláinte!

Rainbow Blossoms {Kaleidoscope Art}

pattern on rainbow kaleidoscope like circles

Wow…talk about complicated. The first time I tried to save this file as a jpg I got the Rainbow Pinwheel of Death for ten minutes and then my computer locked up. I wish you could see it here, but the detail at full size is absolutely crazy. So crazy that I think I’m going to have it available in my Etsy shop in a much larger size than normal. Most of my prints are 8″ x 8″, but I’m thinking that this might have to be 20″ x 20″, or maybe even larger. I always struggle a little bit with what size I should sell my prints at. One one hand, I want them to be affordable, but on the other I want to be able to show the huge amount of details I put into my work.

I want I would love to fill a whole wall or ceiling up with one of these. Make it super-uber-mega-complicated…and just stare.

I {Heart} Jewel Tones

I love jewel tones. Ruby. Sapphire. Emerald. Amethyst. If you open up my closet, once you get past the abundance of striped tops, pretty much everything that isn’t black is jewel tones. I like them because they’re rich, and deep, yet you don’t feel like your clothing is screaming “HEY! HEYYYYYYYY!!!!!! LOOK AT MEEEEEEE!” Maybe that’s a little over-dramatic, but I’m just not a hey-look-at-me sorta gal.

Anyway, after the deep purple drawing I made a few days ago, thought it would be fun to do a series of similar pieces in all of my favorite jewel-tones colors. Amazingly, I was able to get three done pretty quickly without a certain someone climbing up into my lap and banging on the keyboard. Weird. Although I did get up to grab a snack and came back to find her opening up Photoshop. Maybe I have a little designer in the works.

kaleidoscope like white shape against a garnet colored backgroundkaleidoscope like white shape against a jade colored backgroundkaleidoscope like white shape against a sapphire colored background

Purple Blossom Art {it’s ok if you stare}

digital art of a kaleidoscope like mandala shape against a purple background

Have you ever created something you really loved in less than ten minutes? And afterwards it felt almost too easy? Like any good piece of artwork can only come after some epic struggle, featuring sleepless nights, cursing and exhausting?

Nah. Sometimes, it really IS that easy.

This picture was exactly what I needed, and I love it. I was having one of THOSE days. You know the ones. The kind of day where absolutely nothing catastrophically bad happens, yet EVERYTHING feels excruciatingly annoying. The cable won’t work. The baby won’t stop whining. You can’t get five minutes alone. You want to scream out your frustration over…everything and nothing, all at the same time.

The baby fell asleep, I jumped on the computer and just started playing, without too much thought as to what I was doing. All I knew was that I wanted to play around with transparent layers. After four of five false starts where I got halfway done and then scrapped the whole thing, I ended up with this.

I love it, and my head finally feels cleared. Sometimes art is awesome like that.