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Latest update! Two weddings at once is a lot of work (don't worry, they aren't both mine). So I apologize for the lack of updates in the past month. But that time has been well spent on preparing for my latest endeavors. First - check out my store at elizabethkidder.storenvy.com. It's where you can buy my original artwork. The more I sell, the more I have to create to fill up the Wall o' Art again. 
Next - if you don't have a few hundred to drop on an original painting, why not become a patron? Check out patreon.com/ekidderillustrator where, for as little as $5 a month, you can become a patron of my work and support me in creating new artwork, releasing new pages from my graphic novel, and fund a permanent space in local galleries.
Finally - waiting for the next installment of Jannah Station? I have begun work on the first chapter in Jannah Station: Academic Suicide. We've also printed a limited run of the Omnibus of Jannah Station: A Soft Murder, with exclusive content and a new cover at only $15. Contact me to purchase. We'll also be releasing the first issue of both A Soft Murder and Academic Suicide as a weekly online serial comic. Stay tuned for the first page!
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First off - a great big thank you to all who attended my first First Friday show this past week! Two of the pieces on the wall have sold already, and I had an impromptu interview with WBIR10, due to the nasty weather. The show will still be up the rest of December, so make sure to stop by to do some artistic Christmas shopping! If you aren't in the area, but want to see what is available, check out my First Friday page on my website for specs and prices. Next - "Journey to Vapourri" is still going strong on NeonMob, so go check it out, as well as the spiffy new layout of their website. Then - be sure to check out my Society6 page. Everyday there is a new special offer to celebrate Christmahanukwanza. Today - $6 off all t-shirts. Also, free shipping on orders over $50 ends Friday, so check it out soon. And now - only the front cover is left on the color omnibus of "Jannah Station: A Soft Murder." Check out the rear cover on the Old Sins Facebook page, and read issue #1 for free at OldSins.com. Last but not least - my friend William Nunn did a review series of the last two seasons of Sherlock, as well as speculation on the upcoming season, and invited me to join him on the Season 1, Episode 2 review of "The Blind Banker." Caution: SPOILERS ahead, but you should really should have seen the series by now anyways. You can see our review here, and check out the others in his series as he uploads more. That's all for now, but as always, check back every Wednesday for a new post, and check out my Facebook page for the latest updates on projects. DragonCon 2013 was a success! I got to finally see Artist Alley, where I met Yale Stewart, of JL8 fame, and attended a comedy seminar where I met Bill Corbet, of MST3K fame. I even got to be a part of a panel, "Raising the Robot" where I did a live-drawing session of robot sex and robot religion. :) 
Life after the con has been a tumultuous up-and-down elevator (I don't like roller coasters). I've been offered a First Friday showing at the store Bliss downtown in December. I also sliced off a chunk of my middle finger and had to be taken to the emergency room for my first stitches ever. Don't worry, it was my left hand so, while awkward, it hasn't stopped me from my work, which includes a new series I'm developing to hang in my gallery in Asheville. I'll give you a hint - the theme of the show is Day of the Dead. More images to come next week, hope everyone had a sans-hospital Labor Day!
Some of you may know about Displa.io, a wonderful new website where artists and photographers can post their work for sell on giant metal canvases called displates. I joined the site while it was in beta, and have a few galleries up of my work. Well, I just learned today that one of my favorite pieces, "Key to the Soul" was chosen to be showcased in Displa.io's first gallery show during the SonArt festival in Barcelona, Spain! You can see the whole collection of artwork that was part of the gallery (including mine) here, and learn more about the gallery at Displa.io's blog here. Click the image of "Key to the Soul" below to see it on Displa.io, and check out all the amazing artwork there. *Also - interviewing with Robin Easter Design today. Wish me luck! 
The next Orange Leaf mural is underway at the Cedar Bluff location. The theme? All the mascots of the local area schools enjoying some delicious yogurt. First up? The Hardin Valley hawk. 
In order to make myself work, and make sure you still have work to follow, an update on several projects:  I met author C. David Conner at AdventureCon last year, and was commissioned to create an interior illustration for his upcoming novel, featuring the vampire Vimala, who appears in his other book, Bloodbourne, which you can check out on Amazon.  Working with fellow Einstein employee and graphic designer Chris Pack, we are creating a series of posters and promotional materials for local band MendingWall. This is the first draft of the poster, with more imagery in a similar style to follow, after our meeting next week. More on these, and a new project involving dinosaurs and trading cards, next week!
 Don't let the gaiety and frivolity of this picture fool you. Beneath that robe lies a freshly graduated 22 year old, ready to take on a delicious little bacon cheeseburger at Five Guys. Now I am home again, maybe for the last time as I embark on the terrifying journey for a job, an apartment, and an artistic career while maintaining my integrity. Many embark, few survive. But who knows, you may find me many years from now, cresting the horizon with success and contentment on my shoulders. Till then, I'll guess I'll just have to keep blogging.
Good news everyone! :) The Hilton Head International Piano Competition holds a contest each year to design the art that will be used in their posters, brochures, flyers, website - basically, al manner of marketing and advertising promotions for the upcoming year's piano competition. This year, there were nearly 50 submissions, and yours truly won 2nd place! 
Not only that, but I'll be given a monetary award, and my poster will be shown, along with the third and first place winners, in the lobby of the competition hall this year, and the next.
With the exception of my parents, this is the first time that I've been paid for my art, and it is a real boost of confidence to know that there are clients out there interested in my style, and that making a career is more possible than ever. I'd like to thank the HHIPC for selecting my work and my "getting published" class that provided me the opportunity to enter. It's such an honor. So, the New Year's resolution is a great idea on paper. New year, new beginnings, a chance to make outrageous claims of bettering yourself, and then promptly be forgotten mid-February, and then, only if you tried really hard. Also, for students anyway, there's no time to make life-affirming changes if you have to go right back into the drudgery of endless papers and grades, with no light in sight but Martin Luther King Day. My way of thinking, it would be-hoove those who wish to make a change to get on it NOW, before the post-holiday blues, before life comes crashing down.
More importantly than starting a new year with a bang, is finishing the old one well. Just like a runner, in the midst of a race, looks towards the finish line, not the days afterwards basking in the glow of winning, just the line itself, so should we look at this last month as a completion of all we strived for the past eleven. Have a project you never quite finished? Do it now. Meant to tell someone something, but never got around to it? Do it now. Want to be the best you can be? Do it now. That way, when January rolls around, you can go back to being the lazy bum you are. As part of my Poetry III class, it's my job not to just write poetry, but read it too. I found this today in a wonderful poetry collection called "Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times". It's called "The Journey" by Mary Oliver, quickly becoming one of my favorite poets:
One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice - though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You know what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do - determined to save the only life you could save. Isn't she absolutely the greatest? With such simple words, she tells you a story of an awakening self-journey. I think she proves you don't have to be in an extreme of happiness or sadness for a poem to impact you, if you let it. |
I'm Elizabeth Kidder, freelance illustrator currently located in Knoxville, TN. Please enjoy the site and Contact Me with any job inquiries or questions.
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