Back at it

It's been a little quiet around here, but we are back in the saddle.

We're back in school mode, but this time around, we're making a concerted effort to not be distracted. It's so easy to get distracted by our other responsibilities. School, other freelance, friends, family, our own relationship...these are all vitally important, but this project often gets the short end of the stick. It takes some sacrifice, some discipline to not ignore it after a very long day, or a very long week. It's hard. Don't let anyone tell you it's not.

But you know what? It's awesome. It's so good to make something from nothing. And it's fun. On good days, it feels like playing. (On the bad days, it's like shoveling sand, but that's another matter.)

So, let's get back to playing!

SDCC Scars Stories #1

Hi! We are back from the craziness that is SDCC/Los Angeles, still super jet lagged, but very enthusiastic to keep up the momentum on the book. It was a great con, in part because of everyone that stopped by to share their own beautiful scars with us!

We kept track of the stories people shared. Some were hilarious, some were heart-breaking, some were downright strange. We loved every one, though!

By far, the biggest cause of scars were by motorcycles/bikes/mopeds (20–a good reason to wear a helmets, guys!) followed closely by surgery (17). The weirdest and surprisingly large category was dueling (4). Other contenders were animal bites (15, including dogs, catfish, cats, guinea pigs, a duck and a stingray), knives (7), furniture (6), kitchen appliances (5, including a guy who tried to stop the spinning blades of a blender with his fingers, yipes!), cars/car accidents (5) and the pool (5). We also had entries of swings (5), trees/ladders/heights (5), rollerblading/skateboarding (4), sledding and miscellaneous winter sports (3), summer sports including soccer wrestling and football (3), coat hangers (2), pint glasses (2), cigarettes (2), fences (2) and scissors (2). Fireworks (1), braces (1), letter openers (1), waxy floors (1), a lawnmower (1–more on this later), a light table (1), superglue (1), a shopping cart, and an avocado (1) also rounded out our list.

Some of you were gracious enough to let us share your stories with the world, and here are some great ones:

Kathryn has two matching scars from a dog and a cat, one on each arm, in the same spot. How nice of them to make them so symmetrical!

Maria was ironing one day, and accidentally brushed against the hot iron. Now she has an awesome scar to show for it!

Samantha broke her wrist, and had to have surgery to fix it. Because of the location of the scar, the surgeon wanted to make sure no one would mistake it for a suicide attempt and so made it LIGHTNING BOLT shaped. Coolest surgeon ever. Seriously, check that thing out! Lightning! On her wrist!

Everyone seemed excited to share their stories (even if they were rewarded with a free button!). And the coolest thing was that almost everyone had a story to share. Only a few people didn't have any scars at all (or at least ones you could see). We heard amazing stories of survival, people whose scars meant that they are still here, alive and kicking. Thank you to everyone that stopped by and told us their story.

Speaking of which, we have more stories from our beautiful visitors, so check back later in the week for more! (We're going to be sharing how we got some of our own choice scars, too.) Also, if you want to show off *your* beautiful scar, email us a photo and a short description of how you got it. We'll post it on the blog!

SDCC 2012!

Hey everyone! If you're at San Diego Comic Con, come on out and visit us in Artist's Alley. We're right in front of the G Lobby doors.

We have buttons to give away if you tell us about YOUR beautiful scar! We have quite a list going. So far, bikes/motorcycles are definitely the biggest scar creators. Come share yours and wear your button with pride!

We have winners!

Winners from top row: Danielle Jette, Mark Illing, Ola Volo, Michael MacRae, Tylor MacMillan, Nomi Chi, Alison Bruce, Tina Le, Daniel Tatterton

It's been a little while since we updated! Things always get a little crazy around here when we get into the meat of the school semester. One big thing we've been working on is getting our students ready for the Society of Illustrators Student Show. This is the first time our school has entered the competition and we did very well, with nine of our students accepted!

This was a record year for entries, with over 8,000 coming in. (I do not envy those judges, how do you choose?) We couldn't be more proud of how well our students did, but it's not too surprising, considering the wealth of talent that they all have.

You can view all the winners, their full-size winning entries and artist info here. They are in good company.

Congrats to everyone!

Stop SOPA

This is going to pertain more to our US readers, but what this bill would do affects all internet users across the globe. We don't usually include topics of a political nature, but we feel that this is an issue that affects us all.

You may notice that there is a little black ribbon in the corner of our blog today. As people who generate creative content and intellectual property, we have pretty strong views on taking other people's work. However, the way the SOPA and PIPA bills are being put forth in the House of Representatives and Senate won't stop on-line piracy. What they will do is severely limit what has been an open exchange of ideas on the web. Online piracy will find a way to work around these bills, but your average user will not.

From Wikipedia (which is going dark for 24 hours in protest):

SOPA and PIPA are badly drafted legislation that won't be effective in their main goal (to stop copyright infringement), and will cause serious damage to the free and open Internet. They put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites won't have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Big media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn't being infringed. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won't show up in major search engines. And, SOPA and PIPA build a framework for future restrictions and suppression.

We urge you to protect the free and open web. Call your representative and take tell them this bill means bad business.

This Moment's Inspiration: Well-Read

Happy 2012 everybody! We are hoping that this year is going to be a great one for everyone! It’s going to be an extremely well read one for Guin and I as we hauled quite a few good reads from friends and family. Books are a terrible addiction, as we are surrounded by bookcases in every room. Not to mention books on the floor, books on the table, books on every horizontal surface... But the one who dies with the most books wins! (More books, I’m guessing).

So among the books we got were: two graphic novels (Palookaville, and the Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Artists, both by Seth), two books on paper cutting and paper art (gee, I wonder who was the recipient of those books), a knitting book entitled: "Not Tonight Darling, I'm Knitting" (ditto with the wondering), two hockey books on Kerry Frasier and the Preston Rivulettes, an all-woman hockey team (I feel so Canadian), a retrospective on Saul Bass, and three other art books including the Art of Pixar and the Art of Up and the Disney Animation archive book.

Quite the haul. Except that somehow, we had to drag about 60 pounds of book with our carry-on baggage (since a mere 50 pound check-in limit is completely unfair for bibliophiles). But we couldn't leave a book behind.

So this got us thinking: What is the single art book that we cannot live without? We have many books that we treasure: First editions of adventure books illustrated by Howard Pyle, Rockwell Kent and NC Wyeth, first editions of drawing books including Andrew Loomis and the Famous Artists School, inscribed books by Scott Hampton, George Pratt, Paul Rand and Walt Reed, and on and on and on. But if there was a fire in the studio, Guin and I agree that the book we would salvage would be our Art of Disney catalogue book published by the The Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.



Though this book is almost completely written in Japanese, this is the book that introduced us to Mary Blair and Eyvind Earle (art, after all, is universal). It was like hearing music for the first time. I mean, SURE we are surrounded by sounds, but after this book, we were surrounded by music. I remember when Stuart Ng showed me this book at San Diego ComiCon. The book hit me so hard in the eyes that I simply sighed and handed him my credit card.

Stuart is an evil man. I love him, but I'm pretty sure he takes great joy in opening artist's eyes (and artist's wallets!).

So if you see this book in a bargain bin or thrift pile (good luck with that), buy a couple of them. You won't be sorry.

What is the art book you can't live without?