Art For Sale!

I'm experimenting this morning. I'm trying to wrap my head around all this store making stuff, so I thought I'd just toss up this one piece for now and offer it for sale. Go to my 'Art For Sale' page and check out the details!

If there is any interest at all, I can put up more art for sale. I don't have prints, everything would be original pieces. They would probably range anywhere from $25.00 to maybe $500.00 depending on the piece and how much I like it. Ha ha.

Payment will be through PayPal and with a little more experience under my belt, I may even make a store front. I have tons of stuff in addition to my art. Especially action figures, collectibles and video games.

I'm hoping I can begin generating enough income through jobs, commissions and the like, so I do not have to sell all my stuff. But, you gotta do what you gotta do! Till next time.

Keep it real!

A Painting Without Pain Isn't a Painting

Ouch. This hurts. Here's a WIP. Each time I start a painting, I go through a lot of mental anquish. The brushes don't look right, the color isn't right, the composition is a little wonky. I can't get enough detail in it. Why is that doing that? All I want to do is blend this a little smoother! OMG the LAG!

I have an pretty old HP Pavilion with an AMD 64 2.2 Ghz Processor and it can't handle large paintings. I had this set to 6000 pixels and 300 DPI but it was too lag-a-riffic! I cut it to half the size and it was better but still chugs along when I attempt to do large areas. Oh what I wouldn't give for a state of the art system and a nice Cintique. 

Sigh.

It's so pretty.

Sigh again.

Anyway. I may scrap the whole thing and start over.

New Work

Good afternoon! Had a great Sunday at church this morning. Pretty awesome class and service. I'm working on a new painting now based on a sketch I did during a church service aver a year ago. I scribbled it out, tucked it away for a bit, refined it a little, tucked it away again and something happened yesterday afternoon to inspire me to work on it and finish it up.

I met Andrea Bianco through the ArtRage forums. He is a very talented artist and yesterday, he Tweeted about Behance and CGHUB. I knew about The Behance Network and had already set up a portfolio there, but I hadn't heard of CGHUB. So, I went to the site and was, as usual when I go to one of these places with ENORMOUS talent, throughly blown away! So, I made a page there, too.

As I was perusing their forums and having my head explode at the incredible artists, I came across a challenge they're having and thought this may work well as my submission. I'm currently in the roughing in stage and I hope I can actually find the time to, number one: finish it and number two: have the nerve to submit it!

Is it Saturday Already?

Holy Cow! It is Saturday! Let's see. Got up, ran around like a chicken with it's head cut off. Tried to get some stuff done, got distracted, had to go get a new mouse and keyboard for the ancient Dell I've cobbled together from about 5 different computers and stuff I found at a thrift store. Went to the post office. Corresponded, prayed, worked on my website. Made a sandwich for lunch.

I've been so busy doing other things, I've hardly had time to work on any art. Here's a work in progress. It's like a zombie shaman with stick legs walking through a swamp. Oh man. What can I say!? I have dozens of scribbles and half finished pieces I need to work on.

Jon Schindehette, the Sr AD of D&D at WotC has a great post on his ArtOrder Blog about being so busy all the time. It's spot on and funny as all get out! Join ArtOrder while you're there. It's a good resource. Look around, I think you'll like it. Till next time, Keep It Real!

It's here!

Thanks to my friend, fellow artist all around awesome guy Ric Dragon for taking some time to give me some suggestions for getting out there to stir things up. He gave me some good advice and one thing he suggested, that I had always intended to do, was to get my own domain. Now I have one.

Ric and I went to high school together. He was sort of the lead rebel among all of us artsy types. While the art teacher was trying to get us to draw horses, barns and happy trees, Ric was doing abstract work and I was always doing Star Wars and science fiction. I'll never forget a huge argument Ric and she got into over color. She said white was the absence of color and Ric countered with white being all colors. Man, that was classic.

So, stick around! Until next time, keep it real!

New DOMAIN coming soon!

Hey everyone! I have some exciting news! I finally have my own domain. Of course, it's darrylelliott.com. I know it's not that original, but it seems to just make the most sense! I hope to have it all up and running in a few days! I hope to get a gallery up where I can not only exhibit art but offer some select pieces for sale! I am super stoked!

I really hope to see you soon!

Good Morning World!

I woke up this morning, pretty bummed out. But after a cup of coffee, email checks and social media hopping, I'm feeling a bit better. If you, like me are in the middle of a career shift, or change or looking for opportunities and things just don't seem to be happening fast enough, keep in mind that God works in his own time.

Don't limit yourself to the box. Step out in fear. I'm scared to death. Every time I have to call someone, examine an opportunity or get out of my comfort zone, I panic. What if I say something stupid? Do I even know what I'm talking about? Do I really want to take on this project? What if I fail? Should I even bother?

Being an artist, it's good to dump emotions out in a safe, creative way. The other day, I was angry and hurt, so I worked on the piece you see here. Another piece done in ArtRage.

In the next few days, I may be putting up a ton of video games on eBay. I have a lot of classic, hard to find PS1 games and some sought after PS2 games, too. I really don't want to sell them, but money is tight and I didn't want to sell my Yugioh cards either.

Until next time, Keep it Real!

Too much coffee and too little food!

It's currently Monday afternoon. 3:38PM as I type this. I have had too much coffee and too little food. I think I had a bowl of off brand Honey Nut Cheerios around noon. I've been multi-tasking so much today, I've lost track of time.

I've been looking at so many job boards and filling out on line applications so much my head is exploding! Some of the applications are mind boggling long and retarded! I was applying for a laundry truck driver position and there was an entire section of photos where they would show you a picture of something and how everything was perfectly arranged and then you would be shown another photo with some stuff messed up and you had to pick how many things were wrong! WHAT?! That was really strange.

I sent out a few messages and emails trying to drum up work, not only in illustrating but doing some social media work for clients. I'm waiting to hear back from a job interview I went on Friday. We'll see.

My cars are still dead. I need to go running or find something to do for exercise.

This blogging stuff takes a lot of time.

Man, I've been messing around with this most of the day today, trying to figure out what buttons and widgets and boxes and links and crap to add to this blog. For a guy who has little to no HTML, CSS, XYZ, LMNOP knowledge, it's not that hard to find what you're looking for. Any search like "How do I add a blah, blah, blah to my blog" will give you enough results so you can figure it out. Combining it all on your page is not that bad either. I couldn't get my Facebook and Twitter share buttons to line up correctly, so I just tossed the Twitter one away. When I wanted to do something, and it actually worked, a hearty "Boo Yah!" became appropriate.



It seems like they hide a lot of this stuff so the average Joe Internet can't find it. It's just complicated enough to weed out the folks who don't know where the on button is on their computer.

BTW: Space Ghost is awesome. I use to work with George Lowe, the voice of Space Ghost, back in my advertising days. Funny guy.

Well, I think I am finished messing around with this episode for today. Until next time. Keepin' it Real. (I borrowed that from our Sunday School Class)

Not enough time in the day

There is really not enough time in the day to get everything done I need to accomplish. Everything is so rushed and hectic, I wish the world would just stop for about a month so I could go about my business and finish up some things. I would love to have the luxury of working on my art. I can't afford Photoshop or Painter or any of that stuff. I can afford ArtRage, which is really amazing. Especially since it can do pretty much anything the bigger proggys can.

This little guy on the right here was done in ArtRage. Learning new programs takes time, but ArtRage is quick, easy and very powerful. I highly recommend it, especially if you are on a budget and have children that are artistically inclined. Seriously, it is so easy to use and fun, you can jump in right away without having the massively ugly and confusing interface of Photoshop and Painter.

My eBay stuff is selling pretty well. Shipping costs and fees are messed up. I keep trying to find the happy medium where I can sell something and make a profit! So far, keeping a really low starting bid of like .99 cents and making sure the shipping costs make me some money, seems to be working ok. I just need to find more time in the day to post more stuff.

I really wish there was more time in the day to just kick back with my lovely wife and children. Things are so stressful right now, we are all feeling crunched. It's been a year since I was eliminated from our previous job at a Childrens Home where we had been house parents for eleven years. So, it's especially hard.

The other day, my youngest daughter and I went out and picked some blackberries that are growing in my father's backyard. It was about 99 degrees and too darn hot to stay outside, but we spent some time together and that's important.

Well, I guess I'm finished for now. I need to run to The Dollar Tree to see if they have some multipurpose saline solution for my contacts. I'm almost out. Hayley needs a new toothbrush and toothpaste, too.

It's Friday!

Had a long week this week. It started out with a lot of knocking on doors, not literally, trying to get a job still. I spent several hours at a nearby mall, hitting up retail operations. I was usually met with, "You need to fill out an application on line. We don't do that here." Well, that's great, because I have already filled out the applications on line and it hasn't done any good, so I thought I'd come down personally, but that doesn't do any good either!

I also do my morning routine of hitting up the state labor department job boards and some of the other job boards I have signed up with, to see if anything new and interesting has opened up. I usually see several that pique my interest, but then find out the job location is 50 to 60 miles away. That's just a little TOO far.

Had an interview today that went pretty well. I don't want to say too much about it in case it goes flat. I have a couple of things "in the works" but all that takes time. As far as art jobs go, everyone tells me the same thing, "Yeah, love your work and we'll do something with you, but we just don't have anything right now." Meh.

So eBAy keeps me supplied with some cash. Got some stuff up now. Check it out, you may want something.

I wish I had the finances and time to work on getting art jobs, and doing other stuff I know I can be good at. Sadly, bills come due and vehicles are broken and life is just a struggle right now. But it's all good.

Crazy Day Tomorrow!

I discovered an interesting job lead yesterday. I have an interview scheduled tomorrow at 11AM. It doesn't involve art at all and is a 2PM to 10PM shift. My first "real" job was a 3PM to 11PM shift when I was eighteen and I really enjoyed it. It always gave me enough time to do stuff during the day and when I got home from work it wasn't so late, I felt super tired. Of course, with children home during the summer now and my wife going to school during the day and working at night, I like the idea of the children not being at home all day by themselves.

I been selling off a lot of my collectibles on eBay with some success. I keep losing money on shipping though! I have this really cool bike and action figure from AKIRA up for auction. It ends today so, check it out.

Looking Forward

I continue to have, what one may call, a string of bad luck. Our main vehicle, a 2002 Pontiac Montana, decided to either crack a head or blow a head gasket, while in South Carolina. The 2,000 dollar estimate threw me into a tizzy! Being unemployed sort of puts a damper on things and I spent all my reserve cash getting a trailer to go get the van. Our awesome friend Ben, towed it home with his van. All I could do was buy him lunch at Wendy's. Ben is a mechanic but has informed me he can't repair it. So, now it's sitting in his yard and I'm not sure what to do with it.
About two days later, our other car, a 1983 Nissan Pulsar began billowing huge plumes of white smoke from the tailpipe and engine manifold. Now, I can't drive it. Our other awesome friends, Tim and Betsy offered to give us a van they don't use. I was embarrassed to accept it, but had to turn it away because the check engine light was on and the brakes were really slushy. I don't have the money to fix the vehicles I have now, a third one would just kill me.
But it's all good. Our whole family is under a lot of stress what with the weird year we've had. Some days I feel pretty crappy about everything, but other days I feel optimistic, like today. I did a short Bible study this morning and am holding on to 'If God is for us, who can be against us?"
I've been trying to scrounge up work while selling a lot of items on my ebay site, while looking for full time work, keeping the kids company, cooking and stuff and junk. Sadly, I have a bunch of bills.
Oh well. Back to the hunt!

Wow. All is crashing.

Been a while since my last post. Crap continues to happen and I don't know why. Our van blew a gasket, maybe cracked a head and it is dead. My car did the same thing and it is dead. My other computer just died a few minutes ago. Great. I'm whining and being angsty and that's just the way I feel about everything right now. Tough.