CrashOctopus Blog

OK, so I got back from RAGBRAI a week ago. But! I have had a hugely busy week (and weekend) at work and I’m just now getting back into the swing of things. I did update my website with some new art, so check it out.

I’ll post more artsy things later this week. For now, have some photos from my trip, featuring a cute little monster made by treesofmachinery. Let me know if the photo link works or not!

Interestingly, that last post pushed the blog up an entire school. I skipped 4 grades in 2 days! It must have been the swearing. Or the big words.

Since my ma reads this blog, I’ll lean the experiment towards big words, and see what happens. Bets, anyone?

Cat Skull with Feathers by Meg Lyman

9×12 pencil on Canson

$60 - e-mail to purchase

It took me two tries to get this cat skull looking reasonably like a cat skull. You think you can draw from life, because you’ve done it before… but when you try it, you remember that it’s been a while and this shit is hard.

Casey’s blog has a neat little widget that says you need to be a genius to understand his blog. Makes readers of said blog feel smart, right? Well, how does this make you feel?

I suppose it’s nice to know that any second-grader could understand my blog, although the sarcasm may go over their heads. My inclusion of a swear word in the first paragraph is an experiment. Does it automatically bump the blog readability level to PG-13? Or do I just need to use more big words?

Unequivocally inconceivable!

I’ve been tagged, so I guess I’m “it.” Or maybe I’m frozen. Wait, what game are we playing?

First, I apologize for the lack of content this past weekend; I was out of town. I’ll get back to riveting, crunchy content next weekend. For now, though, I’ve been tagged by arteest extraordinaire Rita Woodburne. Her blog is called “Purple Tastes Good.” Isn’t that excellent? She wants to know seven things about me that most blog readers don’t. So you get to hear them too.

1. I am a punctuation and spelling Nazi. See those periods and exclamation points inside the quotation marks? That’s where they should be.

2. I play the cello. I used to be good. Now I am out of practice, and Stanley sits in the corner, mournfully awaiting the day I change his Dampits.

3. I hate mannequins. They freak me the heck out. Especially when they sneak up on me, staring from the tops of department store escalators.

4. I lurve soccer, play it lots, and was a goalie from age 10-21. I don’t goalkeep anymore because it bashes my poor artsy fingers. I was MVP for our Division III college team.

5. I can lick my nose.

6. I compute with Linux. Did you know Microsoft just sued Linux programmers for supplying people with Free Software? That makes me so mad I can’t talk about it.

7. I have a one-eyed cat.

K, now I’m supposed to tag seven other artsy people. Problem is, I don’t know seven other artsy bloggers who haven’t been tagged yet. So here are some artists and some sorta-art-related bloggers, who should now consider themselves “it:”

Andy Hopp (fantasy artist of infinite imagination)

Sarah Trenfy (I just bought a really cool painting from her)

Nathan (fantasy writing catalyst)

Gulf Coast Gringa (The Sister, doing what we all should be doing)

Ready…. GO!

I’ve been toying with the idea of selling art at online auction for a while now. I’ve read up about it, and I got a lot of great suggestions and tips from the folks at WetCanvas. But browsing eBay is one of the best reference methods. From this type of snooping, I learned that people who have a good following on their blogs often get good bids on their art.

I think this is because the blog brings the artist closer to the collector. Well, it can. Some art bloggers just post pictures and prices, and many get good sales. But I’m talking about the artists who add more content than just the art, whether as tutorials, lessons learned, or just good writing. I’ve heard it said that connecting to potential buyers in that way removes the “mystery” surrounding the artist and exposes their mystical powers of creation. Bah. I think reading about the art or the artist brings me closer to their art, and makes me want to buy it more. I enjoy the whole experience more when there’s a story behind it.

Anyway, I think that’s part of why good art bloggers can almost always get decently high bids on eBay. Blogging is a great communication tool. I have a long way to go in terms of marketing, and I know my listing is boring and already have suggestions for improvement. But here it is anyway:

Cat Prints ACEO by Meg Lyman

Click to bid

I bought a pack of Art Cards from someone online. Upon unwrapping them, I was immediately drawn to the hot pink ones. Not just pink, but neon pink. I thought, “what on earth am I going to do with these?” So of course, the first one I pull out is hot pink, and I use up about 90 seconds of my life drawing this. I’d love to get bids, but this is a learning experiment for me more than anything.

All suggestions welcome. We’ll see how it goes.

Not the kind that you make when angry, but the kind that makes you angry. Specifically, your own.

This is the first rendition of my brand-new, never-seen-before, Mid Week Post! This new kind of post will feature art that I have worked on since my last website update. Along with the art, there will be content - quality content - that will range from lessons learned to WIPs to bad jokes. Well, bad art jokes, anyway.

Actually, I don’t know any jokes, except the one about the penguin in the bathtub, and nobody buy my sister thinks it’s funny.

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This week’s featured art made me mad. You know the kind - you painted what you planned to paint, but it looks horrible and makes you want to run screaming from the room tearing your hair out because you don’t know why you hate it. Usually this is remedied by leaning the painting against the wall (paint side in) and trying to forget about it for a day or two. That, plus the helpful eyes of others, usually show you the problem. Fixing it may be easy or hard or impossible, but if you can figure out what is wrong with it, at least you can call it a learning experience instead of a total failure.

The Ugly Chickadee:

The bird and composition aren’t too bad, but those leaves! AARGH! My sister accurately referred to them “flying yam-aliens.” I wanted leaves, not sweet potatoes. So I did the wall thing and got advice on WetCanvas, and tried to fix it:

Not brilliant, but I don’t hate it anymore. I just mildly dislike it. I learned from it, and hope someone will buy it. What more could I ask for? Some paintings sell, but the artist never having learned a thing…

If you’ve come here looking for my art, please go to www.meglyman.com or click the “Meg Lyman Illustration” link on the sidebar. This URL is now my blog!

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I began “An Ode to Art and Beer” with a few specific goals in mind. First, to rate beer - for anyone who drinks it. Second, to discuss art - for anyone who loves how-tos, WIPs, and lessons learned. There are so many “art bloggers” out there whose sole focus is showing artwork. It’s a great venue to keep collectors and fans up-to-date about what you have on the easel, and to sell art. However, I focus my blog on the process of making art, not the end result.

I’m on a journey of learning. My successes and setbacks as an artist are being recorded with the hope that someone will find the information useful in their own journey. My “Links” section contains the blogs of other artists whose goals are similar - they aren’t just there for the end result. That said, I would like to post more often than weekly, but time is precious. So I’m considering throwing in some completed artwork posts during the week, and continuing with the beer and “lessons learned” posts on the weekends.

My desire for constructive criticism also gave me an idea: to set up a website for all of us artists who want to improve, where we could get valuable critiques and do the same for others. That’d be the sole purpose of the site. If any of you readers are interested in participating in a site like that, please comment & let me know.

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With new the freedom of hosting my own blog, I’m also looking into making money with it. It will come in the form of Sponsored Links, so that whenever I talk about a particular product, I’ll link to a site where you can buy it. I have a “Meg Recommends” link on the sidebar that with have all past product links. For example, dickblick.com has an affiliates program, and if a reader buys a product after clicking the link on my blog, I get a small cut. So, if you want to buy something at dickblick.com, doing so through CrashOctopus.com pays me. (bwahaha!) If you do, I’ll bake cookies for you.

Welcome to CrashOctopus.com! This is the new site of the CrashOctopus Blog, which I ported over from Blogger. It contains all the archives and comments from Blogger.

This URL used to be redirected to my website, so if you’re looking for the art, please change your bookmark to www.meglyman.com. You can also get there by clicking the “Meg Lyman Illustration” link on the sidebar.

Thanks!

Meg (The Management)

Beer. No, not just beer. I have to be more specific. Dark beer? Hmm… Slightly better.

The imbibish part of this blog will focus on said beverage. I cannot stand the light-colored swill that passes for beer in this country. N and I drink (and rate) only beers that have the words “stout,” “porter,” or “dark” in the title and are chocolaty-brown in color. My snooty beer preference I blame entirely on my dad, who thoroughly enjoys dark beers. He also enjoys just about any kind of food put in front of him, and never met a piece of pie he didn’t like, and I blame those traits on him, too.

So, beer. N and I buy a new kind every time we visit the Beverage Resort (complete with a waterfall and plastic tropical trees), and their selection changes every time. Each new beer gets a 1 (bad) to 10 (kickass) rating from me and from Nathan, and a brief description, if we aren’t too beer-ed up to remember it. Generally, we don’t get toasted on this stuff - it’s too good to waste by forgetting. And we bring this ranking to you, for your enjoyment of fine dark beer, and to help us remember what we’ve tried and what we’d rather not buy ever again.

The other half of the blog: art. I have recently discovered that I desperately want to explore the world of art as it exists beyond backgroundless pencil drawings. Within the last 6 months or so, I’ve bought paper, board, claybord, gouache, paintbrushes, palettes, canvases, and pastels, to name a few, in an attempt to explore the world of color. Henceforth come my mis-adventurous relationship with art, put down in electrons to help both you and me. Here’s to my ability to make horrible art mistakes so you don’t have to.