So I have a new schedule for the new year. I will be doing a dedicated blog post bi-weekly and I will be posting YouTube videos bi-weekly. They will alternate the weeks and this should help me to transition into doing more videos which I think people respond well to. (I know I do!) 

This week I have uploaded a video on the process of making the Earth illustration I did late last year. 

Here is the description on YouTube:

​"I painted this planet called Earth in watercolor. It has been my home for the past... ummm... 32 years now.  It's beautiful.  Check out this watercolor and digital mix illustration.  I used Winsor & Newton Artist Grade Watercolors (some white Gouache), Photoshop CC, and Artrage 4 to complete it."

Let me know if you have any comments or questions about the new schedule. 

Click here to go to the video!

What is it with our fascination with apocalyptic scenarios? Maybe it's just me, but when I sit down and watch The Walking Dead I'm so enthralled, so enchanted that I can't stop putting myself into that scenario hours after the episode has ended. (Click here if you don't know anything about the zombie-filled TV series based on the graphic novel created by Robert Kirkman. Click here to see a behind-the-scenes clip of the making of the ultimate-zombie slaying Hyundai Elantra.)

Is it the fact that I would never have any more bills to pay? I mean that's really, REALLY tempting. Oh, just the mere glimpse of the thought that my student loans could be absolved... no more monthly credit card bill. Mortgage. What mortgage? I see, I take, it's mine. Give me a McMansion in some sleepy suburb where I can hide out for a few months, maybe more. I could do some hunting. I've never shot a [real] gun before but don't let that stop my fantasy. 

If I remember correctly, though, I am a pretty damn good shot. At least, I was when I was ten. In the snow-laden woods with my friend Travis and his new Christmas present. Does shooting a 1996 Chevy Blazer through 50 yards of woods after an hour of coming up empty-handed mean I'm a good shot? Well, if it does than I'm pretty sure I'd still be alive if I was in The Walking Dead. I'm resilient anyways. And I can run pretty well through the woods. The owner of that Chevy slammed on the brakes and Travis and I just took off as quickly as we could!

Sorry Chevy-owner, we do stupid things when we're kids.

I guess as some sort of cosmic-karma, a couple years ago I was minding my own business in my driveway and I felt the sting of a bee-bee shot to the leg. I looked over and saw the neighbor's kid (and friends) try to cram through the back patio door all at the same time. I stormed over there and gave them a piece of my mind but resisted ratting them out to their parents. Life is funny that way sometimes.

Well... I'm a lot older and a little fatter... maybe I'd do better in some sort of nuclear bomb scenario. That seems reasonable. No guns needed there right? I can meditate. I'm pretty sure I could hang out in some bomb shelter for years on end if need be. Hell, I'm an artist. I make stuff. That'll keep me busy. 

But then I don't get to kill anybody, do I? Maybe that's why The Walking Dead is so omnipresent in my mind. I mean sometimes, my phone AND my computer don't do exactly what I want IMMEDIATELY and I tap on the keyboard/screen aggressively and successively, in the hopes that maybe it didn't know my oily finger was giving it a command.  IT SHOULD KNOW. IT SHOULD WORK.  There's a moment, sometime after I've tapped 100 times... it's at that moment, when I realize it's just not gonna work, that I start rapping my finger on it harder and harder.

That's the moment that I really wish I was in The Walking Dead and I could just plow my fist through a walker's skull like it's puddy. 

Maybe that should come with all computers. A zombie. Yeah, that'd be nice.