There Be Dragons!

I decided to try my hand at a dragon drawing contest. The contest was for author Julie Kagawa's upcoming book Talon. There weren't many limitations on the contest save for the dragon drawings had to be the artist's original idea.

You can find the link to the contest below:

http://juliekagawa.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-draw-dragon-contest.html

While I'm very excited for the book I was equally excited to try my hand at drawing a dragon because I have very, very limited dragon drawing skills. Limited as in I've drawn a dragon once before. Five years ago.

Either way, my goal was to draw a majestic beast soaring through the air! What came out was a baby vegetarian dragon. Yes, that's right. As soon as I placed pencil to paper this vegetarian dragon emerged along with a gaggle of fearful veggies! His name is Tuft and he, apparently, wanted out of my head. To be fair, I didn't even know he was in there. Tuft is now a mainstay character who I've sketched and doodled numerous times now! Behold his fierceness:

Sketch after sketch of Tuft I decided it was time for color. Below is my final submission for the contest:

Tuft even has a story. He's an overachiever, but I wont share it here quite yet. Anyways, I hope you all enjoy Tuft!

<3 Kate

Grad Project - Identity

Well, so far so good! The school year is four weeks deep and - knock on wood - it's been as awesome as I anticipated! Ideally I'll have some work from the kiddies up soon, but since I only see each class once a week projects tend to be a slow process.

Instead, I'll entertain you with my Graduate project! This semester I have to complete three projects around a theme. The first theme was Identity, and I took it very literally. To be fair, I ended up a week behind because I, uh, accidentally signed up for a thesis class and went to that class the first week. Whoops! Needless to say I was a bit over my head. There will be no thesis for at least a year!

Anyways, I created a three-piece Identity project that very literally portrays me in three different scenarios.

1) Calm contentment. I love clean lines, even spacing, and general tidiness, but there is always some sort of idea or mess creeping in...

2) Sometimes my brain feels maxed out with all my ideas. It gets cluttered pretty easily up in the old noggin'.

3) Panic! There's a mess! Things are scattered! Everything that can go wrong has! Ah!

While spilling and splatting were fun and liberating it certainly isn't my cup of tea, but I still enjoyed the process of this project! For the third piece I actually wound up intentionally ripping a side when I mounted it to really reinforce the "messy" feel. Like I said, it's very literal, but either way I think it conveys my Identity pretty well; even down to the superficial things like my favorite color is purple!

Enjoy!

<3 Kate

Back to School

Week one of the school year is officially over and, can I just say, it felt like the longest week on the history of the planet. Seriously, what took so long? Is it because we had the beautiful respite that is Labor Day Weekend to look forward too? Or is it because I repeated myself, literally, 24 times this past week? I wont lie, the first week of school is the worst. I love seeing the kiddies, but as far as lessons go it's all about expectations, classroom behavior, using tools the right way...and it's so very dull. For myself and the kids!

Now, reciting expectations and such is, of course, critical to a successful year, and this year seems like it's going to be a very good year! For the first time while I was setting up my room I had the feeling of, "oh yeah, I nailed it." I consider myself to be very organized (to a near OCD degree) and this year I'm particularly pleased with how I set things up. It only took five years of practice, after all.

This school year is also a quazi-milestone because *sniff* my current fifth graders were my very first set of kindergartners when I started. I've had my first batch of kiddies from beginning to end! Huzzah!

So, overall, I'm feeling very optimistic about this school year. To be fair, I'm usually optimistic but this year, I don't know, it's feeling like a good one!  

The kiddos seem to think it will be a good year as well. I did a school-wide consens-o-gram with them (yes, that means there are over 500 sticky notes involved) on how they were feeling about art this year and, while I don't want to brag, their thoughts were pretty awesome and positive.

So, all in all Internet, there are positive thoughts flowing! It's goin' to be a good year!

Later!

<3 Kate

I've Got That Summertime Sadness

Ah, internet, how I have missed you. I'm not even going to attempt apologies for not posting. Instead, we'll pick up where we left off! 

The summer has been a busy one. Along with working at a summer camp as a lead teacher, I took a trip down to Miami:

I've never been to a place before where I just spontaneously started sweating simply because I was breathing.  That is Miami in June, I suppose! Either way, it was a great trip with some of my very best friends.

My husband turned thirty this July, so there was a big celebration for that. It took months of planning, and months of being sneaky. I'm not the best at keeping fun secrets, particularly if I'm excited about them, so it was a real triumph that I didn't tell my husband anything! And as a gift, I'm taking him back to Disney! Whoohoo! I'm Disney obsessed, I wont lie, but I rock my obsession and own it. Thankfully, my husband is equally as enthusiastic about Disney! In celebration of my obsession, here is my Anna/Elsa pair:

I know I posted Anna in my last post, but now that the pair is complete I wanted to highlight them together! Anna and Elsa actually sold together as a pair which was exciting!

Of course, I attended Otakon in the beginning of August. Otakon is a staple of the summer but unfortunately this year we were less then pleased with the event. The convention, simply put, has outgrown the convention center it resides in. So for every panel there was a lengthy line, whether you arrived early or not, and pre-reg...well, let's not even go there. All I'll say about that is my friends and I waited six and a half hours to get our badges. Unpleasant.

On a more positive note, our cosplay rocked! We did Fullmetal Alchemist:

Our Armstrong (who you may recognize as our Tenzin from last year) was a huge hit. He couldn't walk ten feet without getting waylaid!

And now, summer is over. I'm sitting here in my robe, wallowing in my misery that tomorrow I'll be back at school setting up my room. Now, it's not too miserable of a thing. In fact, I love setting up my room for the new year! It's always a sad thing when a summer is well and truly over, and this year I wasn't ready for it to be over since I worked the whole summer. Alas.

If you want more consistent updates from me, please feel free to look me up on Facebook! 

https://www.facebook.com/kwmartinsartlife

And as usual, I am also available on DeviantArt:

http://kwellington.deviantart.com/

I promise I'm far more consistent at both locations, but now that summer is over and it's back to the ol' grindstone I'll be posting more regularly here as well!

Until next time, Internet.

<3 Kate

Happy Long Weekend, yay!

In celebration of having a three day weekend I will grace you all with a post! It will be short, and sweet!

An update of the next three ladies in my Disney series, enjoy!

Up next I will be taking a break from Disney art and working on my own personal characters, so look forward to that! Also, don't forget to check me out of Facebook at K.W.Martin! Dooo it.

Tata!

<3 Kate

Faerie Festival

Hey Internet!

So, I meant to post this last week but we all know how tardy my posts can be...regardless! Last weekend my mom and I went to Spoutwood Farm's May Day Faerie Festival. It's this great little fair that celebrates spring and the good neighbors (or, faeries). It's filled with lots of arts and crafts vendors, food vendors, musical performances, and just generally good cheer. My mom and I have made a tradition of this event for the past seven years! If anyone has and little ones, it's a fantastic venue for them as well. In fact, I would argue that the event is more catered for the kiddies, but it's still very enjoyable for adults if you're in to fantasy and faeries. Here's the link to Spoutwood Farm's website:

http://www.spoutwood.org/

I know other events and workshops happen at Spoutwood, but I can honestly say I only know about the Faerie Festival they have. They're located just into Pennsylvania from Maryland and the drive is lovely! Here are some pictures of the event to give you an idea of the "feel" of it!

The festival is a great way to spend a morning or afternoon! Then if you're heading back through Westminister there's a great Irish restaurant named O'Lourdan's that'd I'd highly recommend. Now, in the words of the Faerie Festival: Kubiando! And Enjoy!

<3 Kate

So Much For A Schedule!

Yeah. I'm basically the worst. My idea to post twice a week, while well meaning, was a total flop. Primarily because I'm so busy! I still love you internet, don't worry, I'm just lame. So, so lame.

To make it up to you, here's the next round of Disney characters! I hope you enjoy!

You can also now like me on facebook by searching K.W. Martin! So like me! I'm better at posting there...sort of.

<3 Kate