Let me introduce you to a little fella that I'm growing quite fond of. He's so flexible. Well, he's becoming my worst enemy and my biggest help all at the same time. I want to call him Flexo. I've been watching too much Futurama. Anyways, I've been practicing anatomy like crazy. Heads. Hands. Eyes. Torsos. Feet and hands I kinda just want to crawl in a ball and cry when I draw them, they're so difficult, not gonna lie. The old adage goes "a watched pot never boils."  Well...I've been majorly impatient with my progress and I've believe its showing in my work. I now get a mental block even before I want to draw, almost defeated because I see the little details instead of focusing on the major steps. The bottom line is I want to learn traditional art and the fundamentals. This is the only way which I feel that I can succeed. Perhaps I'm putting too much pressure on myself? Damn girl. Relax. So, I've tried taking o...

So for this #bookspine365 I decided to do something a bit different. I wanted to update on the rearrangement of shelves and adding on of shelves/bookcase(s). Currently, I have a wayyyy too many books to keep track of. Hundreds of print. Books stacked on books. Books behind books on the shelf. I hide no shame. The addition of my small art space which I needed close by had to be included on a shelf. This was cool to me, as I needed to reorganize the genres and dust off the spines a bit.  I couldn't even get a full picture of top to bottom, with the additional books. There are books that still remain within the house, unshelved. For right now, going through each book and dusting and ensuring the spines don't crack little by little I can make sure my babies will remain. There is a "proper" way to open a book, especially if you haven't opened it in awhile. I make sure to open them every now and again to freshen the pages. One of my favorites is the Taschen Van Gogh art...

Day 33-37 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf. Month Two. So who doesn't like comics, better yet...a post with five pictures of comics? These titles sit on my shelf as days 33 through 37 as I play catch up with this project. Forgive the lateness with updating. Life gets in the way.  So, as a child I never really read comics-only the Archies and stuff like that. Only recently I read the compendium of the Walking Dead because I am so into the TV show I have to know the actual story line as it relates to the writing. Now I am scouring iBooks and other sites that offer free comics that I can read in my downtime. These five here which I am sharing today were only $1.00 via bargain bin box at Barnes & Noble. They're still in a plastic sleeve, extremely crisp with cardboard backing to support comic. I understand many people collect them for their rarity and monetary value,  but these titles are quite common.  In all, nice reads for my ...

Day 14 in  #BookSpine365 . Visit a title a day from my bookshelf.  There  are some books that change you when you read them. I have several on my shelf. This is one of them. Categorized in the genre of self help  You Can Heal Your Life is penned under the author Louise L. Hay that sold over 50 million books worldwide, and is a metaphysical lecturer. Prior to purchasing this title, I wasn't familiar with Hay's work at all and her fan base, but the contents inside were absolutely moving and right on time. Powerful affirmations. Concrete philosophies. Personal exercises for change. All this and more in this book. Not everyone is a fan of this genre. I completely understand. Personally, I can learn and grow from any medium-this includes a book. I found much wisdom within. Take a peek or two. It won't hurt.  The title comes in many different formats, but the one I own is the gift edition. The trade paperback is sturdy, almost rivaling hardcover. Every sheet of...

Day 11 of  #BookSpine365 . Don't let the Oprah's Book Club seal of approval be the hipster like dismay which you judge a book a by a cover. Wally Lamb's second novel, I Know This Much Is True is absolutely as riveting and poignant as reviewers described. It's a little dusty and smells beautiful cracked open within those 894 pages. The spine is cracked, pages are thin, and wrinkled from moisture somewhere unexplained. So my copy is a little beat up. This is what happens to mass market paperback books-many just don't stand the test of time. Paperback Books Get Love Too. The words inside don't seem to mind. They lay dormant waiting to tell the tale again. The words tell of twins-one definitely not like the other as told through a series of flashbacks in heartache and pain. One regarded normal, one cutting off his hand claiming it was for God; schizophrenia and paranoia seems only secondary to the abuse and dysfunction within the household they grew up in. ...

Day 8 in # BookSpine365 . I own a few series books, and this is one of them. Unfortunately I have never read the previous books before, so will the characters be unfamiliar, disjointed and hard to follow? Hard to tell in many series. This title is relatively new on my shelf, I barely cracked it open. I brought it on a whim at a bargain bin somewhere for $1.00 just in case if I ever needed a mystery novel with quirky characters to delve into. A celebrity chef enters a competition and loses his head-literally. Meanwhile, the chef's sponsors offer a million dollar reward for info on the killers. Enter a bounty hunter and bails bond office worker-the latter who is witness to the crime to collect the cash, and supposedly a little hot romance and traitor is added in the mix. Sounds like a lot going on. Hopefully it will be a fast paced read, not too confusing with the multiple characters and plots.  Book Details: Title: Finger Lickin'Fifteen by Evanovich, J. Forma...

Day One in  #BookSpine365 . I always wanted to hold my myself accountable for writing daily even when I didn't want to; sans the aches and illness of chronic pain and the undeniable proof that writers block does exist. A new year brings on a fresh calendar, and I would like to bring in a new meme for my literary blog and hashtag which I created: #Bookspine365 . Here's the deal-I'm a complete bibliophile. Everyone knows this. I read books. Talk about books. Read book reviews, smell books, and enjoy audio and ebooks. For me, the world of literature takes me into another realm which I adore. Withing gazing upon a book, my mind can be without restrictions and limitations. Any and everything is possible when characters lift off the pages into your brain and your heartbeat skips when a plot is deviously replaced by something out of the box and out of this galaxy. Words do more than communicate; words can uplift you and tear you down all in the  same sentence whereas books bring...