How to Ruin a Perfectly Decent Illustration

When one does what might be described as "thinking", one tends to ruin things.

Case and point for myself:
This is one of my earlier pieces from 2006 called "Temptation." Very simple, but a pretty direct statement about relationships - specifically marriage - obviously. It came out very quickly, not too much analyzing.... It's also not meant to be hostile, but I think it is true and realistic and a bit scary. My friend Tam raved about this picture. She has no idea, but I always feel so much better if Tam responds well to something I drew. She doesn't suffer anything that isn't immediately engaging. However, she'll never know about this wonderful assurance I get from her because she never reads my blogs. Anyway, I'm so glad she LOVED this.

She excitedly told me how it reminded her of a friend she knew, how it was very accurate, liked the colors, many things more....and I always bask in her praise because she can be hard to please.

She's going to kill me when she sees this:

I'm not quite sure HOW or WHEN I convinced myself this was a good idea, but it's all on paper, and you can't CTRL-Z oil pastel.

And, Darling - Series

Been working on these this summer.

No Standing Anytime NYC: Hipster Girl

Saw her standing outside the Magnet on 29th... I made a whimsical guess that her name was Natalie... she looks like a Natalie to me.

No Standing Anytime NYC: Silver Anniversary

I watched this wonderful couple who so illustrated how long-term married couples look alike. The color of the clothing and hair, the height and body shapes, and even the manner in which they walked ( restricted upper body movement, scurrying legs ) were matched. You could look at these two and know that they were a set.

Looking at couples like this also make me fear staying married to my husband. I love him to pieces, but I neither wish to dress like him or for my body to look like his! I'm sure he'd agree.

No Standing NYC - The Shadow Girl

Around 10-11 pm on Thursday and Friday nights, I'd see the Shadow Girls appear on 29th street. You may wonder, what in the world are "Shadow Girls?" (Or not)

Shadow Girls was what I would call the women that I saw standing in line for the Club Shadow on 28th street. Without fail on weekend nights, this club would have a line that queued with 50-75 people standing in it and then around 4 am you'd usually hear fighting and hood-yelling on the street. Some pure classless stuff... and it was awesome. (I videotaped one argument, but I can't find it...so upset about this)

Regardless, one thing I noticed: there were never skinny girls in line-- this was a club for curves. The women would stand in line, balancing on teeny tiny heels, (plus)-sizing each other up and it was so frickin incredible.

Update

Revisiting the Empresses and Queens Series...Not exactly sure why...

Here's Cleopatra. There will be palms in here. Feeling mildly miserable about this. Why? I don't know... do I think adding palms will add excitement? Why did I choose Cleopatra anyway?

I'm such a sucker for iconography. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME???!