ARTIST?

A few days after attending the Creative Chicago Expo 2011 I got a nice email from Alyson, the Membership Director for Chicago Artists Coalition, with a great membership deal.

Now honestly, I had not heard of this organization before... then again, I somehow made it almost 10 years after college without knowing about the Graphic Artists Guild. So I may not be exactly cutting-edge. All the more reason to hook up with an organization that is putting on events (and giving away money! Cha-Ching!)

I'll definitely post about the CAC experiences as they come up... for now keep us in mind for our end-of-the-month Guild meeting at Thai Spoon in the Loop...

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I didn't start this post as an ad, though. The title was actually me asking myself

"What ever happened to me as an artist?"

The more I blog, take graphic design jobs, and spend hours on Lynda training on YouTube and Soundbooth and Flash, the less time I am spending in Gouache, Watercolor, Pen & Ink. I hadn't realized it in my gut until I clicked onto the CAC site and was confronted with scads of what could only be described as "Art".

Not Design.

Not Illustration.

Luckily, the magic of the internet keeps me in touch with a few of my more productive cohorts from college.

Cat York
Tina Druce-Hoffman
Bethany Vanderputten
Neil Klemz

Thanks to y'all for reminding me to draw!

Now I just gotta get do it...

Creative Chicago Expo

Lots of cool and interesting ideas for marketing and in support of working artists! Special thanks to the following tables for accommodating Donovan and me today...

• Capital City Reprographics
• Chicago Artists' Coalition
• Chicago Filmmakers
• Consolidated Printing
• Fractured Atlas
• I Am Logan Square
• Milk Products Media
• Other People's Pixels
• Sphinx Group
• Weaponsgrade Creative
• Women Eye
• Valauskas Corder

Of course, there were many other folks who we signed up on mailing lists with, and when we get their contact info we'll share it with you in another post. For now, you'll just have to content yourself with Rawr,  the hulkbunny.

WHAT HAPPENED

That's what John asked me the first time I met him, when I showed him the work I had done for Paper Museum.  I didn't even have to look at the book to know what panel he was talking about...

All right, I probably should have looked anyway.

But it would have been THIS

or THIS

or THIS...

you get the picture.

SO when the president of a national organization gives it to you straight like that, you eventually get to thinking...

"Self, is that really the best you can do?"

No, you will likely answer, if you are an honest chap. Then you will likely tear up your comic book (not the signed one tho) so that the pages fit through your scanner. And you will photoshop them to ribbons.

But you will NOT try to animate the pages, because...

Hmmm....