Scott Murphy - Love Quest Part 2

So Lis and I became official after dating for about a month or so. Ever since, we've been nonstop in our seeking out quests and adventures.

Over the years we've managed to travel to Canada, Spain, Turkey, England, Scotland, Norway, and countless places in the US. I couldn't ask for a better travel partner in the whole world. 

Kristina Carroll - First Love Story: Part II

Chris and I talked on the phone a few times.

 

He even came over once to play on my jungle-gym with me.

When he gave me a big, purple ring from a cracker-jack box, I knew it was serious. I mean, our names were sort of the same so it was clearly meant to be.

And for two whole weeks, he continued to walk me home. This was pretty much a record relationship in 6th grade and I was very proud.

( Part I here. )

Alice Stanne - Love Inventories (Pt.1)

I asked my boyfriend to help me with this project since he is the source of the inspiration. We made a little book cataloging all of the most important parts of our first "date." So I asked him to design a pattern for the cover of the book, while I did the insides.

The middle section reads:
You told me you had a joke, "There is a penguin on one shoulder..." and you wrapped your arm around me. "That's the end of the joke."

Kate Feirtag- Love at First Site, Part 2

On the other side of the screen.  Colin and his standing desk.

Jeanine Henderson—Unexpected Love, part 1

As a single gal in NYC, I dated all walks of life, entertained friends with my ridiculous stories, and even filled sketchbooks inspired by the hilarious losers I'd encountered. And after 7 years of online dating and set-ups, I met John one very random night at a bar. I'd spent that day dreaming about places I could move where dating might be easier, and he'd been on a bad match.com date just that afternoon! We were both just having dinner & drinks with friends—so not in the least expecting to meet someone we'd fall in love with that night. Maybe it was just all the beer...but who says love doesn't happen the old fashioned way anymore? ;)

Cynthia Sheppard - Eleven Blue Roses

My Love pt. 2

Brendan and I had known each other as friends, and later as band mates, for almost 7 years before we went on our first date. I took the train into NYC to meet up with him in December 2006. He bought me a bouquet of blue roses from a street vendor, but removed one rose and gave it to an old woman. She smiled. I smiled.

Scott Brundage- High School

In high school, Bonnie and I were good friends. I drew her many many pictures.... to be fair, I drew a lot of girls pictures, but Bonnie's were the best ones.

I still got shot down every time I asked her out.

(I never really drew a picture of her in a steel bra riding a unicorn, but that sort of thing would have made her laugh. That was usually the goal.)

Jeffrey Alan Love - Sleeping Muse

Kyle Smart - Meeting Amy

Amy was the first person I met when I went to university. We made a pretty bad first impression of each other. I had a thick northern accent and spoke way to fast for her to understand, and she was hungover. We lived in the same halls of residence together. Its weird how things turn out. 

Scott Murphy - Love Quest Part 1

Back in 2010, after much difficulty trying to meet females of a like-mind in New York City, I decided to ask a few pals about my options for meeting a quality mate. A good buddy said, "Well there's this online site, it's decent." I thought to myself, "Online dating! That sounds extremely desperate and ridiculous!" But being too much of a wuss-face to actually talk to anyone in real-life anyway, I decided to give it a shot. It was free anyway. The site was called OkCupid. So I signed up for an account and made a profile just for the hell of it. It wasn't so bad, and I could actually search for people who shared the same interests as myself. After going on a few dates with people from there, I narrowed my search down to only those which most closely matched my own interests. Eventually I sent a message to Lis who was the most interesting of all the people I was closely matched with. After some emailing, we decided to meet in person. I was excited and terrified.

I decided that we could meet for dinner and followed that up with some tickets to the Upright Citizens Brigade. For some reason we met at 3, even though the show wasn't until 7. We met in the city (meeting a person you've only seen pictures of a few times before can be quite scary), but my fears were cast off as she was as beautiful as ever, and we went off and got dinner at a nearby diner. Actually, as a side-note, we had our first dinner next to Carson Kressley (from Queer Eye, I hadn't seen the show, but she knew him and I recognized him) and discussed how crazy that was. In any case, we finished with dinner within about an hour and thus realized we had at least 2 hours before our comedy show would begin. Not knowing what to do, we walked over to Madison Square Park and sat down on a bench. It was as awkward as it always is when talking with someone whom you've never met at length, but I found that we had so many things in common it became fairly easy to talk forever. We chatted about art, tattoos, traveling the world, our love for skulls and the grim, and lastly our love for heavy metal. The remainder of the date went well, and we would continue to see each other thereafter.....

Kristina Carroll - First Love Story: Part 1

watercolor

In 6th grade Chris started walking me home from school and became my first boyfriend.

Carly Janine Mazur - M'AIDEZ!

7"x5" collage and acrylic on masonite

After I graduated from college I made the decision to move back home to Connecticut. I had left my college friends behind, and the friends I had in Connecticut from high school were elsewhere, living their own college and post-college lives. In essence, I was marooned.

Within two months of moving back, my brother, the only person keeping me sane and entertained at the time, went to California. I was bored, lonely, and needed someone to rescue me from going insane! (to be continued...)

Kate Feirtag- Love at First Site, Part 1

 

Tim Paul - Series I

Since this is a narrative series challenge, I shall let the piece speak.

Scott Brundage- Middle School

I've known my fiance, Bonnie, since 6th grade. 7th grade Spanish class was our first class together. I spent much of the year like this, figuring out various and increasingly creative ways to get shot down by her.

Jeffrey Alan Love - My Favorite Figure Drawing Model

Marc Scheff - I left my heart in San Francisco

Vday Challenge, Day One

My wife and I went to college together, but never met there. We have all the same friends, but didn't run in the same circles, if that makes sense. We both moved to San Francisco, and she quickly sped back to New York. She came back to visit a lot, and years later we met and knew each other in our circle of friends.

Some of these friends organized a big scavenger hunt on a weekend she was visiting, and placed us on the same team. With our paper tickets in hand, we wandered the twistiest streets of the city searching for obscurities. We found them, but we also found each other.

Kristina Carroll - Bakery Love

Due to a long teaching day and a Migraine when I got home, I didn't even touch my sketchbook or computer yesterday.  So here's my make-up art. This is a quick interior sketch of Fornax- the bakery in my village whose buttermilk biscuits make life worth living. I really love this place- it's charming and home-y and every restaurant in the neighborhood buys bread from them. I often stop by after my morning walk to grab a coffee and sketch when I have time, it's one of my favorite parts of the day.

Jaime Zollars - Food Love

So, I always get called out on Twitter for talking too much about food and all the horrible stuff I eat when on deadlines or working...so I thought I'd take inventory of some of my favorite foods, if they can all technically be referred to as such.

Terese Nielsen - Love my MtG Fans

This is my day of love to my most awesome fans. 

Sorry, this post gets messed up with the east coast/west coast time-frame. I still have another couple of hours here on the west coast to post for day 11.      : ) 

This is a quick bit of fun for the love and appreciation I have for my "Magic the Gathering" fans! Thank you all!! 

Anyone that posts "something" here on this "Month of Love" post, qualifies for an (in a hat drawing, on Feb. 14th) to win this (quickly altered playable) "Force of Will", or a second prize, limited edition of 50 print (of your choice)  or third prize, limited edition of 500 print (also of your choice).  Thanks for looking!

Big February loves! <3 <3

------------------
It's the evening of February 13th. Thanks so much to everyone who came over and left such amazing comments and looked at our "Month of Love" projects.

Just so you know the cutoff for making a comment is 9 a.m. pacific standard time. At that time we'll print whatever names are listed, cut them, throw them in a hat, and we'll do a little video of me picking the names. We'll put that video here within this blog post, and on my FB page "The Art of Terese Nielsen" announcing the winners. We'll post it in the afternoon tomorrow (14th) on Valentines day. Good luck, February loves, and spread the love. : )

---------------
And the winners are...

Sorry for the blurry close-ups. We just did the quick unedited Flip camera version. For the 3 winners please contact me at terese@tnielsen.com so we can work out addresses to mail your goodies out to, and in the case of #2 and #3 winners, which print you'd like. Oh and to view which prints I have available please go to tnielsen.com .

----------------------

March 5th UPDATE:


The "Month of Love" giveaway was great fun. Thank you all for participating!
Joe Klesert selected a 13x19" "Angel of Jubilation" print, Kaja Federowicz picked the large 17x22" "Enter the Infinite" print, and the *first place winner for the drawing* "Tanarin" who posted here *won*!

HOWEVER-- I can't get in touch with whomever this is! If anyone knows them by all means let them know. There's been no response thus far and it's been over 2 weeks now.  I'll wait until March 14th and then post another quick video of me drawing a new name. I saved them all in the hat just in case this happened.

Please check back here or on my FB page to find out who wins this next time. : )

-----------------------------------

March 15 UPDATE:

A new name has been selected for the 1st place altered Force of Will! Here's a quick video of me drawing the name.

For the record I had NO idea I'd be so wiggly in the video... swear to god I wasn't drunk. Plus, on the teeny flip video I "thought" it was in focus, but no. Anyway, long way of saying the video is lame and I would have redid it but then the drawing wouldn't have been legit, so we're stuck with a crappy video. Sorry about that.  : )  Now please contact me so I can give this away!  : )

Scott Murphy - Monster Love

I must confess that today I am cheating a bit because I've got a major deadline coming up and have been working like crazy! 
Today I present an illustration I did almost exactly three years ago which I made as the first valentine I gave to my then, and still girlfriend, Lis. It's quite different than my normal style, but to this day it still hangs on our refrigerator because we both enjoy it. He's some sort of abominable snowman who's extremely happy being filled with so much love.

Adobe Illustrator

Cynthia Sheppard - Gamer Love

I think my Minecraft addiction is trying to tell me something...

Alice Stanne - Little Birds

One of my favorite poems by e.e.cummings begins with the lines:

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living

 

Jeanine Henderson—Crawfish Love

I love all things New Orleans—especially the food! Threw together this little crawfish design, in honor of Mardi Gras tomorrow!

Carly Janine Mazur - Lovetopus

3.5"x3.5" acrylic on wood

Thought of doing something cute today, that and I'm all noodly from shoveling snow!

Kate Feirtag- First Love

This is my first love Dylan.  We were in third grade and he was a complete nerd and probably had no idea I liked him so much.  I changed schools and never saw him again, but Facebook told me he's married now with kids.   

Ricardo Lopez Ortiz- Corto Maltese

This is Corto Maltese, a character created by the amazing Hugo Pratt. Corto is a sea Captain adventuring during the early 20th Century. He is a "rogue with a heart of gold", reminds me a lot of "Mal" Captain of the Serenity in Firefly. Corto instinctively supports the disadvantaged and oppressed. His adventures are fascinating and easily rank at the top of any must read Graphic Novel lists.

 If by chance you happen to run into a copy of his adventures buy it immediately as they are pretty hard to find in the U.S. You will not be disappointed. Though don't buy the latest English translation of "The Ballad of The Salt Sea" it's just complete butchery of all time classic book.

I <3 Corto Maltese!

Tara Jacoby - Lost Love

Tara Jacoby - Auto Reply

This was yesterdays... but I couldn't figure out how to post from my iPhone.

Marc Scheff - Horrificionado Love

Man, do I love horror movies. When I was 14 I got a job at Out of Town News in Harvard Square. I cut papers (unloading) and sold them on street corners around the square. I worked in the back room mostly. I was 14, so they weren't psyched about me handling money all the time.

I went home every day and read books en route, usually something by Stephen King. I would get off a stop past my house so I could go to the video store and rent a few horror movies. My day started and ended early, so I had lots of time to take in every cult classic and every piece of garbage horror flick I could get my hands on. Have you seen all the Howling movies? You shouldn't, but I enjoyed every one.

On a rare day where I was working the outside register a man walks up and holy shnikeys did this guy look like my favorite author, Stephen King. He bought a NYT Book Review, a Harpers, and something else. Shy as I was, I managed to squeak out "Hey, you look a lot like Stephen King," to which he replied, "I am Stephen King." He was gracious enough to give me an autograph, and since I had nothing to write on, I pulled out a dollar from the reg and he signed that. That dollar is now framed in my basement along with a news clipping from the next week's Boston Globe where Mr King stated clearly that he just doesn't autographs at all, not for anyone.

Man, do I love horror movies.

Tim Paul-Birds of a Feather

I'm on an animal kick right now. This morning I was sketching Flamingo's for another large animal illustration, and while doing some photo research saw some Flamingo's posed in such a way to make a heart. So it inspired me to make that my Love Sketch for the day!

Jeffrey Alan Love - The Undead King Rises

Anyone who flips through my portfolio can probably tell that I love to draw skulls. 

Kyle Smart - Flowers

Narciso Espiritu - Crush 1

(I'll only do this once, since the other Daily Drawing Challenge I'm doing on Tumblr coincidentally aligns with a free-love day on Month of Love.)

I guess it should be no secret that I (had/have) a crush on Jenna Kildosher, but we work together on Instigatorzine. So we should keep it strictly professional, right?

Right?

Challenge #5 Feb. 12th - 14th

Our 5th Challenge  comes courtesy of Tim Paul

The subject is: "My Love Story"

This is a series challenge. For the three days leading up to Valentines day, do three images related to one autobiographical story concerning love. Crushes, relationships, schoolyard, you name it.

Scott Brundage- Love Sick

Narciso Espiritu - Freestyle 2

Yes, I was watching The Walking Dead last night.
Yes, I miss Daryl's poncho.

Ricardo Lopez Ortiz- Freestyle Sunday

Here's an Arrested Development piece I'm working on for Freestyle Sunday.

Terese Nielsen - Freestyle Sunday

I was attending an expo yesterday and today and my mind was so overstimulated by the end of the day that I seriously had no interest in drawing tonight. The only artistic unwind I could make myself do is muck about with a medium that I don't usually use. I dumped ground up graphite from my technical pencil sharpener, smeared it around and did subtractive highlights with a kneaded eraser. I considered putting a tie on this guy with a bankster logo behind him, but I felt bad disgracing the vulture in this way… so I let him be.

Cynthia Sheppard - Learning to Love Myself

Learning to love myself.

Sad drawing, happy ending. When I was 20, my boyfriend-at-the-time and I did [things] that made us sleep very little. We told ourselves it was because we needed the time to finish our album, that we were valiantly killing ourselves for what we loved. But doing [things] has side effects- you don't eat, you get paranoid, you get fired from your job for being late and/or crazy. You're sad all the time. I remember the distinct moment that I knew things had to change for real: I got on the bathroom scale and I only weighed 89 lbs.

After that moment, I decided it was most important to learn to love myself. With that in mind, I was able to let go of the idea that two people killing themselves for an idea could make a healthy relationship. I moved on to better things.