Mock Rock Poster (GD)

A friend commissioned this piece to celebrate his friend - happy to help!

Paintober: Croissant (P)

 

Paintober: Mustard Flower (I)

Last year I had this great idea to make a little painting for 31 people, a small work for every day in October. Clearly I'd had too much coffee - it definitely didn't happen. So now the goal is to get those out "by the end of this October," and I'm not even stressing over that. Here's the first one - a mustard flower for a good friend in Los Angeles! Stay tuned for more...probably.

Super Secret Super Power (GD)

My wonderfully talented friend is back with her latest creation!

ZOOBIRD! (I)

A commissioned piece for a friend, who previously commissioned this one. Glad I could make this happen for one of the most creative dads in the industry!

Happy Lunar New Year 2024

Looks like this is shaping up to be a series, starting with last year's design. Happy Year of the Dragon!

Troll Love Commission (I)

There's really no better reward than a friend loving a commissioned piece - I'm so honored to be even a small part of this! Congratulations to these two!!

So Blue (W)

This is the second round of the writing contest I entered last year. I did really well on the first round - second place - but I missed advancing to the third round by ONE point! Argh. The prompt (genre - location - object) for this one was "drama, commuter ferry, charcuterie board." Enjoy.

    “This is not well,” Jane whispered into the wind, “rash and unbridled boy. To fly the…” Her eyebrows drew together gently, concentrating. “This is not well, rash and unbridled boy. To fly the…fortunes?” 

    The sea drifted past the ferry and it caught her attention for a long moment, its deep blue, the massive ripples. The sparkle of the water was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. There were swallows, and they seemed of similar mind, lunging through the crisp winter morning, wings flashing with that slippery feeling of fragile airborne creatures, spun into being and then gone as suddenly. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky; clouds hadn’t been invented yet. This is not well, she thought happily, rash and unbridled birds…Her body seemed pleasantly full of that deep, blue weight. 

    “Excuse me,” came a voice to her right. A woman’s voice, and the feeling that the words had been repeated, perhaps several times, polite but insistent, a worried spine to them, a younger woman with a younger woman’s concern for the elderly frail. Jane turned towards her. 

    The woman smiled, obviously relieved. Her teeth were perfect and her eyes moved too much, skittering over Jane’s face, her neck, the bundles of warm wraps she wore, looking for somewhere to land, not finding it. She was wearing a surprising amount of makeup. 

    “I’m so sorry to bother you,” she said, seeming both genuinely sorry to bother Jane and eager to take up all of her attention, the one devaluing the other. This is not well, thought Jane, rash and unbridled Southern housewife. “We saw All’s Well on Friday, and I just wanted to say…” 

    Oh, the poor thing. She hadn’t thought this through. You saw a celebrity and thought you had to speak to her. But then you remembered her actual performance. Poor thing. Jane delighted in the woman’s tiny moment of misery. 

    “We…we thought you were just wonderful,” said the young woman as the spasming muscles in her face decided on ‘strenuously grateful.’ Even in the direct sunlight there was not a flaw in her makeup. Where was she from? Georgia? 

    Jane almost believed her. “Thank you,” she said simply. She let a slight smile dismiss the younger woman, her eyes sliding back to the ocean. 

    “They say this is your last one…your last play? Because of the…you can’t…” Oh, she was being ever so bold now, her voice barely audible over the rush of the waters around the ferry. 

    “They do say that, don’t they.” Jane ignored the cold in her stomach. Tried to. 

    “They do,” returned the woman immediately. “And I wanted to tell you, I think that’s such a shame. I saw you in Midsummer when I was just six years old.” 

    That was, what, three years ago? thought Jane. 

    “We came all the way up here just to see you. I still remember it. My goodness, you were so beautiful.” Jane turned and looked at her, smiling so genuinely, sparkling with rippling, stupid youth. 

    “Thank you, dear,” she said. “Hermia was one of my favorite roles.” 

    The makeup shifted with doubt; Jane was fascinated by it. 

    “Oh, we…we saw you as Titania,” she said with delicious tentativeness. “Did you do Hermia as well? On the Island? I would have come for that, too. In a heartbeat.” 

    A shadow fell over them. “She’s played almost every female role in Midsummer,” said Julian, a steeled kindness in his voice. 

    “And Bottom once, too,” added Jane. 

    “Though we don’t typically talk about that one,” said her assistant, adding immediately, “Did you want a picture with Miss Cassings?” His tone made it clear that a possible photo would be the end of their exchange. Choose wisely. 

    “Oh, that’d be wonderful,” said the young woman. Julian took her phone from her with a faint disdain that only Jane would have noticed. He snapped a picture before the woman was ready, his signature move with eager fans, and dismissed her. 

    “Thank you so much, Miss Cassings. You were truly wonderful.” And she was gone, back to her small family on the other side of the boat. 

    Julian handed her a plastic box as he sat. Through the lid she saw an array of limp meats, dull cheeses, a lonely clump of red grapes. 

    “The menu said ‘charcuterie board,’” said her son, pulling the lapels of his coat together and popping the collar up. His hair was long now, post-pandemic, and she loved the way the wind pulled his curls into the sunlight. 

    “The other option was canned salmon. You’re welcome.” 

    “Did I ask for tea?” At some point her tone might have been imperious, now it was genuine; what had she asked for? 

    “Their hot water is apparently broken. He offered to put a tea bag in tap water and I just stared at him.” 

    Jane grinned. Her eyes drifted back to the box in her lap. 

    “I think, sir, I can eat none of this homely meat,” she said. 

    Julian sniffed. “Oh, now she remembers her lines.” 

    Jane felt her chest constrict, just briefly. 

    “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was cruel. I’m sorry.” 

    She made herself reach over, patting the back of his hand. To her delight, he took her hand in his, his skin wonderfully soft. They sat like that for a long time, watching the sea roll past. They were out in The Channel now, the land – not the mainland, she thought, another island in the chain – only a tiny slice of faded green far in the distance. 

    “I thought it would be different,” she said, watching the swallows come and go. “I thought it would be…panicked. And cold. But it’s not. It’s like this.” She gestured at the view with her free hand. “The land gets far away sometimes, but the water and the sky…they’re so blue.” 

    She heard his breath catch, just once. She let him sob, so grateful to be holding his hand, for the rolling waters, for the sun on her face.

Holiday Card Design 2023 (I)

I hope you're all happy and safe. Thank you for your support, and I'll see you in 2024!

Sam's Clam Disco (I)

A sticker design for a fantastic coworker of mine. Don't ask him to tell the story - trust me, you don't have the time.

Ice or Steam (P)

The latest assignment in my painting class was "Ice or Steam." Not incredibly inspiring, but painting glacial ice was an interesting process. The decisions to paint a very simple pyramid instead of an iceberg, and then to invert the whole, came late in the process. Just keeping things interesting, I guess...

Holiday Cards and Wrapping Paper Now On Sale! Get Some!!

I put a few of my past holiday designs on cards and wrapping paper in my Zazzle store. There should be a way to edit them to however you'd like them to look, but if you need my help please let me know! Happy Holidays!

 

Flash Fiction: "The Reaver Princess" (W)

I recently did two rounds of a flash fiction contest (1000 words max), this is my first round entry. There are always three prompts: genre, setting, and object that has to be featured. Mine was "fantasy, desert, bracelet." Kind of right in my wheelhouse, and I scored second place in my group. Thanks NYC Midnight!

“The Reaver Princess”

The eyes of the undead army caught the pale light of the desert moon and glittered like some strange ocean, gently undulating in the windless night. Their numbers stretched as far as the little group of thieves could see, standing in a silence so absolute a blind man might have thought himself alone, were it not for the stench. 

            “I’ve never seen so many ghouls in one place,” whispered the princess. It was, as usual, difficult to discern her tone, if she’d meant to convey one at all.

            “With all due respect, my liege,” said Hollow Tree, at her elbow as ever, “You still haven’t.”

            Hollow Tree was among the few who could – who dared – contradict the Reaver Princess. But the princess, without turning to her Most Trusted Advisor, said only, “What mean you?”

            “These are det-kessin, my lady,” she said softly. “Desert ghosts. Lonely souls hungry for company. And living flesh, of course.”

            All eyes watched the quiet figures. After a long moment, the princess asked, “Why are they just…standing there?”

            “They await the dawn, princess.”

            The princess’s brow wrinkled slightly, prompting her swordguard, Seven Clouds, to grunt impatiently, “What happens at dawn, woman?”

“I am no oracle, but if the stories are to be believed, they will most probably rip us all to pieces and devour the fragments.”

A gasp, difficult to determine from whom. “They apparently believe chewing to be beneath them,” continued the older woman, warming to her subject. “And so before they put anything in their horrible little mouths, they spend a great deal of time—”

            A collective outburst now, crowned by the princess’s “By the twin gods, stop!” 

Hollow Tree shrugged her shoulders, annoyed. “I do believe I was asked,” she muttered.

They’d set up camp on a solitary dune. Wind, the axeman, had been on watch when he’d seen the first det-kessin. By the time he’d woken the rest of the party, their ranks had swelled to the horizons. The ghosts had walked, he recalled, though how they had all moved so quickly was beyond his rather limited mind.

“Why wait?” Wind asked now, his voice higher than seemed reasonable for such a large man. “Why until dawn?”

Hollow Tree sniffed sourly, and for a moment it seemed as though she might refuse to answer. “Centuries of tradition, I would think.” Her eyes swept the silent figures below them. “They honor a variety of treaties made to ensure peace between our kingdoms.”

Sage, their pathfinder, could see a hairline of faintly lighter blue where the vast expanse of pale sand – and pale ghosts, it seemed – met the sky. The sun rose quickly here, she knew.

“But what do they want, Hollow Tree?”

 Hollow Tree frowned for a moment. “I believe...they are drawn to the bracelet,” she said carefully. “They will not allow it to leave this place.”

Now the princess turned her full stare upon her advisor, and under its weight the woman’s head bowed satisfyingly.

“What?” asked the princess softly, fury underlining her tone.

They had spent the better part of a year planning this venture, slipping in and out of White Horse House unnoticed and unscathed. The bracelet they had stolen would at last earn the Reaver Princess a seat at her mother's table, and her bloodsworn allies would rise with her. 

Unless they were all eaten in this desert, of course.

"You were warned, my liege," Hollow Tree whispered. Several pairs of eyes slid her way. Only Hollow Tree would dare. "The prophet dogs at Palleum. The Great Lion’s maps. There were warnings of this."

"Permission to kick her mouth out of her skull, princess?" This from Riven, the princess's jester and chief assassin. His cold eyes were fixed on Hollow Tree, who studiously avoided them.

"No, Riven," said the princess, looking down again to the silent horde. "And thank you for asking first, that's good progress." The assassin shrugged.

"What do we do, Hollow Tree?" hissed Seven.

The older woman's eyes flicked briefly to the princess's profile.

"We must give them what they came for."

"I cannot," said the princess immediately.

A stunned silence.

"My lady," said Hollow Tree, looking at her now. "It would be a declaration of war. Your pride cannot overweigh the peace that has been—”

“I cannot remove the bracelet, Tree. I’ve tried. It will not physically leave my arm.”

They had been so careful. All their planning, all their training. They had forgotten the trip home; the desert between the two Houses had barely been an afterthought. 

The creatures below were shifting, greater detail emerging in the thickening morning air. A low cry echoed from the thieves’ right, another answered from behind them. A dreadful quiet followed.

The princess’s muscled arm rose until it was level with Hollow Tree’s eyes, obstructing a portion of the lightening sky. Hollow Tree looked at the bracelet where it encircled the princess’s arm. A simple thing, really, a dull yellow-white band. She’d not noticed the dimpling of her skin where it squeezed.

The Reaver Princess took a deep breath. She let it out, then nodded.

Hollow Tree blurred, swinging her curved sword from within her robes and deftly cutting the arm in two at the elbow. Catching the braceleted limb with her free hand, she swung it down and then up, releasing it out over the waiting expanse of det-kessin. 

The move was so swift there was not even time to cry out, and to her credit, the princess made not a sound; her eyes filled with tears, which all present politely ignored.

The det-kessin began to disperse, bearing their grisly prize westward. Hollow Tree leaned in to the princess’s ear, speaking over the buzzing spell that would seal the wound closed. “Your mother will see your bravery, my sweet girl. She will recognize your worth. This I promise.”

And as the Reaver Princess collapsed into her loyal counselor’s arms, the sun rose, flooding the empty sands that surrounded them with warmth and light at last.

13 Halloween Musts (According To Me!)

If you know me, you know I watch a ton of horror/sci-fi/fantastical movies and series. Here's 13 of my favorites (honestly just the first 13 things I thought of) to get into on All Hallow's Eve - or any time. They're all stunners, yo! (Click on any title to see where to stream it.) HAPPY BEST MONTH!! 

1. INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978)

2. INFINITY POOL (2023)

3. SMILE (2022)

4. PONTYPOOL (2009)

5. WHEN EVIL LURKS (2023)

6. MARIANNE (2019)

7. THE RENTAL (2020)

8. SINISTER (2012)

9. TALK TO ME (2023)

10. THE RITUAL (2017)

11. THE OPEN HOUSE (2018)

12. THE THING (1982)

13. THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (2023)

Halloween Radness 2023! (I)

And it's time again for the best day of Best Month, friends! That's right, it's Adam and Mike Day! I've been doing these portraits of me and my birthday twin for a few years now - check out last year's by clicking HERE. Can you guess our costumes? 

Halloween Wrapping Paper Design (I)

I'm a big Zazzle fan, and I recently opened a storefront there. Below is a quick drawing I made of some classic movie monsters, available as wrapping paper for purchase by clicking HERE. Woot! Best Month!

KICKEY! Teaser Trailer (V)

I finally gave in and adopted a cat, and it's definitely not what I thought it would be. Like, at all. His name's Kickey. CLICK HERE to watch a teaser for the new series coming in 2024, modeled on one of my favorite Best Month movies of all time. 

LET THE BEST MONTH BEGIN!

"Overrides" Update (W)

My very short flash fiction piece, "Overrides," won a runner-up spot in the queer speculative fiction contest I entered, which means that by the end of the year I'll be a published author! Below is the cover art by J. Scott Coatsworth, and all the honorably mentioned authors are HERE. Thank you, Queer Sci Fi, for this opportunity!

Carlos (I)

THIS fuggin guy...

Art Drop Day 2023! (P)

I've been meaning to do Art Drop Day again, but you know...life. I haven't participated since 2015. This year I made a watercolor painting of a trail near my house, then I dropped it at the exact spot where I took the original picture - sure to blow some minds. Hopefully it'll find its way to a good home!

My Third Oil Painting! (P)

Painting class rolls on. For our third assignment we put together a black-and-white collage of sorts (mine is a rough assembly of three pictures from Joshua Tree) and then painted in colors of our choosing. I went a little wild with my colors, but I enjoyed the process. I just wish I had more time! The finished project is below, with some process shots under that.

My Second Oil Painting! (P)

Our second assignment was a "small study" in either all warm or all cool colors, hence changing the original color of these peonies to purple. I was pretty satisfied with this one, though getting the symmetry of the vase right was surprisingly time-consuming. Here's some process shots, with the finished product at the bottom.

My First Oil Painting! (P)

I started an oil painting class not too long ago, and our first project was due last week. For the assignment, we were to choose three objects with a common theme for a still life - mine was "totems." I've made a couple of paintings in the past, but oils are new for me so be gentle. The finished project is below, and then some process shots further down. Not the easiest thing I've done, for sure, but it helps me let go a little, give up control, forgive myself. What do you think? More to come!

Kraken Bed Illustration (I)

A commission for a coworker's son's first big-boy bed, which he remodeled out of an old boat. It was supposed to be a laminate for the sides of the boat-bed, but that got too complicated so they decided to paint something on the wall behind it. Still, what a fun idea - happy to be part of it!

Kubrick! (I)

A commissioned piece for a friend.