Nap Time

I try to regularly draw things...Wait, let me start over.

Part of my daily routine, when I'm not just too crazy busy is doing warm up drawings and paintings. That's where the Watercolor Wednesday paintings are often made, as well as where I manage to get work done a little bit at a time on ongoing projects. It's also where I'm able to experiment with new ideas, techniques and materials.

Crow quills aren't really new to me, but honestly I don't use them that often. I thought I'd get them out the other day and play with them a bit. I've got a big project coming up that I'd like to use them for. I love the thick to thin that they naturally give line weights, and I have the feeling that as I use them more, I'll grow to love them a little bit.

This fox warrior is the result of me working out some ideas for another comic project that I'd like to do. The story outline is coming along nicely, and I'm excited to share more of it a bit at a time.

I Can Watch Whatever I Want

I watched a lot of movies that first couple of months during naps and feeding times. This was before they were big enough to have an opinion about what we watched, of course. These days I end up watching a lot of My Little Pony. In other news, we've discovered a station that has a lot of musicals on it on Pandora, including Disney and Broadway...So I've been listening to a lot of songs from Frozen and Tangled, and Wicked. They're really good. We saw Frozen over the Christmas break, and enjoyed it a lot. For a lot of people of my generation, I think Disney got a bad reputation during the 90's. There were just so many straight to video movies, and even the theatrical releases were only so-so. It's been great to see so many quality films coming out of the studio, and also to realize that they've been doing some fantastic things for several years now. Not just in animation either, the recent Marvel movies, Narnia, and John Carter were all incredible, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they have planned for Star Wars.

Baby Burritos

My mom "hates" it when I pretend like I'm freaking out because I "forgot" to do whatever it is that she's reminding me to do. Something that I've been noticing lately is that often a strip rewrites itself a little bit while I'm drawing it. It's kind of liberating to know that my notes and thumbnails aren't set in stone and the work can still evolve past the idea.

Speaking of Baby Burritos, that's what we call Mrs. Handmade's swaddling blankets. They're the first thing she made for our online shop, when we realized that the ones we brought home from the hospital were terribly small, and the ones at the store weren't much better. Our daughters were what allowed me to start staying at home, to save on day care costs, but those blankets were what set us on a sustainable path. I think I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, though.

Morning kind of sneaks past, doesn't it?

Last strip of 2013! Thanks for sticking with us over this crazy year as I tried desperately to keep up with family, shows, work, deadlines, more work, and comics. I succeeded in varying degrees, but mostly it was pretty much a train wreck, as I forgot things, over extended myself, and ultimately spent the last month kind of sick and hoping for it all to end, so I could start over in the new year. ha-ha-ha-ha!

We had a great break with Mrs Handmade on winter break from teaching the Saint Louis Kindergarteners all the things, visiting family and cleaning out the studio. We also had a couple of simply beautiful warm days here in Saint Louis this past weekend, so we got some yard work done and took a trip to the City Museum.

2014 is shaping up to be an exciting year for us, and I'm really looking forward to it. One of the biggest changes is the new website which is mostly complete now. Check it out over at www.LifeWithGirls.com. In addition to the comic, we have an online store, the blog, lots of great artwork and we're working on some really cool extras like downloadable goodies, tutorials and demo videos.

You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter for show announcements, coupons, and specials in the sidebar of the website or under the Email signup tab on our Facebook fan page.

One Two Three...Not It!

Babies seem to have a sixth sense that tells them whey you're taking a breather. Remember the days when you could just sit on the couch for hours at a time? Ha-ha-ha! After a while though, the whole family gets into a sort of rhythm that's pretty much only disturbed on special occasions...Like when the kitchen is torn apart and rebuilt.

Just two more strips until the end of this first story arc. Talk about timing, right? If all goes as planned, we'll be starting off the new year with the second episode of Life With Girls, season one. Pretty exciting stuff!

The Hole in the Wall

This seems to be the fate of every DIY home project. Start on something you think will be fairly straightforward, and discover that whoever was there before you left a complicated present. This is the beginning of an ongoing storyline that just goes on forever it seems.

There's definitely an element of teaching yourself stuff in the DIY community though. It's like we never left school, and that's one of the things that I love about my job. It always feels like I'm learning something new. Speaking of learning new things, have you seen the Webcomics Handbook by Brad Guigar yet? It's really fantastic, and covers a lot of ground that's useful to comicers, crafters, and small business people. And it's great to see that we're not alone out here working for ourselves. There are so many other people sorking and striving to be better at what they do. It seems like there's always something to do, and lately for me that something has been working on my lettering. Slowly but surely, it's getting better.

Don't forget that through Christmas, you can get FREE SHIPPING from my online shop. That's almost as good as seeing me at a show, or stopping into Fusion in Chesterfield Mall.

How To Remove a Tile Back Splash

Sometimes, jobs are easier than you expected them to be. Sometimes they are harder. Sometimes they are just...different. One of the joys and curses of buying a home is discovering what was done to it before you got there, and every job that you do often creates two more.

I stumbled across this trailer today, from the folks who made Coraline, and Paranorman. There's another one of behind the scenes footage on their site. I LOVE seeing miniatures and models behind the scenes, and it always makes me itchy to make little figures and models of my own. Speaking of little figures, I made a whole bunch of Peg People for the shop a couple of weeks ago, including this one that I think looks a lot like Luke Wilson.

He'll be at Fusion this weekend, and if you sign up for my mailing list either on the Life With Girls website, or on the Life With Girls facebook page, you can get a coupon for ten percent off Handmade Family products which is good through December.

Kids Can Be Terrible Helpers

It's a lot of work, training willing helpers. We always let them help when we're cooking or doing projects, but kind of hate it when they do.

If you're looking for a cool gift for the holidays (or birthday, or whatever)we have super hero capes, baby blankets, games, and original art, as well as the Life With Girls Fairy Tale book and Calendar in stock in our online store at HandmadeFamily.com. Not only that, but we have a special going on right now through Christmas. Free shipping on your entire order with offer code SAINTNICK.

We're also giving away a calendar on both the Life With Girls and the Handmade Family facebook pages. Check it out if you like free stuff! 

Ready To Work, Ready To Play

Happy Thanksgiving! I have a lot to be thankful this year, like a fantastic community of crafters filled with wonderful people for the girls to look up to. Food on the table, and work for our hands to do. I'm thankful for my family every day, even when they try to make me work when I want to play.

I really wanted to do three strips a week with the new story lines, but apparently my work load is going to make that impossible, so I'm going to settle for a two strip a week schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'll try to get some extras out there too in the blog to fill in some of the gaps between strips, as well as starting Watercolor Wednesdays as soon as I get the shop on the new site in order.

Speaking of shops, the Life With Girls Fairy Tale calendar is available in out Handmade Family store at http://www.handmadefamily.com, along with a ton of other cool things from super hero capes, to baby blankets, games, comics, prints and original art. We're offering free shipping through Christmas with offer code SAINTNICK.

End of the Work Week

I'd been building up to this day for literally six months, as we waited for our second daughter to be born. Leaving the 9-5 in order to leap into the world of full time freelancing and being a stay-at-home dad. Ultimately, it ended up being rather anticlimactic as the day ended pretty much like any other. There were the usual "Keep in touches", of course...maybe it was because it was something that we'd all been moving toward for so long, that it was just another part of the day. So, this is the beginning of our adventure. :)
 
A couple of quick housekeeping notes while I've got you here. A couple of months ago, I decided to build a new website in order to consolidate our online presence into one place. I've nearly got all the blog posts from Penny Candy and Shady Characters, Handmade Family, and Life With Girls migrated over to the new space and most of the rest is at least built if not fully fleshed out. Sometime in the month of December, the LifeWithGirls.com address will start redirecting there. I'm really excited about this change, and hope you all like it too. If you'd like to get a jump on the change, you can check it out at www.LifeWithGirls.net

ALSO, the Life With Girls Fairy Tales calendar is now available in our web store along with a lot of other cool artwork, games, pins and books. www.handmadefamily.com