Blog
Figure Drawing Session
Date: 04/11/24
Tags:
#studies
Last week I attended a figure drawing class for the first time in… over a decade!? The alst time I was in a figure drawing session was when I was in undergrad. I have been interested in adding them back into my art practice. I found this drawing and art center last year but was too intimidated to attend any of the classes. They had an open house last month and I asked a friend to attend with me, who is also an artist. We comiserated on our trauma from art school (lol) but also what we missed about being in art school.
After the open house, we both felt more comfortable attending a drawing session. We went together, for solidarity, and we both had a great time. The session was 2 hours long, and the long drawing, shown here, was a majority of that time. I am happy with the drawing, part of me was really anxious and worried that I would absolutely bomb the first time I tried life drawing again. I feel like there is still a lot of opportunity for growth and my friend and I want to go back, maybe once a month.
DnA Updates
Date: 03/01/24
Tags:
#dna
Time for some updates about DnA Artists, an artist duo including myself and A.OK! Alex and I have been working on prepping orders for the DnA 2023 Bundle, which includes a t-shirt designed by myself, a sticker designed by Alex, and both of our Sketchbook zines from 2023. The preorder window for the bundle has closed and the tshirts are no longer available but the sticker and sketchbook zines are both still for sale on our online shop. You can read more about the bundle on the DnA blog.
Which yes, I didn’t announce it here, but you can now purchase my work online! Currently zines and stickers are available in our online shop, and we are planning to offer prints and other items online in the future. Please consider ordering as it directly supports my work!
We are also getting ready for 2024 zine events. I am working on a 16 page comic, which you can learn more about in my previous blog posthttps://www.danaamundsen.com/2024/02/01/comic-wip.html, along with restocking all of my cat related zines and making some new ones as well. We are hoping that this year we can both focus on some longer and more indepth projects while still publishing smaller mini zines. Running the business is a learning process, and we definitely learned a lot in our first year.
Here’s to another successful year of DnA! Cheers!
-Dana
New Comic WIP
Date: 02/01/24
Tags:
#lady knight
,
#comics
I’ve been hard at work on a new comic project, currently untitled, but featuring some familiar faces. If you have been following my work for a long time, or have done some digging, you have probably seen my Lady Knight webcomic. I also tend to reference it and talk about it a lot. I’m reviving the characters to write a 16 page romance comic, and hopefully have it ready to sell at zine fests and in the DnA online shop this spring.
2024 goals
Date: 01/08/24
Tags:
#books
,
#holly black
Goals for 2024, both art related and personal
- Create illustrations for three clients
- Complete a 16 page comic
- Turn a profit with DnA
- Attend five art fests as DnA (between the two of us)
- Run a trail half marathon
- Successfully do a pull up
- Complete the first chapter of my ‘frostbite’ project
2023 in review
Date: 12/29/23
Tags:
#witch and bard
Ending the year with a work in progress. I started this a while back and don’t know if it will ever be successfully finished. These characters are close to me personally and while I want to share them I don’t want to speak too candidly about them at the moment. I’m still exploring their story and for now I’m just enjoying drawing them.
2023 was a year of fresh starts. My biggest accomplishment was opening my business, DnA Artists, with my long time work partner A.OK. We attended 5(!) zine fests, opened an online storefront, and consigned our work to two zine shops. It’s been hard work, and I don’t think I could have done it without the support of A.OK and our family and friends. This has been a long held dream of mine, to own my own business and to support myself off of my art. We are just getting started and I’m optimistic that we can build a sustainable business. If you are interested in supporting me, please consider subscribing to our newsletter to get updates about where we will be and new releases in our online shop.
In 2023, I (re?)established my own website, which you are reading this blog post from now. I wanted to break away from the grind of social media and keep my work somewhere safe from the whims of big tech and advertisers. Speaking of, I left twitter and created a mastodon account. Was that really just this year? Limiting my social media usage has been a boon for my mental health and freed up time and space for other things.
Outside of my art practice, I began to examine my relationship with shopping and consumerism. I watched many of Hannah Poston’s vlogs on her no-buy year and was inspired to try my own no-buy month. I even made a zine about it! It was a great experience and I am planning to take what I learned into my budgeting for 2024.
I read a lot of books, but didn’t quite hit my goal of 75 for the year. That’s okay, I like to have something to work toward for next year. This list includes graphic novels, poetry, and some novella’s so the number 75 doesn’t really signify much. It was just a goal to get me to pick up more books.
I continued trail running, backpacking, and camping. I ran a sub 30 minute 5k which was not explicitly a goal, but definitely something I’m proud of. I revamped my weight training routine to support my other health goals.
Currently I am ending the year with a bout of covid, not the most optimistic way to go out. But overall the year has been good to me. I am looking forward to 2024 and hoping that it brings more good things to me, and to you. I’ll share my goals in the next post.
Happy New Year!
-Dana