Gloucester City Re-cap & Schedule Changes

Last weekend's Gloucester City show went really well,
despite the fact that the weather was NOT in our favor.

Someone who was just coming to the park long enough to see the show would have found the weather a bit nippy, but for two people who spent hour after hour by the waterfront on a cold windy day, it was a hair's breadth away from unbearable. I had the foresight to pack some blankets, but I still couldn't feel my toes at all by lunchtime. Tom picked up some gloves and hot chocolate, which was a life saver!

I got enough business to make it worth the trip and I did get to see some recurring customers who've made it a point to stop by each time I've been in Gloucester City, so it turned out to be a productive day. Just goes to show you should ALWAYS pack for every situation when it comes to outdoor shows.


While at the show, I finished up a sketch of Hit Girl. I'd post it here, but it's going to be turned into a Dynamic Forces sketch cover design in the near future, so I'll wait until then to unveil it.

In other news, I just finalized my travel plans for X-Con, so this
year's convention schedule now looks a little something like this:

This Saturday is FREE COMIC BOOK DAY!!!
I'll be at Stormwatch Comics from 11am to 6pm! You should come!

Stormwatch Comics

449 N. Route 73

West Berlin, NJ

(856) 768-8186 ‎

C2E2 & Pittsburgh Con Recaps

So much has been happening recently it's hard to keep it all straight!

I just got back from the Pittsburgh Comic Con and before that I was in Chicago with Enrica Jang from Red Stylo Media. Now that I'm home, I hardly have time to catch my breath before packing my stuff back up again and setting up for the Gloucester City Art Festival.

First things first - C2E2 was incredible! 

I had no idea how overwhelmingly massive this convention center was until we got there. (Apparently, McCormick Place is the largest convention center in the country. Who knew?) It was easily as large as NYCC, but mercifully less claustrophobic and less smelly.

I was sharing an Artist's Alley booth with Enrica Jang from Red Stylo Media. She's the editor for the Shakespeare Shaken Anthology I've been working on and was personally responsible for getting me involved.

I really cannot say enough good things about her. She's whip smart, energetic, and a joy to work with. She also said that if anyone tried to hurt me, she'd stomp their hands apart, so yeah, I'm pretty much in love.


New Shakespeare Shaken information: The release date is August 15th!
I'll post links here (and everywhere else) as soon as it's available for purchase.

Despite the fact that our booth was situated as far away from the entrance as it was possible to be, we got plenty of foot traffic all throughout the weekend! We were situated immediately behind comic legend George Perez and vaguely adjacent to sometimes actor Shia LaBeouf, which helped keep a steady stream of new faces coming our way.

This was my first time in Chicago and the windy city did not disappoint. I ate some of the most delicious food I've ever had in my life, made a ton of new friends, and got to spend some time hanging out with old ones!

I hung out with the talented Sara Richards and I can confirm that she is exactly as awesome as you think she is. Possibly more so. She's silly and fascinating and I really hope to run into her at another convention sometime soon.

(This was the view from
the hotel window!) ---->

I also got to meet the minds behind the Kind of Epic Show podcast. David, Gabe and Ian are the kind of people I wish I met everyday. There's a kindness about them that radiates outward and they're the perfect blend of silly and amiable that makes them fun to be around. If they didn't live in the middle of the country, I'd hang out with them all the time.

Just when I thought the visit was pretty much over, we met longtime Spiderman artist Alex Saviuk in the airport shuttle. He was super friendly and offered all sorts of advice for an artist trying to break into the industry.

  

Then off to Pittsburgh!

The Pittsburgh Comic Con is an annual favorite of mine. I don't know what it is about the place, but every time I go there, I meet the most amazing people. This year was no exception!

I met long time comic book veteran Mike Grell at a drink and draw event and proceeded to chat with him for hours! If you ever have the opportunity to meet him- do it. He's funny and tells the most amazing stories.

I stopped by the booth for Bad Place Productions and had a really promising discussion with one of their creators, Paul Schultz. So, fingers crossed, I hope to be hearing from them again soon. I also talked to the crew at Hound Comics, and I may end up doing a pinup illustration for them in the near future. I'll post any developments here as they happen.

And perhaps most excitingly, I picked up a copy of the Eisner nominated comic Princeless from Action Lab. I was hooked on the story after reading the 8-page preview in Feedback Magazine (it starts on page 20). It's about a princess who's been locked in a tower waiting for a prince to come slay the dragon that guards her and rescue her from imprisonment... only she decides that's stupid and teams up with the dragon to save herself and her equally trapped sisters. It's extremely well written and a joy to experience. Seriously, go pick it up for yourself.

As usual, my first day at the Pittsburgh Con was spent shopping my portfolio around. After that I booth-babed for Stormwatch Comics, and sold my prints on a section of the table that Bob was kind enough to let me use. 

I'd been working my fingers to the bone on a Poison Ivy costume that was unveiled for the first time at this convention. I sewed every leaf onto the body suit by hand. One leaf at a time. Because I'm some kind of creative masochist. 

At the 70% completion mark, I was completely sick of greenery and cursing myself for ever thinking this was a good idea, but I'm nothing if not stubborn and I saw it through to the end. I worked right up to the deadline too. The drive from Jersey to Pittsburgh is 5 hours, and I sat in the van sewing for every minute of it. I wasn't done until 1 AM on the night before it's maiden voyage. 

The struggle I went through made the finished product all the sweeter though and I'm REALLY proud of how this costume turned out.

Upcoming Events:
This weekend is the 4th Annual Gloucester City Arts & Music Festival! I've participated every year they've had it and I'm not stopping now. I'll be in Proprietor's Park in Gloucester City, NJ from 11AM to 5PM. It's all happening on Saturday, April 28th. There'll be local bands and tons of artists. Come check it out if you're in the area!

RAW and more!

This year, April came in like a lamb and went out like a PERFECT STORM OF CHAOS. So, needless to say, a lot has happened during the past few weeks.

On April 30th, I attended this year's Gloucester City Art and Music Festival with the help of my ever-present booth assistant, Thomas Mitchell. When we first arrived it was freezing cold, but as the day went on it slowly transformed into a beautiful (albeit windy) outdoor venue!

A wonderful crowd turned out and many of them were delightfully interested in my work, even when they had no interest in taking any of it home with them. I met some great people, had several extremely interesting conversations, won some money in an art contest, and sold a bunch of work! All in all, it was a pretty successful show!

The following week was marked by the arrival of the long-awaited RAW: Natural Born Artists show!

Frederick Calalang (the Location Director for RAW's Philadelphia branch) had told me that I could hang as much work as I wanted, so I took that as not only a golden opportunity, but also a challenge. It isn't everyday you get the chance to hang a retrospective of your work before your career has even begun!

The weeks leading up to the RAW show were spent planning out every single detail I could think of. As soon as I got the measurements for the space I'd be inhabiting, I planned out where everything was to be hung, right down to the last inch. My Mother also assisted me behind the scenes by locating wall hooks and lighting, figuring out how to pack up and transport almost two dozen pieces of framed artwork, and coming up with plans for get it all up on the wall in the least amount of time. Then, when the time finally came to get my stuff in place, my boyfriend Tom was the muscle behind getting a six-foot table and a half a dozen boxes (full of wood and glass) out of the car and down a flight of stairs.

We all did a TON of prep-work before I set foot in the G Lounge that night and it really paid off! I ended up with one of the most professional-looking (and densely packed) set-ups in the whole show! Score one for Team Guzzo!

Trying to describe the RAW show is a daunting and ultimately futile task, so let me just say this: It was without a doubt the best art show I've ever taken part in.

I've done quite a few events, but the RAW show tops them all. It was the best in terms of making sales, in terms of making connections, meeting interesting people, having fun- Every way you slice it, it was an incredible success!

There will be professional photographs and a video interview coming out sometime in the next few weeks. Obviously, I'll be posting links to them here. I'm really excited to see how they come out!

The very next day, after staying up 'til 3:00, I packed up my art for ANOTHER SHOW. This time it was the First Friday event in Haddonfield, New Jersey. I honestly don't know why I didn't take a day off, since I certainly could've used a bit of down time after all the stress and chaos of RAW. And I understand that I was a little spoiled by the wondrousness of the night before, but Haddonfield First Friday was still extremely disappointing.

Haddonfield has always been pretty slow in terms of sales, since most of the people who pass by on the street are completely uninterested in my wares. The majority of them are out walking their babies or walking their dogs or just coming out of a local restaurant, trying to make their way home, very few of them have any desire to stop and peruse my wares.

This month however, I sold nothing.

NOTHING.

Not one t-shirt, print, or sticker went home with someone else that night. It was the very first time I've ever been to an art fair where I had to pack up the car with exactly the same merchandise I'd unpacked only hours before. Needless to say, it sucked.

I'll probably keep doing Collingswood Second Saturdays,

but it'll be a while before I go back to Haddonfield.

Belated Show Report and New Pin-up

Here's my post-show report for the Polar Express Holiday Art Festival that went down in Gloucester City on December 11th: All in all, it was a small show that went surprisingly well under rather poor circumstances.

We were upstairs at what looked like a VFW lodge, in a room that was absurdly dark, at a table that was as far away from the door as we could be. And yet somehow I managed to sell two pieces and get a possible portraiture job! Not too shabby! I also got to meet Tom Matthews from 98.1 WOGL, which was awesome! I absolutely love that radio station and I've been listening to it since I was a little kid, so getting to actually put a face to such a familiar voice was really cool.

This image is an accurate depiction of the lighting situation in that place. Any light you see was provided by two particularly bright two desk lamps, which is fine if you're looking at the stuff on the table, but I might as well have left the stand-up screen at home.

I was lucky to have Tom along, because once we got there and saw how dark it was, he was able to go back to the house and grab the two table lamps you see in the photo. I didn't pack them because I knew it was going to be an indoor show and I only bring those to outdoor nighttime shows. Silly me.

Anyway, enough of that.

I finished another pair of sketch covers and I'm totally in love with this one! I turned in my trial sketches to Brian from Dynamic Forces, so now I'm just waiting to hear what he thinks of them.

2nd Annual Gloucester City Art Festival

This year's Gloucester City show was a wonderful success!

Tom and I sat out in the sun all day (and got rather burnt), but it was worth it! In addition to making a very encouraging amount of sales, I found out about two upcoming art shows and a gallery opportunity.

I really enjoy selling my work at community art shows like this one, so I'm going to make it a more regular event. I've been looking into the Harvest Festival in Barrington, as well as the Manayunk Arts Festival- so keep your eyes peeled if you live in either of those areas, because I may be making an appearance there in the future! Updates as they become available.