Gertude: Afraid of the dark

This one was super fun to draw, but super time-consuming.

Butterflies in my stomach

I hate having butterflies in my stomach.

Kitchen Fingers

I think about this all the time. And yes, this was a really fun one to do.

Shoes in the bathroom

If you are wondering, yes this was inspired by the work in the bathroom, but not because I farted. Though that would have been so awful. Just in general, who wants to be recognized when their pants are down?
Anyways, this comic was first published in inkt|art! Yes, I have 5 Gertrude comics in the premier issue of inkt|art. Some you will recognize. Some you won't. This is one of them. You should check out the issue. There is some interesting stuff in there.

Krismas ornaments

I drew this at a particularly low point last Krismas. This year is ridiculous. We (Abe) packed out Krismas ornaments in storage and now we can't get them out without taking half the rest of it out. So we bought new stuff. Our Krismas tree is weird now. No nostalgic ornaments. Nice new garlands though. Which is nice. And out little Krismas tree died because we didn't take care of it, so I finally got to pick a nice big fluffy Krismas tree! Abe likes little Krismas trees and I like big ones. I would prefer 6 feet. But we compromise with one taller than me, but shorter than him. We also had to get a new tree stand, but that was a good thing. We had the crappy kind in the comic above, but now we have a great big plastic one that the dogs can't drink out of.

Also, I finally figured out a good station for Krismas music on Pandora. I based it on Blue Christmas by Elvis Presely, You're a mean on Mr. Grinch, and some others. Awesome. Even pulled up my favorite song from the Elf soundtrack, "Baby, it's cold outside" with Zooey Deschanel.

Here's our decorations.

Krismas tree with sparkly lights. There are more ornaments on it now, though.

New stockings! We had old ones that I knit when we first started dating. They were pretty bad. These are awesome. The tiniest one is for Nermal. Abe didn't even want to get her that! We don't have a fire place, so they just go up on the wall.

Rain and reading

I just love listening to the rain while I am reading.

Calamari

This was directly inspired by my biology class where we disected squids instead of frogs. Not sure why. It was fun though. One of the kids, JD, brought in home-made calamari. First I ever had. I loved it, even though it was cold and chewy.

Then when we went to disect it (I was partnered with Heather, but I drew Abe), I picked it up and it slid out of the mantle a little and I thought it was alive. So of course, this was 8th grade or so, I squealed and threw it on the table before I realized how dumb that idea was. Anyways, I enjoyed disecting it and learning about the insides once I got over that first adrenaline rush. My chicken plucking years were only a few years back, so I suppose I was used to little dead animals.

Secrets

I drew this as a birthday present for a friend. Bertha is the friend (that's her false name, of course). She will make other appearances I am sure. This is also available as a print on the Flying Dodo Publications Etsy store.
We are moving this weekend, so I am missing out on another Drink and Draw. And next week we have to drive up from Renton. Eesh. Not sure how long that'll last. I am really excited to move though. The new apartment is almost twice as big and has a nice big balcony. But no yard. Ernie will be sad. However, I will get to ride my bike to work. It is only an 8 minute bike ride or so! And when we move offices in March, it will still only be a 7 minute bike ride or so. Anyways, someday, I will be posting a series of comics about this apartment that I am drawing as we prepare to move. But they are numbered in the late 30s and the last post of that type was number 10. So it might be a while.

Don't vacuum the baby

Poor Gertrude. My trash can of phobias and worries. They are absurd, but it helps to write them down and Gertrude comics are insanely fun to draw. I will try to post one of these for about every 5 of the other comics, but they take a lot longer to make.
Here is my original practice drawing of Gertrude. And the previous vacuum comic is the first real comic I did of her.  Babies kind of freak me out what with their complete lack of self-maintenance.