More Ursula!


Zebra Egg
You have a very whimsical style, very fun and playful, which I think would reflect on your personality. How do you cultivate that quality in your life? How do you protect it?

Heh! Actually, I think that may be the thing--I'm a sort of snide, dour individual in real life. If you've ever seen Spongebob Squarepants, I'm basically a vertebrate Squidward. I am full of fascinating and often noxious facts. (Well, actually, that may tie into the sense of wonder. I find great wonder in, for example, the idea that vampire bats live on an entirely liquid diet, and since weight is a major concern, with flight, they have to urinate nearly the entire time they're feeding. Knowing this disgusting little tidbit strikes me as deeply wonderful. I've never figured out how to work it gracefully into a painting, though.) A few other people I know who do very cute stuff have a similiar tendency to be kinda cynical and snarky in real life, and then all the cute comes out in the work. Actually a lot of things are probably like that--I have a buddy who writes these billowy, sentimental romance novels who's got a wonderfully black sense of humor. Perhaps the art winds up as an outlet for these tendencies.

Then again, I dunno, I'll "AWWWW!" over a baby hedgehog as much as anybody, so take my armchair psychology with a grain of salt. *grin*

Anyway, because of that, I don't really worry about protecting my sense of whimsy--it seems pretty durable, and since people really like the whimsical art, it gets a lot of positive reinforcement. If I lived in the middle of a warzone, or something, it'd be different, I'm sure, but for now, not really a problem.

What kind of things do you do to recharge your creative juices? What books and music do you absorb?

Well, I read a lot. Mostly fantasy, with a broad and indiscriminate appetite, the occasional mystery, horror, or thriller. Music, not so much--I know a lot of artists are very musically inclined and really require music to work, but probably because I'm tone deaf, I tend to stick to NPR. Of course, occasionally they get off on three days of senate hearings or something, so I have to dig out music--my tastes are pretty eclectic, and range between heavy metal and folk, with very few stops in between.

And I take walks, and I feed the birds out in my backyard, and occasionally I go to the zoo. Animals are really delightful, so I enjoy watching them. (Animal Planet's usually on in the evenings.) The internet's also a neverending source of inspiration, too.