My Art is on real Websites Y'all

So I haven't really talked about what I do at my graphic design job, mostly because it's not very exciting. I most make flyers and pamphlets about the various things and events the college of Social and Behavioral Sciences has to offer. Occasionally Photoshop terrible pictures of professors for their website profile picture. 

However, a few weeks ago I got to do a really exciting thing! The SBS college is hosting an event called The Great Cartoon Debate of 2016. Two famous political cartoonists from each side of the political spectrum are going to talk politics in the best way they know how: through cartoons! This will all take place in front of a live audience, in a small movie theather here in Tucson (I'm not much into politics, but I think I might actually go to this, it seems that it will be hilarious!) But anyway, a graphic was needed to advertise this on the social medias and various print and online calendars, and yours truly was asked to create it! 

Here it is: 

And this is on the SBS Facebook page, the theater's website, and a few more websites. It's so exciting to see my (MY) art out in the world, it's just a little cartoon, it took only a few hours to make, but still!! Everyone at work was super impressed, and more people know my name and what I do now. This is just the begging of a lot of great opportunities, I just know it!

Now for some art for school. 

For some reason art classes love to start with a portrait, often a self portrait too, so I'll be doing one of those soon(bleh), but since the other portrait can be of anyone or anything I got real creative and chose Pharaoh Hatshepsut. I learned about Hatshepsut about a year ago, and she's been in the back of my mind ever since, and while pondering what awesome woman to do for this portrait assignment her story popped back into the front of my mind. 

Let me tell you a little about her. She lived way back in 1400 BCE, daughter of the Pharaoh, Thutmose I. Her husband/brother died when his son was very young, and since a kid can't really rule Egypt, she became queen regent. However, she really took over, becoming more powerful than any female ruler before her, taking on the role of Pharaoh, which is supposed to be a male role since the Pharaoh was an incarnation of the male god Horus. So she tried to assume a more masculine role by wearing the Nemes headdress (think King Tut's sarcophagus) and fake beard, and sometimes using the name Hetshepsu, with a masculine ending (think Alexander vs. Alexandra). From the records she seemed to be pretty good ruler, started trade, built a cool burial complex, fought off the enemy, etc. 

But about 20 years after her death, someone tried to literally erase her from history. Her statues were destroyer, her name and images chiseled off the walls of her temple. Just enough remains that archaeologists pieced her story together, and even found her mummy not in the official tomb, but in an unmarked one somewhere else. No one knows who did this, or exactly why, but we can be pretty certain that the fact that she was a woman had something do with it. As I mentioned before, the Pharaoh was an incarnation of a male god, and a woman doing that went against societal roles and cultural values of predictability and maintaining tradition. 

Here's a picture of one of her statues from Wikipedia:

There a several documentaries about her on YouTube that I would encourage you to check out to learn more, it's a really fascinating tale. So I have this idea of drawing her, standing in a powerful positing, but she's also being blown away, as if she were made from the sand dunes of Egypt itself. These are some of my first doodles for it. 

I'm very excited to work on this project!

Lastly, some leg art =D