In light of my blog post two weeks ago about my afternoon stroll through a graveyard with my girlfriend (which you can read here), I thought I’d share a humourous poem about death I’d been working on, on-and-off, for a couple of months. It was a bit experimental. I held myself to the strict rules that each line had to be seven syllables and always a question (given, some of the questions fit the term loosely). And then, of course, I like to rhyme (even if it’s not the fashionable way to write poetry in the Modern Age). I don’t write poetry very often, and I think I’m a decent poet at best, but I do love a good poem, when it’s well written. I hope you enjoy this one. I’ll be sure to upload it to the writing section posthaste. (Read more…)

It feels like forever since I’ve drawn Chadhiyana. I know the name of the graphic novel I’m working on is named Chadhiyana: In the Company of Shadows, and it is a Chadhiyana graphic novel; however, for a number of reasons, I decided not to have the title character appear definitively until a little into Chapter I (you can read some of those reasons in yesterday’s blog post on chadhiyana.com). So it’s been months since I’ve drawn Chadhiyana at all. I’ll admit, it was nice to draw some other characters for a while, but in truth I’ve missed drawing Chadhiyana, and I’m excited to be rendering those familiar features again.  (Read more…)

I’ve always loved old graveyards. As it turns out, so does my girlfriend. (We’d both readily admit we are a strange couple–even considered individually.) For myself, considering my love for antiquated things and my penchant for writing gothic horror (amongst other things), I find cemeteries quite inspiring, and indeed peaceful to stroll through. Equally, my girlfriend finds them calming, and has always enjoyed history of any sort, even that of the Weird N.J. sort of fare. As such, my girlfriend and I have talked about visiting an old graveyard together for some time. (Quite the spot for a date, I must say.) So, just two weeks ago, when we had an afternoon to ourselves, she took me to one such site: the historical Brookside Cemetery in Englewood, New Jersey. (Read more…)

I know most everything has been Chadhiyana, Chadhiyana, Chadhiyana lately (and with good reason, as I’m loving working on a graphic novel for the character). So, perhaps we all need a break for this week. (Maybe not? But let’s take for granted we do.) I was recently given permission by a few clients to share with you the work I’ve been doing for them, including that oft written about, yet-unrevealed book cover illustration I completed a few months back. So this week’s blog post is about the other work I’ve been doing behind the scenes between working on Chadhiyana and to show you that Chadhiyana is not all I’m doing (though, let’s face it, it’s a lot of what I’m doing, and I’m hoping to work on her more and more for many years to come). (Read more…)

I was going to blog about something else today, but on such short notice (this entry is going up a bit late in the day for me–I usually post at 7 am EST) it’s easiest to write about the foremost thing on my mind. Yesterday, being off from my teaching job for Spring Break, I played hooky from working on my writing and art and took a trip into New York with my lovely girlfriend and her little daughter to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Read more…)

I don’t typically write about my job as a teacher. For one, I’ve only held a position as a full-time high school art teacher since September. What’s more, I try to maintain a certain level of privacy with respect to my personal life. I do break this unwritten rule occasionally. Most often, I do this for special moments or events I feel compelled to share, and this past Friday, one such event took place. (Read more…)

Until recently, I hadn’t updated my convention and show list for 2014 (on the Events & Shows page) in some time. This may come as a surprise considering I was an exhibitor or participant in an event nearly every month last year. This year is going to be a little different, at least for a while, and so today’s blog post is to give you some information about what to expect.  (Read more…)

If you’ve visited this site (jmdesantis.com) or chadhiyana.com in the past week, you may have noticed they’ve been down twice due to server errors. The first time was late Wednesday into Thursday last week. Then just yesterday the sites went down again in the morning. It seems to be a recent issue with the software I’ve been using on jmdesantis.com this past year and on chadhiyana.com since its launch. Why this is happening after a year of things running smoothly with said software, I haven’t the faintest idea.  (Read more…)

After experiencing a number of losses in the past few months, I am happy to announce some new life. Late last week my brother’s wife gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. (My brother, if you don’t know, was known as Teach back in our Game-Flush.com days.) Now, as Teach is my only sibling, and this is their first child, that means I am now officially an uncle! (Read more…)

I’ve been working overkill this week not only getting caught up on Chadhiyana: In the Company of Shadows, but getting ahead. I wrote about it in detail yesterday on chadhiyana.com, so I won’t go into it at length here. What I will say is that I finished the art for (the previously uncoloured) pages 29 and 30. I also put in the time to complete not only this week’s page 31 but next week’s page as well. So, I’m a little tired, but I’m happy to have finally gotten ahead of schedule (such as I had always wished to do since I first decided to take the graphic novel to the web). My hope now is this gain will be built upon, rather than it be a fluke. (Read more…)