Introduction

Hello, to those who read this. My name is Caroline Jean Meier... most of everyone call me CJ. I have been drawing since I was a little kid and I am going to use this space to talk about my life as an artist. I love movies, books, comic books, and spending time with my family. My family includes my friends as well as my husband and my daughter and the people I was born to and was raised with.

I was born 31 years ago (1978) and I was born with bright red hair that faded into auburn hair and now I have brown that I like to color red... one day I shall achieve TRUE red. I was born to my parents in Plattsburg, NY. My older sister was just a year old, after that, a year and a half later my little sister was born and 2 years later, my little brother was born, those two were born in California. I think my first memory (besides abstract feelings and shapes) was the first time I saw my older sister drawing, the first thing I thought. "Wow... she can draw? I wanna draw just like her," because I idolized her. She was so amazing to me. I slept at the foot of her bed and did everything she did. She inspired me to draw and as I grew older I found comics. I loved them all, all the pictures and stories... people were able to draw the stories, that was amazing to me. The first comic I read more than one of was Elfquest. It was amazing, bold and though it was in black and white, my Auntie Helen owned several of the graphic novels and I lost myself so many weekends to those books. I was determined to write a comic one day, Wendy Pini drew and wrote her own comic... why not me?

I would like to think I could draw a comic now, but there are so many things to learn. I read an article from an artist once who made the conscious decision to make each panel different from the rest each of his comics, I thought that maybe I could do that. I tried that out and it helps the story immensely. It makes me think of different shapes and how I want the story to progress. I am constantly inspired by the world around me, the books, comics, television shows and movies that are coming out all around me every day.

I am going to write about everything that inspires me, the challenges that life throws at me, and I will show you all my art as I do this.

I am calling myself the Midnight Artist because I work on the graveyard shift and I tend to do most of my creating there. I hope you all will join me on this trip, I plan to update this blog every week, maybe twice a week if I can.