Miscellaneous Things

My brain seems to be scattered all over the place lately. I'm about to head in to Halifax to teach my last wood type letterpress class for the semester, and I'm waiting to deliver two print jobs and get paid for another one. And I've had one binding job almost certainly canceled and one probably going ahead but I don't know quite when yet. And I have a craft show in early December to prepare for, holiday cards to finish, supplies to order and shops to visit for potential wholesale orders.

And if that's not enough, I'm still working on some copper jewellery, some ATCs, some ilustrations and various and sundry other things. Oh yes, if ever I have free time, I very soon fill it up with things to do.

Other things going on: a truck in need of repair before it's driveable and a letterpress workshop I'll do if the truck is fixed in time. An anime website/blog I started and am waiting to move to its permanent domain before promoting. Collapsing offshoot blogs back into this main blog because I have too many things on the go. I promise I'll write something that makes a bit more sense next post. In the meantime, here are the latest ATCs I did, with manga/anime as the theme (and yes, that's yet another version of my foxgirl).

Tsukiko has a Fox Mask

Yuki Makes Foxfire

Dragon Hurricane Oolong

Snowblind

I tried colouring with markers again, which was harder than expected at such a small size. Plus I'm not that practiced with markers. So I'm not entirely happy with the results. But the sketches were originally much larger than ATC size, so I plan to ink and scan them, and then colour digitally (well, except for Tsukiko, which I've already done).

Two by Sea, One Not

My latest tiny illustrations (artist trading cards) include a reworking of one of the reindeer/caribou silhouettes I used in my holiday cards:

I had blocked out the deer shape with masking fluid in order to paint the background, and when I went to peel it off, it started pulling the top layer of paper off. Eek! I didn't leave it on that long, but it was rather thick. And maybe the humidity we've been having lately contributed to the problem. Anyway, some carefully applied rice paste saved the day, and even stayed put when I painted the deer. Phew!

Next, I tried to do something much more sketchy than I usually end up doing, both in the inks and in the watercolours. Sometimes I like my pencil drawings better than the finished inks, and I think it may be partly due to the sketchy quality.

This one seems to be the favourite over at Illustrated ATCs, where the swap I made it for is.

And finally, I used an old sketch of one of the daughters of the Sea King I did back when I'd just seen a fantastic Discovery Channel special on sharks--Great Whites that leap out of the water like dolphins in an aquarium show. It had a profound effect on me, and I wrote "Daughters of the Sea King" (a short story connected to my Frisland stories) and I drew the sketch I based this on. I'm thinking of drawing a illustration of all seven sisters, and maybe even doing an artists book with the illustration and the story. Or an illustrated story chapbook. I wonder if anyone would buy a little illustrated story for $5 or $10?

I may be a bit scarce for a while to come, as tomorrow I start teaching a week-long (well, 5-day) summer camp in printmaking for 12- to 14-year-olds, followed by one for 10- to 12-year-olds, followed by one for 15 and up. So yeah, three straight weeks of teaching, while still doing my regular writing gig. Should be fun, but intense. I'll try to remember to take some pictures of my classes at work.

Deer (and Antelope) Girls

I drew people! I avoid drawing people, but that's a bad habit I'm trying to break. These ones are mythological people, but people notheless. Oh, and if you're offended by naked boobs, you don't want to look at these.

Queen of the Forest

The Magician

Qi Lin

Antelope Woman

All of them are ATCs--2.5 by 3.5 inches, drawn with india ink and a crowquill nib pen, and coloured with watercolours. These ones are for my very first swap on Illustrated ATCs, a juried ATC and mail art swap site.

Same Old Busyness

I see I am not doing so spectacularly well in keeping up with regular blogging. As usual. I am working on about six million things at once (also as usual), and I will have pics soon.

Things currently on my worktable:

• A pile of little monochromatic books in a rainbow of colours (a monochrome spectrum?). If that makes no sense, it will all be clear once I finish them and post the photos.
• Four SteamBook blank journals, in a larger size than the previous batch (of which there are now only two left, in my Etsy shop). Two are Quartermaster's Account Books and two are Timekeeper's Journals.
• Seven ATCs inked, but not yet coloured. Two have masking fluid on. Four are women with antlers (well actually three are women with antlers and one is a woman with antelope horns), one is a shark woman, one is a sea jelly and one is a caribou/reindeer.
• Some magnets of my art work that need to be cut out, photographed and listed in my Etsy shop. Four sea dragons and four flying fish.
• A linocut tryptich that I started ages ago and have not yet printed. They will be reductive, with potentially many, many layers of ink. They could take a long time to do.
• Comic book pages waiting to be re-scanned and re-lettered. I think I am putting this off because I still can't decide if I should letter them by hand or on the computer, and if on the computer, which comic typeface to use.
• Comic book pages waiting to be drawn.
• A chapter of White Foxes, Full Moon that needs just another page or two before it gets transcribed from my handwriting into legible type in a word processor.

And I'm going to stop looking around me now, or I will find more things to add to that list and if the list gets any longer I fear I will never finish the things on it.

Creatures from Greek Myth

Here are the latest finished cards, from a swap on Creatures of Myth and Fantasy. First, a centaur standing guard:

Not the most exciting image, but I enjoyed drawing his hair.

Next, a hippocampus. This one seems to be the favourite of the set on ATCs for All, where I'm swapping them.

I added some tiny orange spots in a few places, which added a little pop to the image, but they don't really show up in the scan.

And finally, my personal favourite of this trio, a star-gazing satyr.

I plan to make them all available as magnets and greeting cards in my Etsy shop. If there's something you want, let me know and I'll make it happen sooner.

Three Pretty Peacocks

I managed to stay up into the wee hours of the morning again last night, which is becoming a habit I'm going to have to break soon, as I'll be teaching in Halifax and will need to get up in the wee hours of the morning, instead. As soon as teaching is over mid-August, I'll no doubt return to my nocturnal ways, though.

But I've digressed already and I only just started. Right, peacocks. One of the things I did while staying up late was finish the peacock ATCs. The one above is (rather obviously) "Blue Peacock," and the one below is (also rather obviously) "White Peacock."

And finally, here is "Green Peacock." I have a tendency to put all my energy and attention into the central figures, and then end up at a loss about what to do for the background. Of course, when your size is 2.5 by 3.5 inches, a quick wash of a few colours is probably perfectly acceptable. I'm planning to move to some larger sizes, soon, and then I'm gonna have to give more thought to backgrounds.

I also finished three Creatures of Myth and Fantasy cards, and the Asian dragon for the pen/ink and watercolour swap. I'll post some pics of those tomorrow. Next I need to draw some lights, more pen/ink + watercolour, and some historical heroines (no avoiding drawing people for that one!).

Satyr, Repurposed

I had a datebook page to finish up for a collaborative project (no pay, just exposure and website traffic). The dimensions were a tall 8 inches by 3 inches wide, so not much room for borders or anything. So I decided to go with the date info at the top and an image and my info at the bottom.

Yes, that's the same satyr as the ATC-in-progress image I posted yesterday. I just sent it off today, so I haven't heard back if it's appropriately sized and formatted, though I followed the instructions, so it should be.

Of course, I now can't find the URL for the project, but when I locate it, I'll update the post. I suspect they may still need pages, but the original deadline was July 1, so they'd have to be done fast.

Edit: replaced spelling-mistake image with corrected version.

Peacocks and Satyrs

Here are some quick in-progress shots of my latest ATC illustrations. First, some peacocks:

I had a fourth one, but I didn't like how the sketch turned out, and it was an extra anyway, so I decided to leave it out. Besides, as usual I've left them to the last minute and need to mail them by the end of the week, so I don't have time to do a better one. I'll probably include one of Leonardo's Clockwork Scarabs as a swap host gift, instead.

And, then, some creatures of myth and fantasy:

The dragon is the odd card out, being Asian instead of Greek like the rest, so I'll probably put him aside for another upcoming swap (theme: pen and ink with watercolour), which will actually put me ahead a little.

The yellowish shiny stuff on the hippocampus is masking fluid (aka liquid frisket), which is basically latex suspended in water. I'm going to see what it looks like with the rest of the card painted and the mane left seafoam-white. Also, with this set, I discovered two things: one, I need more horse reference images and two, I really like drawing satyrs (even though this guy's head turned out a little too big). I knew I liked drawing satyrs--it's one reason there are satyr characters in Fey--but I had sort of forgotten. There may be a lot more satyrs in my illustrative future. Steampunk satyrs, anyone?

Drawing Norse Myth, Or The Animals, Anyway

So for my latest set of illustrations, I've been drawing cards for a Norse myth swap. I'm fascinated by the pairs of animals associated with the various gods in Norse myth.

Huginn and Muninn

Huginn and Muninn are Odin's ravens, whose names translate as "Thought" and "Memory." They fly out into the world and bring back news, so if you find yourself under observation by a raven or two, you might want to think about whether you've done anything to anger the gods.

Geri and Freki

Odin's wolves Geri and Freki both have names that translate as "Greedy," though the root of "freki" is "ravenous," so I like to call them Greedy and Ravenous.

Bygul and Trjgul

Norse literature has this very cool device called a "kenning" which is a sort of synonym or poetic word or phrase. "Ken" means something like "knowledge" or "understanding," so kennings are about naming some aspect of a thing. An example is "whale road," referring to the sea. Well, the cats that pull Frejya's chariot have names that are kennings. Bygul or "Bee-gold" and Trjgul or "Tree-gold" are kennings for "honey" and "amber." Coolest cat names ever.

Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjostr

Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjostr (Tooth-grinder and Tooth-gnasher) are Thor's chariot-pulling goats (Norse gods seems to enjoy the grandeur of chariots, or maybe it's a military power thing). I wanted to make them look a little crazy, like their names.

At some point I'm going to have to stop avoiding drawing people. Drawing people is not one of my strengths, which means I should be drawing *more* people to improve my skills.

Hey Diddle Diddle

Here are my latest tiny illustrations, finished and about to be sent off for swapping.

Hey diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle

The cow jumped over the moon

The little dog laughed to see such sport

And the dish ran away with the spoon.

Though apparently what I have painted is not a dish, but a bowl. I never really thought about it until now, but I suppose that a dish and a bowl really are two different things. Similar, yes, but a dish is shallower. But not quite as shallow as a saucer.

Also, it looks like I really need to figure out how to shade things that have no texture, like ceramic dishes and spoons. My quick, messy hatching is just not looking good.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll post the Norse myth illos, and after that I hope to get back to some book binding projects.

Some Mythic Progress

Well, I didn't finish the painting last night, as I had hoped. I got distracted by unpacking a couple of boxes I've been saving for months for just the right time. Apparently, last night while I should have been painting was the right time. I can't complain, though, as I now have two less boxes in my way. And my library/dining room looks a little like a natural history museum. I'll get some pics later.

Anyway. Progress. I did manage to get the first wash of colour on all the cards. This is not really how I usually work--more often I complete one then move on to the next, but for whatever reason, I started with some pale colour on all of them.

As you can perhaps see, I work light-to-dark on watercolours. I have begun to suspect this may be backwards. It would certainly be backwards if I was working in, say, graphite, and perhaps digitally, too. But this is how you sort of have to work in printmaking (especially if you are doing reductive prints), so that's kind of how my brain processes these days. Any painters reading this who have other ways of working?

Nursery Rhyme and Myth

Just so you don't think I'm getting lazy (hah!), here's my most recent batch of tiny art in inked-but-not-coloured stage. (And for those of you here for bookbinding rather than illustration, don't worry, I'll have plenty of book stuff to post very soon).

The top four are from the nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle," but with the twist that the main actors are all fairies (hence the wings). The idea came from an ATC swap in which the participants would illustrate fairy tales or nursery rhymes but populate them with actual fairies (if you've studied folklore at all, you'll know that fairy tales often have no fairies to speak of in them).

The bottom four images are not simply pairs of animals, they're pairs of animals from Norse mythology. Odin's ravens are Huginn and Muninn (Thought and Memory), and his wolves are Geri and Freki (Greedy and Covetous; though both names translate as "greedy," the root of "freki" is "covetous"). The two cats are Frejya's Bygul and Trjgul (literally "bee gold" and "tree gold," or more simply Honey and Amber), and the crazy goats are Thor's Tanngrisnir and Tanngnjostr (Tooth-grinder and Tooth-gnasher); both the cats and the goats pull their deity's chariot.

I hope to get them all painted tonight, though that may be a bit ambitious. They need to go in the mail as soon as I can get them there, to make it to their swap host in time.

Bees!

Here's the last of the three sets of artist trading cards I've been working on lately.

I think of the three specific bee images, the bumble bee (above) was most successful, while the honey bee (below) was least successful.

I used a conceit I'm rather fond of, which is to make them look like illustrations from an old natural science book. I did the same thing with Leonardo's Clockwork Scarab (which you can still purchase from my Etsy shop), and with a intaglio print of moths (which will soon be available in my Etsy shop).

I like science. Science is cool. Anyway. My favorite of the set of four, somewhat to my surprise, as it was my least favorite when I did the sketches, is this one, a little bee anatomy chart:

These have now gone off to their swap host in Germany, and I should soon be receiving little bee cards by other artists all over the world. Very cool.

Next up for ATC swaps, I have some nursery rhyme characters and some Norse mythology, followed by peacocks and mushrooms. I do love to keep busy.

And for non-trading-card art, I have several ideas in my head that will need to come out soon. I won't say much yet, as I want to see if I can make the sketches come anywhere close to what's in my head first, but a few hints: one is inspired by bird evolution and Gideon Grave, gentleman adventurer (a character from my Frisland stories); one by a line of poetry with an octopus in; and one by a scene from White Foxes, Full Moon, the Frisland novel I'm working on.

And I still have a number of book projects on the go. I have something I was asked to do for my sister eons ago, which I hope to actually get done for her birthday this year. Then I have "A Love Letter to E.A. Poe" to bind--it's a book of prints I did inspired by "The Raven." I just have to decide if I'm going to include the text of the poem, in which case I have some letterpress printing to do. It'll be in an edition of 3. And I've got some old zinc printing plates I'm going to turn into covers for blank journals. They've got fishes on them! These will be rather expensive blank journals, I'm afraid, but I think they will be very, very cool.

Flying Fish!

Flying fish! I painted these as one long strip, to be cut up into four cards afterwards. It'll be tiny on the blog, but here's the whole thing:

When I drew these, I started by drawing some sketches from reference photos (thank you, Google Images). Then I used the poses I liked best, and changed some of the details--especially in the fins.

I came up with the colours in the same sort of way. I looked at a lot of pictures, then came up with my own colour scheme.

The result is Grave's Flying Fish, Cheilopogon gravesi, discovered by Gideon Grave on one of this adventures. Their geographical range is uncertain at present, but I'm hoping a thorough search of Grave's notes will provide some clues. It seems unlikely that it was a native of the waters around Frisland, but it is a possibility.

This last one is my favorite, because it ended up having the best composition when the four cards were separated. I also think it best captures the semi-transparent nature of their "wings."

I've now mailed these off to their swap coordinator, as hard as that was, but I'll be making greeting cards, and maybe a t-shirt with the full strip of fishes.

Sea Dragons

As promised, here are the finished sea dragon illustrations I've been working on. They're each 3.5 by 2.5 inches (that's trading card size), and first drawn in pen and ink (india ink with a Hunt 102 "crowquill" dip pen) then coloured with watercolours (Windsor & Newton solid and Pentel tubes--whichever is closer to hand, usually), on Canson Aquarelle cold press 140 lb watercolour paper (which is probably more than most of you wanted to know). If you missed the last two posts here, they both had in-progress shots of these and some other work.

Portrait of a Weedy Sea Dragon

Portrait of a Leafy Sea Dragon

Weedy Sea Dragon

Leafy Sea Dragon

These were done for a sea dragon themed challenge swap (the challenge being to try to draw/paint realistic sea dragons, which are complicated little fishes), and they'll be mailed off to the swap co-ordinator tomorrow. And yes, they were some of the ones I'm finding it very hard to part with, as I mentioned last post. I especially like the last two.

Tomorrow: flying fish!

Work in Progress

I'll post more pics of the things I'm working on tomorrow, as I now have the flying fish and the sea dragon cards completely finished and am getting them ready to mail out, but for now, here's what my work table looked like earlier today:

One problem I have discovered in making little pieces of art to trade is that sometimes they turn out so well, I want to keep them all. That's the problem I'm having with these two sets of cards. Fortunately, I have a good scanner. Of course, scans are never as good as the real thing, but they help. Also, *not* keeping everything encourages me to make more. And it encourages me to make *better* so that even if I no longer have something I really liked, soon I'll have something even better. Hypothetically.

On the Drawing Board

I've really been enjoying making ATCs for swaps, and I find it's especially good for motivating myself to make work. I love to draw, but without assignments or deadlines, it's hard to stay focused. And since I'm one of those anal people who will do something they've said they'll do, or feel extremely guilty for not doing it, signing up for swaps is the perfect way to make sure I'll get something done.

Here's what's on the go right now:

That's ATCs for 3 different swaps, because I somehow ended up signing up for a bunch that end very close together. The flying fish I need to get coloured and in the mail as soon as I can. I hope to mail them tomorrow. The sea dragons will need to go out by next week, and the bees aren't due until June 6, but they have a long way to go, so I'd like to get them out this week if I can.

That leaves a fairy tale swap and a Norse myth swap to finish next week, and yesterday I signed up for mushrooms and mythical beasts, one due mid-June and one mid-July. As long as I don't get behind, these will keep we working, but not insanely busy. That's the idea, anyway.

Now if only I could become disciplined about getting new comic pages drawn. Not that that many people read Fey, but the few that do may very well have given up on me by now.

Busy Getting Nothing Done

It seems to be the story of my life: I'm busy pretty much all the time, and if I'm not actually making or writing something, then I'm reading or doing research. Even when I play videogames, I'm working, because I work for a gaming website. So I've been busy all weekend, and have crossed almost nothing off my to-do list. I really need to write some articles. And get some product made for the Halifax Crafters spring market, which is in a few weeks.

To be fair, I didn't just waste the weekend. I did organize my stock of existing product to get some idea of what I need to make. There is a batch of half-done tiny pocket journals, and I will have to do a batch of Japanese-binding jewellery. And I came up with an idea for new product. One of the things I've been wanting to do is make greeting cards from my illustrations, but I haven't had any I liked well enough to use. But now (you'll see if you read on) I have a couple of images I like. So next time I'm in Truro or Halifax, I'll visit Staples for some of those pre-cut greeting cards that are made especially for inkjet printing on. My large-format Canon photoprinter does really nice prints, so that end is covered. I'm also going to do magnets. I just have to decide how many of each thing I'll be likely to sell, because I'm short enough on funds that I don't want to buy more supplies than I actually need.

I've mentioned ATCs before--that is, Artist Trading Cards. They're little trading card sized piece of art that you trade with other artists. Or you can sell them, in which case they're called ACEOs (Art Cards Editions and Originals). I made one a little while ago to trade with a fellow Etsy Steam Team member.


Leonardo's Clockwork Scarab was made in a hand-coloured edition of 15, two of which stay home (one for me and one for BillyZ), two are on sale at Etsy and ArtFire, one has gone to CreativeEtching, one will go to a trader partner in . . . Sweden, I think, and 9 are left to trade.


Doktor Valentine's Discombobulation Ray was an experiment in markers, which I'm not so good at. A last minute application of pencil crayon highlights saved the image, and it'll become magnets to sell at the fair, and later online. I haven't put it up for trade yet, as I'm rather fond of it, but if the magnets turn out well, I'll either sell the original on Etsy, or make it available for trade.


Aeryn Daring in Sepia was a less-successful experiment with sepia drawing ink. I'm not fond of how it bled, though fortunately it's really only noticeable up close. I also don't like how the paper texture is so visible--guess I'll have to buy the good watercolour paper soon. Otherwise, it turned out OK, and it's up for trades. I may do magnets from this one, but I haven't decided yet.









Valkyrie I'm very pleased with. It was an attempt to get away from the over-detailing I tend to do in inks, and just use a simple outline with basic washes. I think it's successful for what it is, and it will become greeting cards. Maybe magnets, too. I've entered her in a couple of mythology-themed ATC contests, and when those are over I may put her up for sale on Etsy. If the greeting cards turn out well.


The Fox & the Grapes illustrates an Aesop's fable and was an attempt to get myself to use more dynamic perspective. It's actually a detail from a larger image that has more vines and leaves and the rest of the fox's tail--I'll probably go back now and do the whole thing on a postcard. This is another one that will be greeting cards (and maybe magnets). I'm hanging on to it for a while, but will probably sell or trade it eventually.

We've had more spring birds showing up, despite the recent snow, but that's a post for later. Right now I have a big stew to make.