I so enjoyed putting together this portrait. Finley is such an expressive doggo. He had a whole instagram for me to work off! He’s quirky and *bursting* with personality. He’s got a great smile, too.
He sometimes cosplays as Sirius Black, so I put the constellation of Canis Major, and the bright star Sirius, behind him. Orion is there, too, because the hunter loves his dog, and I worked in the hare so he’d have something to chase.
I might possibly have really enjoyed astronomy as a kid. Mostly the names of the stars and the myths they were named after. I can’t find hardly anything in the night sky. I’m sure it helps that I’ve never lived someplace with a really properly dark sky.
We went to a dark sky park one time, but there was too much cloud cover and moonlight to see stars.
I often sip wine while I paint or draw in the evenings. But I’ve never before tried to teach anyone anything about art. Ever. Before this summer.
I like teaching. When I learn how to do something, I always end up teaching it to someone else eventually. Mostly, though, I’ve taught things like basic understanding of laws. Not things like art, which is so much more instinctive.
For me, anyway.
I’m not really sure how to teach drawing. I learned from books, and copying and tracing and drawing relentlessly. I know some words and principles that might help people draw better, or at least….help them even TRY to draw…but I don’t really know what anyone could possibly do beyond that. You learn to draw by practicing, and learning a few principles about how to draw what you actually see, not what you think you see.
With the sip and paints, a sketch is provided. So I’m mostly trying to convince people to let go of their inhibitions and let the pigments play. That’s the point of watercolors, really.
I myself painted the same rose 3x before the event (4, actually, but I only brought 3) and 2x during, different every time, to encourage people to think outside the box and let go of the pigment.
My mother in law will laugh if she reads that, because I had a hard time letting go, myself.
The blue rose was my final piece.
It was fun, I have a better idea for how I would arrange the table, how I would talk people through some of the techniques a bit better. It seemed to really help them to watch me paint, and this time I’d set myself up behind a pitcher of water and a vertical display of the color wheel–which literally no one looked at. Next time, I’ll forgo the vertical color wheel, put the pitcher somewhere else, and make sure to show people things before I unleash them to dip their brushes in pigment.
I think everyone had fun, and they definitely came up with some great combinations and turned out some very nice work. Best of all, they smiled a lot and talked about how relaxing it was. Creating art has, of course, been proven to relieve stress. One of its many benefits!
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I’m *always* diddling around cover ideas for my epic fantasy projects. Always. But, for the first time ever, I designed a cover for someone else. I’m pretty thrilled about it, actually. A college buddy started publishing these awesome sci fi short stories on Kindle, Stories of the Human Ship, and I got the opportunity to make a cover for story 3 which comes out this month!
Are you ready? Here’s the book blurb:
When most of Earth was destroyed in a nuclear war, the alien races arrived to auction off what was left. Now, a band of escaped humans in a stolen alien ship struggle to survive in an unfriendly galaxy. The stars are within reach, but there are no safe harbors.
If you like sci fi, or just good stories, you should go check them out. Story one is The Human Ship. They are free, too, which is pretty crazy.
This story is going places, be in the know early and help it spread!
My brother is a professional mime and dancer (UK folks, you should look him up!)
but I don’t recall ever drawing dancers much. I drew one during Inktober last
year and he actually came out really well. I was also helping out a local
ballet company at the time, and ended up painting a whole bunch of random
things for them (a toy box, and the firebird dancer, for starters.)
Pinterest, that great source of inspiration, saw me hunting
for images all those times and has helpfully been handing me gorgeous
photographs of dancers for months now. I guess it’s no surprise that I started
thinking of ways to create more mythic performers.
It took me two tries to get the moondancer the way I wanted…and
then I realized neither had wings and I had sort of wanted her to have wings. Whoops.
Full Moon
Oh well.
I guess I’ll just have to paint another.
These are both done with Inktense backgrounds, and the dancers themselves are brushpen. I’m really enjoying the blending of Inktense as a background. I also love watercolor backgrounds, so it’s not like I’ll switch entirely—but sometimes you just want the hazey look. I used hematite watercolor in the skirt of the New Moon (the dark dressed dancer), because the granulation and flow was JUST want I wanted.
Neither of them are for sale anywhere. But could be, so just
say the word 😉
New Moon
Which one do you like better? I like the pale dancer better
than the dark dancer. It was more what I was going for originally, but they
both have appeal.
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I feel like this is infinitely better than never having been
sailing at all, but also sort of sad, because only twice.
Friends of ours had a boat, and invited us out a couple
times to some little lake. I remember basically nothing about the surroundings,
I was enthralled with the feel of floating on the lake, pushed by the breeze,
and how you watched the water. They let me bask on the prow, and I learned
important things like how to duck the boom.
I was probably twelve. It was pretty awesome.
That does, however sum up pretty much everything I know
about sailing. Except for the things learned from movies, and we all know how
reliable those are.
Purple Sail on a Teal sea-available on Redbubble and Etsy
I love the idea of sailing, though, even though I know that
sailing in a big open space like the ocean would probably scare the snot out of
me. I know about the horse latitudes and I’ve seen one too many Big Storm movies,
being swept out to sea means you die! And if you don’t know what you’re doing,
you get swept out to sea.
I’ve been practicing smaller sail boats this year—just a
few, and they look radically different when I don’t have a picture of a
sailboat in front of me.
When I was a teen, I went straight to more complex ships (though, still nothing like a brigandine, think Dawn Treader), and I guess they looked alright? I mean. I was mostly interested in the decorative prow (which was shaped like a horse, obviously). The novel I was working on in high school involved the Prince of the Horse-lords becoming a seafarer. He was a side character, and I think the plot significance of his ship was that he was well traveled—and I think he used it to make alliances with countries to the south. I’m realizing now that was a bit of a wasted opportunity if he didn’t use it that way, and I can’t remember for sure if that’s what he did or not. Wow. Never thought I’d forget anything about that novel.
Red Sails
I love it when tall ships are living museums and you area allowed to board and explore these shockingly small wood vessels that crazy people used to cross the Atlantic.
Black Sails–I need more creative names for these ships.
One of my friends passionately loves tall ships, and he can free sketch gorgeous ones when he’s bored in meetings. I know where to go when I need a ship for my Zare Caspian stories.
What about you? How do you feel about ships? Have you been sailing? Did you like it?
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