Empress: A Royal Elf

Hello! *phew* My bad for not blogging in a few weeks!  My laptop died and I had to wait a bit before I could replace it.  I have a nifty little tablet now, which I'm still trying to get used to.  It's only seven inches big, so seeing things on-line is hard. *laughs*  But I love it!  Been busy catching up with everything, since.

So, how was the New Year for all of you?  I completely forgot about the countdown, (I was busy playing Zelda for, like, six hours), until my mum woke up, she had a bad case of the flu, and reminded me.  I love opening the patio door and listening to the city as everyone makes noise at midnight.  It's such an awesome sound!

Anyway, this little lady here I finally finished!  I had to stitch some of the art together in an art program because it was much too large for the scanner, but I still did not yet quite fit all of the drawing in the frame.  She is going to be included in my book, though, she won't show up until the very end of the series.

As for the book, I am about midway through now and I'm guess that the first draft will work out to be around 90,000 words.  It's very hard not to edit as I write the rough draft, but I have to keep reminding myself to think of it as a rough sketch to stop myself. *laughs*  What I'm enjoying most out of the writing, seeing the characters come to life on the page!  I'm still in awe of them taking over my brain.

Well, my lovelies, I hope you all are having a wonderful week.  And I wish an early spring thaw for those of you going through the terrible winter storms. Cheers!

Captured Butterfly ATC

Wonderful evening to you everyone! Man, it's super foggy out tonight, the fog horn has been going off for quite sometime now.  At first I thought it was the movie I was watching, only to poke my head out and realized it wasn't. *laughs*

So, this has to be one of the smallest drawings I've done...ever!  It's on a 4" x 4" square card and I used a mechanical pencil and white ink.  I did this for a reader challenge call, "The Faces Of Mixed Media", over on Cloth Paper Scissors.  I have to get the original mailed off, but, if it doesn't make it in time I went and shared it on their reader forum today.  I had originally titled this, "No One Suspects The Butterfly"....buuuttt...I wanted something that sounded a bit more ethereal.

This one was done close to the beginning of this month and took about a week from start to finish.  I can't believe I forgot all about it sitting in my closet until I was tidying up and it fell to my feet. *laughs*

For a little size comparison:

Thank you all for the wonderful comments you guys always give me....I love reading them and they always make me smile. I've been feeling a little more up beat this week and I can't wait to feel like myself again.

So that's it for tonight....I wish you all a lovely creative and happy week! Cheers!

From My Messy Desk: Part Two: More Sketches On the Drafting Table

Hello you wonderful people! How are you this week? Halloween is coming ever closer, which leads to the best thing about this scary day....horror movies and chocolate! I'm partial to "The Shinning", but if you want cute scary I'd suggest "Paranorman", which is insanely cute and has one of the best heartfelt endings ever.

Which leads me to this drawing you see up there. This month's auction over on Femme Thou Art Collective is "Grimm's Fairy tales" and Halloween just a few weeks away made me think of Little Red Riding hood.  Which is a nice combination of sweetness and darkness.  I like the original French Folk Tale, which in that case the wolf is really a werewolf and there is no wood cutter in that story, but for this illustration, I wanted to put in Grimm's version as well.  I made it really detailed, so I hope I can finish in time.  The auction starts on the 21st of this month.  Doing this made me realize that I really have to improve my skills on drawing animals.  I found trying to draw the two wolves really difficult, to make them look right. So it's to the library! Tally-ho!

Here's the other sketch I'm also working on getting finished:

I call this "Tangled", as I was going for the idea of a summer nymph caught up in her own growing spell.  Weird thing about this one was it was already there is my head, and it just wouldn't let me get anything else done until I sketched her out.  It was the strongest impulse I had, and I haven't felt such a pull like that in a year. Which is awesome.  I think I might make thins into some fancy writing paper when it's done.

I wish I had more to show you guys, but I've been in a bit of a depression for the last two weeks due to some situations and I haven't been motivated to do much of anything else, other than just sketch.  I won't go into it, cause I'm not out to make anyone as depressed as I am. *laughs*

So my dear friends...

I wish you a very happy week ahead and the coming weekend. Love you all! Cheers!

The Little Prince

Afternoon all you little wonders out there! The sun is shinning, it's a beautiful day and the crisp fall air is deeply tangible now....ahhh..and, I'm getting very excited for November to roll around. I'm sitting here all giggles and smiles, but I can't tell you yet what it is. But I cannot wait! I feel like an impatient child with a brand new dress, but not allowed to wear it just yet.

So, leaving you with that cryptic message, let me introduce you to another lead character  for my middle grade novel.  Of which I'm just starting to plot out...it feels kind of daunting and scary to plot, but I've got a number of books out to help that path along smoothly.  It'll be awesome to see where it leads to.  Then, I'll move on to the actual writing part....which will be very messy and I'll have to learn to not edit as I go along.

Anyway, this young man right here is Nemo. (Again, I'm going to be mean and not mention his last name...because I love doing word play that incorporates the story) The male lead and is Sandy's closest companion in her strange new world.  He's not actually a prince, he kinda looks like one though in his white and gold finery.  He is twelve years old and has been in this other world for so long that he no longer remembers what his last name is, how he got where he is and only partly remembers where he's from.  (Shh, just between you and me....he's from Cornwall, England. *winks*)  He loves battle games, sweets and stories.  He enjoys being a bit of a joker and playing pranks on certain people that scare easily.  He's headstrong and very independent after needing to fend for himself for such a long time.  But also he's kind and gets great pleasure of helping those in need.  He becomes very protective of Sandy and will stop short of dangerous heroic acts to aide or save her from harm.

All that black hair of his came out slightly more Emo than I thought, *laughs*, so I hope that aspect will somehow work out in his favor, a young man that's already unusually stylish.

I used watercolours pencils from Faber Castel used dry as they give a wonderful air brushed look along with a colourless blender to smooth things over. In all took about three weeks to finish.

Currently I'm working on a drawing for a friend.  He runs a comic called "Reynard City", which is so cute and zany to read.  I'm making for him a decorative writing paper drawing:

 

Colouring is about halfway through. Yay!

 

That's all for this week my friends, I'll leave you now with some words that I hope will inspire you all to go for your dreams!  I saw this in a car ad, I believe and it got me so charged up, I cut it out and stuck it in my inspiration journal.

Wishing you all a very happy and wonderful week! Cheers!

The White Lady: Drawing Up For Auction

Good Sunday afternoon to you all!  Hope you are all doing well and have had a good week that's now past and headed into a new one.  The cooler weather here in New Westminster has been a very grateful relief after a nearly two month long heat wave and endless sun.  I love the sun, but I also love cool, cloudy days like now too.  Where I can curl up with something warm and watch the day slip by.

So! This lady up here will be up for auction tomorrow evening and all next week until next Monday at Femme Thou Art Collective on Face book.  This month's theme was "White Lady".  The thought I immediately had for this theme was a white elf of the night who can swoop in the moon with one twirl of her mantle.  I wanted the beads on her head-dress to mimic the stars.  The jewel on her forehead is inspired by Ozma from the Wizard of Oz books, she wears the same piece of jewelry on her head as well that very stylishly spells out "Oz".  (I have a lovely old copy of "Rinkytink In Oz")I loved it so much that I wanted to put it on this lady as if she too could have come from the Emerald City royalty.  The ram's horns just sort of snuck themselves in there...so maybe she's half ram as well. *laughs* 

I did the background digitally...in part to save some time and also in part that I thought something digital would look very cool.  This was originally supposed to be a black and white ink drawing, but I had a thought that just a single pair of red eyes would had something interesting to the black and white inks....as you can see....I totally gave way to colouring entirely!  I just could not help myself...so maybe she wanted to be in colour after all. *laughs*  This has taken nearly two weeks from start to finish.


I was going to share some photo's of a little trip I took to the Pier Park in downtown New West....but for some reason blogger will only let me up load this one drawing, so, I'll try and share those pictures with you loves next time.

Until then, wishing you all a wonderful week ahead! Cheers!

A bit of flash Fiction: Moonlit Sonata

Hi all, a good Sunday afternoon! It's warm, sunny and the sounds of sweet summer are filtering through to my apartment.  I so love watching the sunrises and sunsets at this time of year....they always remind me of impressionist paintings. So lovely...I even find myself getting up a little extra early....and 7 am is early for me...*laughs*, just to watch the cool morning sun.

So, I did this little bit of short fiction writing for something I saw on another blog, Imagine, Create, Write! , which I love to visit and read.  I always leave feeling so inspired.  She was holding a "Create a female superhero" flash fiction writing contest....which was such a great idea.  Comics could use more strong female superheros.  I didn't get my entry done on time as is was on one of the hottest days and I just could not stand my apartment, which reached over 100 degrees, so, I avoided my laptop like the plague.  I still wanted to post it and share it with all of you, though. 

I used a mechanical pencil and three different sizes of burnishing tools to buff and smooth the pencil lines and to add some small details I used a white ink pen.  I didn't have quite enough time to finish the back ground, as I thought I could still make the deadline at 3 minuets left. (Nope...got too involved with the background. Heehee) So, the background is digital.  I used some stock images, from where I can no longer remember where I got from, but it suited her nicely and finished it up in CorelDRAW.  This, in all, took me about a week to do. Which is rather quick for me.

Name of Female Superhero:  Dark Star

Name of Human Alter Ego:  Amnesia December

Superhero Appearance:  Same as Human appearance.

Human Alter Ego Appearance:  A young woman of 18 who stands at six feet tall.  Her hair is long and shiny black with a slight wave to it ans she wears half of it up in two small buns with short kiddie bangs.  Her eyes are white with little pink flecks in them that turn blood red when angry.  Her skin is has pale and white as bleached bone and an icy skin temperature.

Costume:  Black lace corset, black pants and a long black hooded cape. She also has a set of black crow wings.

Personality: Aloof, strong, sarcastic, yet is soft and kind deep in her heart, honest, intelligent

A Brief description of how the super heroine gets her powers: She's a dampyre or half vampire.  She has no memory of where she has come from, who she really is or who or even how she came to be cursed as a halfling. She does suspect that she has always been this way, however. She simply awoke one evening on the floor of an abandoned hospital floor, the entire town where she lived, all mysteriously murdered.

Powers:  Can throw her blood into multiple flying razor blades.  Can fly with crow wings from her back, which disappear when not in use.  She is also telekinetic and can move things or break things simply by glaring at them.  She can summon fire with a snap of her fingers and direct it at her attackers.  She uses a long silver sword that she acquired from a sword master in Wales.  She can also sing a siren's song to hypnotize those around her.

Anything Else Important:  She fights all sorts of underworld creatures to find a cure of the illness before it consumes her, body and soul. Leaving her a full vampire.  She has a haunted past and a very haunted presence.  To solve the mysteries of her past and find those who broke her, she will have to search far and wide before looking to the clues of things beyond her own grave.

Moonlit Sonata

 

 

 

Moon. Bright, beautiful, pale, red moon. Moon...floating softly, serenely through the dark starless sky.  Enchanting moon.  Making everything drunk with rapture as her ice chilled, luminous fingers of bare light caresses every inch of the dark earth within her grasp.   Even me, as I alight upon the highest tower possible, in this country that is awash with endless neon orange artificial lights, spilling out, and stretching eternally away below my feet into the pitted black of the distant night.  Just the wind, the glorious, fat golden moon and me.  Cherry blossoms, with their blushing faces, whirl exquisitely past me, away to their dusty death in the cool spring air.  Just the wind, the moon, the blood-drunk cherry blossoms and me. Ah! How sweet is the smell of fresh, new spring!

          I stand, gazing dreamily up in reverence at this glowing, pocked marked rock that has served as my false sun for the last few hundred years.  Its soft light shines down upon me, illuminating those odd, night eyes, causing them to glow unnaturally green like a cat. The moon is as bone white and dead as I, although, it is not a monstrous, dark thing as I. If anyone dares but wonder the kind of creature that I subsist as, I am a Dampyre; or a half vampire. How I came to be this way, I do not know.  Some of my kind, who are proud to be what they are, prefer the term Lilin, Dark Prince Charming or Strix over using the term “Dampyre”.  The sound is far less vulgar, and threatening, making it a great deal more elegant, as well as exquisitely beautiful.  Nothing scares off a potential prey more than saying that you are “Dracula” when they ask what you are, before you kill them.  Akin to most of my kind, my looks are charmingly deceptive. A cunning, vicious wolf wrapped in a fine human skin.  Most human beings construct us to be genuinely ugly, repulsive, senseless devouring fiends.  Salivating, drooling and stupid just waiting to eviscerate the next human to cross our path, also, for some odd reasoning, extremely hairy. I myself, hate overly hairy things, I find body hair particularly repulsive.  Hence, my deep hate for the Werewolves, which have far too much for my liking.  This human folklore about us I find extremely funny, as do most of us. For if, we actually looked like some horrid, inhuman demon, how would we lure the leery into our pretty web?  No one human would dare trust us, let alone come even a foot near us. Who would trust a monster that truly appeared to be one? Armed and dangerous, but only to those weak enough to trust our carefully lying eyes.

  The moonlight tracing and retracing the cut of my figure, fresh evening air caresses my skin, sending my carefully coiffed, long black hair dancing madly around me.  The sudden gust caught and blew free some of the coal black feathers on my exposed, lone wing, on my right side.  I lost the other in a violent battle many years ago...but that...is an entirely different story.  I watch as they drift slowly down into the blinking lights below.  Wondering if they sent a signal to the other Lilin’s, that a foreign night walker had entered their territory.  All the little feathers I shed are singing, as are all the other night things.  I can hear them, singing to the moon of all shapely newness.

I pause atop Tokyo Tower in Japan; my ardent search has shepherded me here. I stand, unkempt waiting for some strange reaction. To what, I do not even know myself.  Gifted with wings, albeit only one, in addition to being able to travel at an inhuman speed, I arrived here in only a day from my home in Wales.  Ah! Japan!  A city of buzzing neon lights, noise, contradictions and offerings of every pleasurable temptations and delights ever imagined; all under the rising crimson sun.  All exists here.  From the most sadistic, Hellenistic acts, to the annoyingly fluffy, cute and pure.  Here on this tiny spit of land, is where tradition and the freaky, anime-fuelled pop-culture collided seamlessly together.  The smell of the mortal beings rises up to me like vapours, making me dizzy, hungry and angry.  Angry knowing that I came here not to taste, or hunt, however to end my pursuit. I have travelled this far, to this place to find my death or the cure of the illness that eats at me.  My beautiful, final death.  There comes a time in every Lilin’s life, where they become life weary.  The constant night, in and out of boredom, the loneliness that wells up and crushes what little is left of the soul, tired of the hell we achieve by our own brutal acts upon ourselves and the human lives we touch.  Weeping as the past falls away without footprints to follow back upon and our future always the same as the century before, immortal life soon feels like a cancer, eating away what little human remains in us; until life is like a hollow ledge with a little tepid pool left there by the sea, dying inward from the edge.  When we reach that point, we long for death to take us away upon its dusty wings, and feel the thrill of something different happening to our bodies.

 

Oh wow! That took a lot of writing....but very good practice.  I haven't created a female superhero in a long time. It was fun! And I hope fun to read, albeit, a little macabre.  I don't normally go for vampires as they are everywhere these days, but I couldn't resist just this once.

Thank you for reading my lovely bloggie friends! Wishing you a happy creative week! Cheers!

 

 





Life From Decay

Hello there, Happy Monday! Like promised here is the drawing I did for the auction over at Femme Thou Art June auction on facebook . The auction ends today at 7 PM.  We're already deciding on next month July auction...can't wait to see what it will be!

Oh man, this took me three weeks and four days from start to finish.  I'm a slow artist, so something this detailed takes me a super long time.  I put everything else I was working on aside to get this finished.  Next auction I'm doing only a very small, Art Trading Card size work, which will take me far less time than this one did.

I used a mix of my trusty watercolour pencils, which I always use dry on Deleter paper, because it gives this wonderful airbrushed look. I also used some gold pens to finish off her beads and then pulled the finished work onto CorelDRAW and added in the butterflies, moths, assorted flowers, rocks and ferns. The final file was huge!  I'm glad I saved along the way as my laptop kept crashing on me due to its hatred of my art programs. *laughs*

I am not sure if I handled the theme right, but, my original thought for this was a beautiful spring fairy emerging from the decay left behind by the melting of winter snows. A fairy that brings life to all she touches.

So, can anyone spot the squirrel hidden in the trees? Or the bunnies...oh, well they're pretty easy to spot. *laughs*

That's all for now my lovies.  Wishing you all a creative, brilliant week! Cheers!

I Will Wait For You: Coffee Sketch

Good Wednesday to you all!  Hope you are having a good week.  So far so good in keeping myself to stick to a proper schedule of blogging at least once a week, woo to the hoo! I've been so busy in getting the drawing done for the upcoming June Auction over on the Femme Thou Art Collective Face book page, that I've quite left behind my other projects for the moment.  I've never been apart of an auction before, so I'm equal parts nervous and excited.  I have until this Sunday to have it done and up, and I'll be posting it here with a little link as well.

Anyway, I feel a little sad that I've just left the last end of the short story unfinished in the editing stage, and, still have put it up for you wonderful people to read just yet.  Once the auction is over for this month, I'll get right back to it.  The poor prince has just been left to sit quietly on the sea, I am a cruel writer.

As a thanks to you all, my bloggie buds, I took some time out to quickly paint a "Thank You" picture....as, well, a thank you for waiting and always sending me honest and cheerful comments.  I truly admire all of you....you are the butter to my bread. So thank you!

I know it's not much, but, I had some extra coffee grounds laying about in the cupboard.  They were too small to even make up a small cup, so, I brewed it and set about painting with it.  This is my second venture into painting with coffee...it always smells super nice for a few days when it's done.  I added some dark brown to the coffee to help darken some areas and taking a separate tiny paint brush, started brushing in white for highlights.  The coffee removed some of the ink I had laid down earlier, so, I had to add those back in after this was totally dry. I also used heavy Arches Paper to avoid too much paper wrinkling. Later, I dragged this onto CorelDRAW to clean this up a bit more and to smooth out some stray lines.  I would love to turn this into a journal notebook cover, but I have no idea how to do that. *laughs* Something new to learn! To the Library!

Psst....I hope you enjoy the new banner.  Felt like a change was needed.

Wishing you all a creative weekend ahead. Cheers!

A Birthday Gift Basket and a WIP drawing

Woo hoo it's June! I can't wait for the days to turn warmer and hit the beach with my sketchbook again.  I think what I like best about summer is its long days of sunlight, where at almost 10 pm the sun is still just setting. Ahhhh, I'm so excited for summer in all its green beauty.

Anyway, as I work on the final edits to the short story, I'd thought I would share what I did for my mum on her 66th birthday on May 20.  I wanted to do something really nice for her this year, as last was rather tight and I couldn't afford to give her anything in way of a present.  This year has been better, so, I took about a week to decide what to do for her, and came up with the idea for a gift basket after seeing some pretty ones in the store.  I made her write up a list for me of some small things she might like and went out for a day of shopping.

Here's what I came back with:

Far Left to Right:

A Journal from Papaya at the local book store, a gorgeous sea grass basket that I just could not pass up for making this, as you can see Reese's Pieces, Marzipan chocolates, socks( yes, socks....she liked them that much), Darjeeling black tea, a very pretty ankle bracelet that she uses as a wrist bracelet, Indian Chai scented candles, Lilly of The Valley Soap from Crab tree and Evelyn, a little treasure trunk, a awesome square class mug and a little blue bird candle in a sweet cage.  As well as some fancy paper, ribbons and yellow and pink roses to decorate the basket with.

I started off with wiring the roses into the basket:

Please forgive the mess in the background, I was later going to put up some bamboo blinds to cut out some of the hot sun my apartment gets. *laughs*  I wish I had picked up more roses, it would have looked nice to have had the entire rim covered in them.

I then wove through some white crepe paper and also wound it around the handles, then added the first layers of tissue paper.  I forgot to pick up the floral foam, so I added paper to the bottom of the basket to lift up the gifts inside.:

I placed the little marzipan chocolates inside the treasure box....which wasn't that hard and I found that since they weren't going to be travelling very far, I didn't tape them down:

I later took out the jewelry and draped it over the chocolates, to make it look like actual treasure.

I forgot to take pictures as I was going along trying to pack the basket.....which I did several times over!  Getting everything to fit nicely was harder than I thought.  But, after the fifth attempt at it, I finally got it right and it came out like this before I wrapped it up with some fancy cellophane:

Finally I added the cellophane and the fancy ribbons:

I attached the card I bought for her. I should have made one, but I didn't think of that until I had, like, no time to make her one. But, I thought this was much prettier:

I also took some time to make her a bouquet of Anemone, pink tea roses, hydrangea and ivy, with a tiny bit of bear grass:

All together, she was so very happy when she got her gifts:

Happy Birthday Mum! Here's to a great year and more to come!

We later had some very yummy chocolate cheesecake, white wine, rice pudding, went for some coffee and watched some movies in the evening.  Quite a good birthday for her, the closer she gets to 70 the more grateful each year that I become that she is still here with me.

For right now, I'll leave you wonderful people with the next drawing I'm currently rushing to finish, as it will be up for auction at a group I'm now apart of called Femme Thou Art Collective .  It's been a pleasure getting to know these other wonderful artists.  The auction in June is called "Life springing from Decay".  Here's a WIP of what I came up with, I'm still inking it:

I'm doing another gift basket for a friend who also had a birthday last week...it's so much fun to create these baskets.  Wishing you all a wonderful, creative week ahead! Cheers!

A Fairytale Splash

Hello dear friends, my...how has a whole month and a half gone by so quickly?!  Well, sadly I haven't gotten much done lately due to working the Mother's Day rush at work and then getting the flu, so my short fairy tale story is yet unfinished.  Good news though, I did get the drawing for it done and this long weekend I'll be working on the fairy tale again.  And I'm sad that I haven't had the chance to start the blog for my book yet, so that's really delayed.

I am now Open For Commissions!  My laptop is just about toast and before it dies on me completely, I want to replace it. But I need to save up a little bit more to get another one that I have my little eye on. Just email me if any are interested and I'll send you my price list, then we can talk further from there.

So this drawing here was a little tricky in deciding which colours would look best.  I wanted something with a vintage look and feel to it, sort of like one of those watercolour illustrations from the 1900's you'd see in old fairy tale books.  The Mermaid's hair was so hard to colour *laughs* as I had put in way too many strands of hair in the ink drawing.  I wanted to look a little more blonde, but I added in a little too much brown highlights.  At least with the water added she doesn't look like she's floating in space anymore.  The prince looks rather crow like with all his black plumage on his helmet and his big black cape.  The gold accents didn't come out so well in the scanner, and they almost completely disappear on his cape.  I wonder if taking a picture of this, those would have shown up better. But I love this nonetheless.

Anyway, I look forward to getting part two of the story up to share with all of you. I'll become a much better blogger, I swear.  I wish you all a happy, creative week. Cheers!