Monday, December 31, 2012

St. Agnes coloring page and announcement


It's New Year's Eve, and everyone knows what that means! It means that tonight, in the wee hours, I'll be sending out the first installment of the Entire Liturgical Calendar Coloring Book! All the feasts for January!

Sign up now to get in at the beginning! The rule will be, I'll send the pages at the beginning of their respective month. If someone signs up after I've sent out the pages for the month, the first set they will get will be the next month. That just makes everything vastly simpler. But, I keep track of when each subscriber signed up so I know how far to keep going when the months come around again-- I will make sure that everyone gets every month.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Meteor Tree


Black and red ink Homestuck drawing. The stylized symbol tree is inspired by all the ones Tolkien drew.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Rosen soul


I did this as my half of an art trade with an internet friend I met in person for the first time yesterday, and we had a lovely time. ^_^

The hardest part was the words. I did two layers of ink wash for the background, and the letters are negative space in the second layer. The words themselves are derived from the Anima Christi.

Monday, December 24, 2012

Elevation


My Christmas card picture for this year.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Old and New--coloring pages price reduction

I think the old John and the new Christ turned out better, so it evens out!

I'm still working on the January pages for the Entire Liturgical Calendar Coloring Book, but now I'm doing something with the Luminous Mysteries coloring pages I made a while ago. I'm reducing the price, from ten to five dollars, and I made a Paypal button so you don't have to email me to arrange things. Heh, right when folks are probably all tired of buying things. Go here to purchase.

Friday, December 14, 2012

St. Andre Bessette coloring page


Working hard on the coloring pages for January. I liked drawing this one; he looks so nice and grandpa-ey. St. Andre Bessette is one who's in here because I'm adding the USA feasts to the General Calendar; he lived in Canada. I like that; I love all the ways in which Catholicism becomes local. He also died less than a hundred years ago, in 1937 I believe. That's one thing I hope this coloring book will express to the children who use it: not all saints are long ago and far away.

Click here to learn more and/or sign up to receive a coloring page for every single feast in the Calendar!

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Fin Lough underpainting


Starting on a commission.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Batgirl kick!


Sketch of my Gothloli Batgirl kicking some tailcoated goon. Gothloli platform mary-janes would be something to be kicked with, indeed!

Thinking about the poses I want to draw for her fight scenes-- I want to avoid the ridiculous objectifying pinup stuff that is saddeningly frequent with superheroines, but not go out of my way to countervail the fact that a female body in motion will make clear the fact that it is female. So I'm just trying to think what would be natural if I wanted to kick a guy in the face.The frills and fullness of Gothic Lolita style is good too--even if she were sticking her bottom out pinup-style, you couldn't tell in that poofy skirt. ~_^

Also, I got a tumblr blog here. The idea is I'll mostly put stuff there that's not polished enough for here or too unabashedly fangirly, but I'm not sure. I do feel happy putting just about anything here, and the interface for tumblr I'm finding terribly confusing. We'll see.

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen coloring page


Continuing preparing pages for the first installation of the Liturgical Calendar Coloring Book which I'll send out this coming January. January 2nd is the feast of St. Basil of Caesarea and St. Gregory Nazianzen, and I wasn't sure what to draw; most pictures I've seen of them, they're just standing there, and I didn't know any colorful legends, just masterful theological writings.

So I started reading their letters to each other and the funeral oration, and found it's a very sweet and very sad story. Saints are not exempt from bitter misunderstanding, wretched passive-aggressiveness, and heartbreaking, needn't-have-happened fights between those who are closest. And that made me decide to show them when they were young, before they were bishops, before all the heretics attacked, before emperors threatened and banished, before the rift between them, on the banks of the Iris River.




Or maybe it's after...

Friday, December 7, 2012

Solemnity of Mary coloring page


As I didn't finish the December coloring pages in time to send them out at the beginning of the month, I'll start sending out the Liturgical Calendar Coloring Book in January. And thus, I've started drawing the January pages; I'll definitely have these ready for the new year. Go here if you want to sign up for them!

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Landscape charcoal sketch


Rough compositional sketch for a painting commission.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Apple Tree outlines


The lineart for my Apple Tree picture. I tried to make it look woodcut-y.

Saturday, December 1, 2012

The Apple Tree


A symbolic picture, storybook-style but I hope not saccharine nor innocuous, in ink and crayon.
 
This band is awesome. Such a haunting Eucharistic emphasis, and not saccharine nor innocuous nor the slightest bit banal, which is rare and prizeworthy in Christian-themed contemporary music.

Friday, November 30, 2012

Immaculate Conception coloring page


This one is simple, but I really like it.

There's been a page in between I haven't posted; you'll have to subscribe to get every single feastday! Does anyone know their Calendar enough to tell who it is? (without looking it up?)

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

St. Nicholas coloring page


Okay, it came to my attention that the Paypal button wasn't working right, so I've fixed it now. If you wanted/want to sign up to receive the entire Catholic Liturgical Calendar Coloring Book, go here.

St. Nicholas, a.k.a. Santa Klaus, a very cool saint. It was hard to decide what to show him doing. Finally I decided against him punching Arius because we'd just had St. John Damascene yelling at heretics, and went with him resurrecting three boys who had been butchered by a cannibalistic innkeeper.

Monday, November 26, 2012

The Language of Flowers continues

Acacia, Rose ~ Elegance

III ante meridiem - ink spatter cut-and-paste


A bit of Homestuck fanart, where I used a fun trick. For the dress, I wanted to spatter ink with reckless abandon. But then it would be hard to keep the clean white I wanted on her skin and the clock. (Look, I included a clock! ^u^) So, I drew the outlines on half a sheet of bristol. Then I traced the outline of the dress, flipped it, and traced the traced image onto the back of the other half of the sheet. Then, on the front of that half, I did this:


Then I cut along the outline on the back. Because I had flipped it, the shape was facing the right way on the front side. After inking the drawing, I stuck on the dress. Like a paper doll!

Friday, November 23, 2012

St. John Damascene coloring page


Second page for the Entire Liturgical Year Coloring Book, St. John Damascene's feast is on December 4th. This is a fun one: he's yelling at Iconoclasts.

I won't be posting every page, so that the folks who buy subscriptions will get something for their money that they couldn't get otherwise, but as it's starting up I'm excited and want to show them off. :-)

You can sign up to get coloring pages for every feast of a month, every month, for a year here or in the post below. It's only twenty-nine dollars. I'll probably be starting sending them out this coming January, but possibly December if I get pages done fast enough.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

St. Francis Xavier coloring page - first of Entire Liturgical Year Coloring Book

 
This is the beginning of the second of the big new projects I mentioned: coloring pages for the entire Catholic Liturgical Calendar! That's over 190 pages!

I'm starting with December, because the Liturgical year starts with the First Sunday of Advent, and that shifts around, so it's just simpler. And the first feast in December is St. Francis Xavier. I hope to have all the December pages finished soon, so that I can work on getting a head start.

I will post some of the pages here, but not all of them. The entire Calendar coloring book, with a page for every Solemnity, Feast, and Memorial, will be available through a subscription for twenty-nine dollars. Every month I'll send out a pdf of all the pages for that month. I'll try to get it out on the first of the month, but I'll probably be a bit late with December, so I might start sending them out with January. We'll see. Let me know what you think and if you're interested. Either way, if you sign up, you will definitely get a full Liturgical year of coloring pages.





 If you don't have Paypal, you can email me to arrange other payment.

Monday, November 19, 2012

little chum


Cute little Batman sketch with a very young Robin.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Language of Flowers- Begin!

Acacia ~ Friendship

Starting one of those projects I mentioned--illustrating the Language of Flowers, with a picture for every single flower! However, I won't post them all online, at least initially. We'll see.

Anyway, to keep the drawings fast and a simple aesthetic, I'll just use the colors that each flower is itself, with the option for adding one more, probably a blue or yellow, (here it's a yellow) as necessary.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

More memos



Karkat from Homestuck and Edgeworth from Ace Attorney. I am very much a fangirl.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

A Memo


The memo function in Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask is great! More colors than ever, different width pencils and erasers, a paintbucket tool and even Undo! My first doodle on there is of Davesprite from Homestuck; I want to make many more doodles.

Making this post fit the title in another sense, I'm planning two big projects (besides all the projects I've already mentioned) that I'll post a lot here. Both are planned self-published books of a kind, and I'll use this blog and my other online galleries to see if folks are interested. One will be a coloring book, the other new illustrations for an old (and public domain) classic. Watch this space!

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Colored forest


Playing with colored pens.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Riddle me This


Now that I've done redesigns of most of the major characters I'm going to have in my Batman fancomic, I'm drawing some nice detailed portraits as I get to work on the scripts.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Christmas cards


This image is now available on Christmas cards in my shop. Inside, the cards say:

Illumined by grace,
Before the manger of the King,
Who alone reads the sealed book,
A new song we raise.
Let us praise
The Virgin's birthing,
The new Leader we adore,
Who comes to seek us.

-Adam of St. Victor

That one I translated myself. 

Friday, November 9, 2012

Truth and Justice and Cool Settings

I don't have any of my own art to show at the moment, though I'm working on several pieces, so instead I'm going to do this blog's first ever movie review!


The movie is Gyakuten Saiban, known in English as Ace Attorney, based on the first of the video game series. I've been a fan of the games' dramatic stories, suspenseful twists, engaging dialogue, great music, and profound and loveable characters for a few years now, so the announcement of the movie was extremely exciting. It actually hasn't been released in North America yet, (it was released in Japan back in February,) so I watched it online with unofficial subtitles. But rest assured, I will definitely purchase it when it becomes available here!

Since this is a visual art blog, I'm not going to focus on the clever adaptation and consolidation of the story, the complex and powerful acting, the beautiful music, and the new angles reflecting on characters that the movie gives. I'm going to talk about the production design and sets, which were also amazing, and downright gorgeous. The games have many memorable locations, and the look of them is usually like a scene one might find everyday. The movie, however, has a more fantastical look.
 
The sets have a sort of steam-cyber aesthetic; the architecture ranges from Neo-Classical to Industrial, looks like it might have come out of the 1930's of the future. From the shabby minor courtroom with laundry hanging over the defendant, to the Victorian-hotel style law offices where the hero is a junior partner, to the lakeside shop cluttered with both antique curiosities and cheap merchandise for kids, to the dilapidated swampy cabin where white feathers floating in the air--a motif often used by Japanese filmmakers to show heavenly beauty--add intensely to the atmosphere of creepy desolation, to the ethereal but bleak apartment of a tragic bailliff and his doomed wife, to the classically elegant law offices of the hero's ruthless rival and, ultimately, true friend, to the Neo-Classical imposing grandeur of the great courtroom where the crucial showdowns take place, the locations make a powerful impact on the drama of the story.


I'm fascinated by visually interesting environments, and hope to incorporate many into my works. For the worthwhile fascination such detail gives, Gyakuten Saiban is an inspiring example. Now if they would just officially release it here!

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Neutral-toned and smiling


Using up paint.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Batman allies


More designs for my Batman fancomic: Leslie Thompkins, Alfred Pennyworth, and Commissioner Gordon.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

snooty lady


Friday, November 2, 2012

My Halloween costume- Jade god tier


Any readers of Homestuck might have guessed, I dressed up as Jade Harley in her god tier outfit for Halloween. My sister dressed up as Rose Lalonde, and we went to take photos at the university and a nearby pub with an oversized chess set!






Wednesday, October 31, 2012

None will answer the door


Halloween picture! It goes with my Batman fancomic that's in the works. I am at this moment wearing the costume I've been working on, so pictures of that will come soon.

Happy Halloween!

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Space symbol embroidery


More on that Halloween costume! I had to hand embroider this symbol on knit cloth, which is a lot harder than embroidery on woven cloth, because it stretches so. This is the symbol for Space in Homestuck, so if you know that comic you'll probably know whom I'm dressing up as.


In progress. I marked out my outline with thread basting. It would have been much easier to make an iron-on transfer or buy and alter a shirt from the Homestuck shop, but I don't usually do things the easy way, even when I really should.




Removed from the hoop, the symbol is more symmetrical, like it should be. Because of that darn old knit stretching, you see.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Friday, October 12, 2012

A silly Comic!


Unclean, a satirical short comic I made a while back, is now permanently available for reading here, in my Deviantart gallery. It pokes fun at shoujo (for girls) comics, which are often about emotional teenagers. Have a look!

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Clocks from Summer

In Minnesota this Summer, I acquired some great new clocks. I usually do, since antique prices in the small towns there are much better than in this big city.


This one I actually didn't acquire; it's my uncle's. An mid-century electric model that would have been hardwired into a wall in an office maybe, or train station? ^u^


This lovely miniature grandfather is an Engstler. It has a pendulum movement and should work once I can get it cleaned and oiled. It also has a secret (or not-so-secret, since the door handle is clearly visible) compartment in the base.


The Diehl on the left is my first working clockwork watch! It doesn't run very long after winding, but it does run! The band it came with was all corroded so I'm on the lookout for a new one. The little watch on the right doesn't work, so I removed the face and flipped the movement upside-down in the watch case, making the beautiful works visible for a unique bracelet.