The Crow Bar

Back in 2007 or so, when I was first making ATCs and what-not, I joined a "Black Birds" swap, There are always swaps involving crows circulating on the ATC forums. Personally, I don't really like crows that much as an artistic subject - they're hard to draw and difficult to colour. Anyhow, I made up this image that formed into 6 atcs:

For the recent Summer Solstice (*coughs* it's midwinter here in NZ) Swap, I decided to redraw the image, to see how much my art had improved. This one was not cut into 6 atcs, so I did not have to be quite so precise at the bird placement. My bird anatomy has definitely improved, although unfortunately the scanner washed out some of the pale blues in the sky. I changed one of the bird's species too, as I was bored of colouring black.

The birds are: black-throated magpie-jay, blue jay, rook, crow, Eurasian jay, hooded crow and green magpie. Also threw in a few obligatory puns for fun.

Another human action pose!

Van, for Locke, practicing his swordplay in a peaceful field overlooking a lake.

Locke and her mongoose

8x8 journal page for the artist known as Locke, of her character, Locke. Now, Locke has an interesting history that I shall not go into, except to say that I have no idea if I coloured her tail the right colour and the mongoose is mainly here because Locke, the artist, designed this rather cute critter and I wanted to include it. Also, after drawing the sketchwork I realised that Locke looked rather young, but I was too happy with how she looked to change that, and decided that this is young Locke, playing with her weapon, which my husband says looks like a klingon weapon. I have no idea, but it was one of the sample images that Locke (the artist) showed me.

Anyhow, observe, my plan to draw more humans.
Because practise makes better...

Pounce!

This is "Pounce" a young cer'rin, a species also known as the "predatory unicorn". However, cer'rin are not technically unicorns, because although it is true that they have only one antler, this splits as they mature and the number of prongs indicate the age of the buck. Another anatomical oddity is that the cer'rin is unique amongst mammals in that its front and rear legs appear mismatched - with large paws on the front feet and hoofs on the hind. This makes him especially fast and agile as he races through his forested home, hunting rabbits and small deer. Cer'rin have also been known to hunt in pairs and in this manner can bring down prey as large as an boar.

The antlers are only present in males of the species and are used during courtship displays. Males will lock their antlers together, and then wrestle, clawing at each other with their talons. These fights are terribly bloody - because it is quite difficult to break the lock until one of the participants dies. It is then consumed by its victor.

Pounce was first created way back in 2005:

Here is a very early conceptualisation of a predatory unicorn.

And here he is as an anatomically challenged calf.

And an "original species" art card.

And last but far, far from least is this amazing rendition drawn by the extremely talented Rose Moonfeather:

Dangit, looking at this one just makes me want to throw out mine and start all over again. I hate talent-envy. I suffer from it far too often...

Lemya and Passiflora

Recently I have been doing some large pieces - 8x8 inches, to be precise. Most of these have been for a "circle journal " swap. But it's not really a circle journal - because the actual journal is not being circulated - it's more just a pages swap.

My partner for January was Mrs Alderman, aka Lunathewhitewolf. She submitted a selection of characters to choose from and it took me some time and a few rough sketches to settle on the two I most liked. I chose the two most "natural" of her characters.

This differs in my earlier journal pages because the other two were 16x8 inch pieces that I cut in half. These ones are two separate and unrelated pages.

The first was Lemya, a mermaid-esque type character.

This is one of my only attempts to show sun rays slipping through water, and alas I do not think I was particularly successful. It is also the very first time that I have drawn a sunken ship - thus I have technically already completed one of my 2012 Artistic Goals. Lemya can communicate with sea creatures.

The second character is called Passiflora. She has an affinity with plants and can make them grow with her touch.

Fur Seal and Gulls

An 8x8 commission for a lass living in the US with New Zealand family ties. This is a Sea Lion cow and calf, resting on the rocks at Kaikoura whilst a pair of red billed gulls soar overhead.

I made a list a month ago on things I wanted to achieve in the next year, and one of them was to get at least 5 paying commissions. This is my second since I made the list. The first was the giraffe/elephant/zebra hybrid I made for Christmas.

I am also going to regularly keep up Art Card auctions on Trademe. Even though I make at most 30c per listing, it is certainly getting me more exposure.

Wedding of the Dead

My second instalment in the Circle Journal swap - which now means that I have no more to do until next year!! This was - like the first one - for someone who likes dark, creepy etc scenes. As you know, I am not highly skilled at dark nor creepy. Conveniently, she also suggested I might like to do something Tim Burton-esque and listed in her profile that she was quite partial to Catrinas.

Not knowing what Catrinas were, I did a little google search and decided that yes - that is what I would do.

Initially I intended to do a Graveyard picnic, but alas, that did not do so well - Catrinas look wrong sitting down, so then I did a little bit of a search for "goth brides" and found some lovely cake toppers. Which I pretty much just copied. But the cat, horse, squirrel and bird are almost original. And the graveyard is our local Barbadoes cemetary - except the gravestones are standing up. I had some pictures of it that I'd taken for the "cemetary photo swap".

This was fun, and kept me up until after midnight on 31st October - All Hallow's Eve. I was contemplating starting on my NaNoWriMi novel after midnight, but it was hard enough to colour, let alone to write.