March WIP

I've been a terrible procrastinator since the end of October. Here is a work-in-progress of "March". The boys went by so fast...and now the background is going to be a daunting task. But I shall prevail! I must!

June

Here is June for my Men in Kilt Calendar series. I have four months remaining to complete, and I aim to complete them by December 3rd. This one took a lot of reference research, and I spent at least 2 hours trying to figure out the layering of the colors of the tartan. For some reason, my old poopy scanner washes out the color and makes the colored pencil layers even grainier than in real life. I will take him to Fedex/Kinkos to get a good scan before uploading prints. Done the same as the rest, in Prismacolor marker and colored pencil.

"Spirited Away" Work in Progress for EV

Here are the lines for the "Spirited Away" theme due November 4th to the Enchanted Visions Project:

Kilts Works-in-Progress

Life has been hectic, so I am not so far along with these guys as I would like. Currently, I am working on June. Though the "Spirited Away" piece for the Enchanted Visions Project needs to be completed by November 4th. I'll probably paint that one soon. If they looked cropped, it's because I'm using a scanner for 8.5x11 paper and they are 9x12s. So, on to the boys...

September: One of my best friends was just in town, and he gave me the suggestion for September's pose and layout. And he modeled! What a peach!


November: I've had this guy drawn out for a while, but I keep going back to him and adding more and more. I think he looks like Apollo Ohno! :P


June: I started him last year. A friend of mine, whose birthday is in June, wanted me to emulate her favorite Polish model for this month.

The boys so far...

January:

February:

April:

May:

July:

August:

December:


I have five remaining months, all drawn out and ready for color. My goal is to have the calendar in my Zazzle Store by November 16th this year. Yes...one month to go, I need to hurry!

February

The seventh completed for the Men in Kilts Calendar series. He and January are my favorites so far, though I am of course attached to them all. Various reference photos used for the background design. I used a mix of Prismacolor marker and colored pencil, as is the chosen medium for this series.

Prints available for sale in my Zazzle store!!

"Dias de los Muertos" Theme at EV

Hello everyone! The Enchanted Visions Project had its first theme after a few month's break: Dias de los Muertos. Mine isn't up yet, I finished it a day after the deadline. I had quite a busy month!

A preview of February...

I am now completely finished with 6 of the 12 months, the 6 remaining months are completely drawn and waiting for color. I had to re-draw February onto a new piece of paper to get the positioning better, and here he is!:



February is turning out to be my new favorite. The background will be much easier to complete than the repetitive motions of the trees in January. I still have more to add to the background and must fix his hand, but that won't take long. I would love to have this one completed by Sunday, but we'll see how that turns out :P

January

Many late nights were spent on him, but he is finally finished! This was a challenge for it was the first time drawing a horse in over 5 years (A friend drew a Conquistador moustache on the last one as a joke, and it never fully erased!), and as I didn't want a complete side-profile of the horse or a full-frontal (both positions would hide the man-tastic torso), I chose the difficult route of slightly diagonal. January's kilt also took quite a huge chunk of time (but I do love the result!).

January will be making his debut at the Sherwood Forest Faire Celtic Festival this weekend! I hope the ladies and gents out there take a liking to him ;)

As last year was too hectic, I aim to have the calendar ready by early November. 50% are completed, and the remaining 6 are fully drawn and ready to color. I shall post WIPs soon!

8.5x11 inch prints available here!

Apollocon Preparations, Great News and Art!!

Real quick--I got accepted to sell my art at Sherwood Forest Faire!!! I am extremely stoked!!

It is one and a half days until Apollocon begins, and with it my first ever table selling my artwork! As I am just testing the waters, I have tried to save on what I take out there. I don't think I will have spent more than $150 to be out there, so I hope I at least make *that* much back by Sunday evening. Apollocon preparations have been steady as I was sick for a few weeks, then had to crunch on finishing up some sewing commissions, then last weekend I attended bellydance superstar Ansuya's workshop (I *had* to!!), which put things off again...and so just today I got around to running to OfficeMax for printing my bookmarks and prints. I needed to scan/photograph two more pieces, which I will print tomorrow. Also, their printer was effy and on certain pieces printed one faded line on the artwork 1/2 inch towards the left side! I will need to re-print those babies too. Vistaprint has been amazing. I was able to get 3 different sets of 25 magnets for $2.50 per 25-pack!! I also printed off postcards with my commission information and prices, and I was able to get a full color banner for free!! I love their sales so hard. For packaging, I purchased 32x40 inch sheets of 2-ply cardboard from Texas Art Supply, and cut the ten sheets down to 100+ boards for backing my prints (WAY cheaper than buying them pre-cut!!). From Clearbags.com I was able to get plastic print and bookmark sheets for very reasonable prices, and as I forgot to order my retail bags there, I quickly ordered a box of 500 retail bags (in pretty blue!!) from Nashvillewraps.com for $30. The quantity at that price was WAY cheaper than Clearbags in the long run, as the shipping was half of what Clearbags was charging. I know I won't use all 500 this weekend at Apollocon, but they will last me through Sherwood Forest Faire in the spring!

I plan on selling the prints for $10, Bookmarks for $3, and Magnets for $2. Yes, I've taken my expenses into account, and I think I should price myself low this first time to try and get lots of sales!



Anywho...on to the new art!!

The Ruby Slipper

The April challenge for Enchanted Visions. It took such a long time to come up with something, and I like this result. It reminds me of a few pieces I did back in high school. If you can't tell, I miss winter. (Our winters are brown and dead, no snow) I was going to turn the bark of the tree into something different, but she ended up to have the appearance of crepe myrtle--which is one of my favorite tree surfaces--so I decided to leave her be. Also, I'm going to defend my simple background. Sometimes there is a necessity for simplicity, and I feel lately I've been going too busy in my backgrounds.

May 2011. 25 hrs. Prismacolor marker and colored pencil.

Forgotten Kilts!

I forgot to upload these gents, completed in December:

Stardancer

My submission for a recent Enchanted Visions Project challenge. Entitled "Stardancer". This took me the better part of 20 hours.

Available in my Zazzle Store!!

Three new pieces

I have finally finished November, December, and January for the Enchanted Visions Project.


November: Theme was to use one of Lisajen-Stock's stock photos that our hostess, Coriander chose. I chose to use this one.







December: "Aurora" was the title chosen. I really wanted to have a person as the subject, and have the coloration of an aurora as their body. For the swirling color, I thought watercolor was best. Unfortunately, the actual coloring is much more vivid than the scan. I also love how retro this came out. It reminds me of something done in the 70s.






January: "Lady of the Forest" was the title, and I really wanted to play around with my greens and just have an extreme green summer forest.