Illustration Friday - Shaky

ok, i think the only way this is "shaky" is the direction this whole image went - i started out with a delicate line drawing and was picturing lovely clouds and blues greys and greens and then all of sudden she's standing just above h-e-double toothpicks (as my daughters say). And honestly i like that whole idea - that she's guarding the entrance there or not letting people out or not letting people in or contemplating whether to go in?? i don't know, it's all shaky.

Illustration Friday - Worn

IF word of the week is "Worn" - i was thinking literally about this...about things people wore. i've always been amazed by corsets and why people (because some men did) wore them. and still do. Crazy. All in the name of fashion.

i was trying for a "saloon" look with this young lady, possibly even a little steam punk but it's not quite there...need some metal and ruffles...

Illustration Friday - Drifting

The Hudson drifts behind her...

wow. Two cool words in a row...this week's Illustration Friday word is "drifting"...i kind of feel like i've been doing that myself this whole week - drifting in and out of real world vs. book world. I read The Good Life by Jay McInerney - mostly about what happened to relationships after the twin towers came down. I'm stating the obvious but many New Yorkers (as well as out of towners) were drifting around like ghosts after this happened. Many knew people that were lost, many were almost lost. On my trips to NYC right after this happened i watched the New Yorkers, their sleek urban veneer still intact yet their hearts visibly damaged. You could feel it. I will never forget it. Even as time drifts passed this terrible event.

My young woman (influenced by Tamara deLempicka) is hopeful about going back into the city, damaged heart and all.

Oh what a great word. Maybe it applies to me this week more than the actual illustration. Maybe i'll try to do one that is more apparent. i think i visualize it already.

Illustration Friday - Unfold

Lyra and Iorek

Unfold. Finally a word that really evokes meaning for me. Illustration Friday has been a challenge most of the time for me because i'm not very clever and many of the Illustration Friday words just made me almost give up. But that's the idea, right? To get your mind to work? I didn't really have to work on this one - in fact i think it has been a theme i've been concentrating on since December. To unfold. Unfolding.

That's what a great writer does. That's what Philip Pullman did with His Dark Materials Trilogy. The story was in his head and it unfolded. Into a miracle. Yes i really feel that way. Never have i wanted to be a character in a story more than Lyra Belacqua. What is Lyra's life like now? How has her life unfolded? i think of these kinds of things...thank you Mr. Pullman.

i love this word so much i might try to do more than one...might is key though.

Illustration Friday - Craving

this is kinda corny but let's face it, what do most people crave? why, heart-shaped rubies of course! Ok, not that...we crave love love love...

the tattoo on her left arm was inspired by Mike Tyson's face tattoo - how many people can say they were artistically inspired by Mike Tyson today?

Illustration Friday - Adapt

i guess there isn't a group much better at adapting to their surroundings than gypsies...i just learned the original gypsies were displaced Egyptians (that is Isis behind her) and that many of the ladies were trained in "magic"...hmmmmmmm love that....

Illustration Friday - Cracked

the Illustration Friday word this week is "cracked" but i think i'm going to name this "the guardian"...

Illustration Friday - Contagious

Happiness is contagious. So is melancholia. I think this young woman is making me feel both.

Small Acrylics

i'm posting a few small (10x10") acrylics on canvas that i did in the last few days...i scanned these in so the sides were a little cut off - sorry about that -

BumbleSpike - Spike from the Humane Society of Berks County

http://www.berkshumane.org/events/events_pints.asp

A Good Sign


The Main Man

Immaculata Art Show - May 9-17, 2009

UPDATE: as of 5/19 sold five paintings and five prints - woo hooo - in this economy right now i can't tell you how thankful i am to be selling!

WOW! Very excited about the upcoming Immaculata Art Show that i was invited to participate in - Preview starts this Friday and i will try to take pics...also excited about the fabulous invitations they sent out to their patrons - one of my paintings is featured on the invite...here is a link to the show - Immaculata Art Show





that's me in the spotlight (painting in the middle)!


List of artists (you can't really see names but can if you go to the show's website - just wanted to show you the amount of peeps involved)

on a different note, i want to give a shout out to Bekah for introducing me to her friends Paper Route and their great music - xoxo!

Illustration Friday - Theater

i am a teensy bit obsessed with geisha stuff so this might seem like a stretch but i definitely thought this painting was very relevant to the illustration friday theme...i mean: costume, make-up, painted set in the background, drama...Theater!

Sending the Messenger

Sending the Messenger

go, dear friend.
send this message to him.
wait as his hand opens,
then land gently there.
don't leave until my love is
everywhere.

look into his face and
breathe it out slowly -
nothing is more important.
make sure he knows
as you tell him so,
that his light is the color that
painted your wings.
that he is the reason
i make many things.
he is the reason
everyone sings.

The Fate of a Woman

Poor Guinnevere. She kind of HAD to marry King Arthur. Which is kind of like saying you HAD to marry Edward Cullen or Brad Pitt. Nevertheless, her heart was meant for Lancelot. Thus igniting the downward spiral of Camelot. Off to the nunnery with you. Thankfully Henry VIII wasn't her spouse because we all know how that would have ended.

Marilyn

a commission of one of my favorite icons

Illustration Friday - "Impossibility" AND Happy Birthday Stacey!

ok, i'm thinking this is self-explanatory, hmmmm? (Illustration Friday word of the week - Impossibility)

i painted a similar Skelly Diva on a canvas tote for my dear friend Stacey (a big fan of skeletons) a while ago and just painted this on watercolor paper to send to her for her birthday...

Illustration Friday - Fleeting

my dear friend Tami was here yesterday and we were drawing and chatting - she was drawing a lovely woman under the cherry blossoms and DING! i was like, well, i must steal that for fleeting because, after all, cherry blossoms ARE fleeting and ARE my favorite flower and tree and so forth so this painting happened...some of it was inspired by a painting done by Mucha...the cherry blossoms are falling down around her already...fleeting...

so we went outside to take pics of my most prized possession in my yard - my scraggy and lopsided cherry blossom tree (Tami called it a Charlie Brown tree which is perfect) lopsided because i refuse to trim it and important because it grows on top of my beloved cat, Jordan, sort of like his crown...anyway, Tami used her new space shuttle camera and i used my old toy pretend camera - here are some pics...go here to see REAL photos of the blossoms...



sadly Tami and sons had to go and i'm already looking forward to the next visit...

Also, thank you so much to David McMahon at Authorblog for this truly amazing shout out - Post of the Day Contender

(Now that i know how to hyperlink, i'll never stop...)

Portrait

This is a portrait i did for a man to give to his wife for her birthday. Funny part was when i saw the photos i realized she was someone i went to school with! This made me nervous of course because i worried if she would like it or not...i must have painted the one arm like 27,000 times...

Illustration Friday - Talisman

It wasn't her heart, but she suddenly felt quite powerful with it around...

Illustration Friday - Poise - Queen of Clubs

Here's my third queen for an imaginary card deck - i was kind of stuck on what to do with clubs...and then my mind wandered and i pictured how clubs look like clover and then i was picturing rolling Irish hills with a redheaded queen with green eyes and all of a sudden i had some sort of gaelic queen...and i'm not even sure if there ever was a gaelic queen of any kind but hey, it's make believe...

Anyway, for Illustration Friday this week the word is Poise and i think she definitely looks poised for something...

Queen of Spades

Another Queen - two more to go... 5 x 7" - will be available as a print in my etsy shop...

inspired by Gustav Klimt

Illustration Friday - Subtract

"...what if this hole never got any better? If the raw edges never healed?....i was changed..." - poor Bella - thank heavens for books 3 and 4 hee hee...

Illustration Friday's word this week is "Subtract"

Prints up on ETSY.com!!! YAY Finally!!!!

Well, i've finally done it...i've gotten organized enough to have high quality giclees made of a few of my art pieces and there's more to come! You can click on the above title to this post and it will take you directly to my shop (www.foxgloveart.etsy.com) or click on my etsy gadget doohickey on the top right of my blog which will also take you over there too - Thank you so much!

Here's what is available at this time (some Twilight prints and my Queens prints):

Deepest Loss

Promise of Water


There before me are
the jutting black rocks.

You are beyond those rocks
beyond those trees.
you are beyond those waves, that horizon
on some island
and you are distracted by
smiling.

i inhale a long
soupy breath.
there are voices in the distance;
there is some concern.
i will probably not move
from this spot
for a while.
without help.

at some point i will
look straight ahead,
but now only know the
saltiest tears.
they are like the waves
that break against the rocks
you hide behind.
they roll to the beach like they
roll down my face.
they are almost a
relief.


Many things were going on when i wrote this and painted her but i was also imagining Bella (from New Moon) lying down in the woods after being left behind.

In about a week i'll be offering 5 x 7" prints of this and other works of mine from my shop on etsy.com. I will post about this as soon as i have more information.

Illustration Friday - Intricate

The word this week for Illustration Friday is "intricate". Today, while drawing this (for something else) my 8 year old was jumping up and down behind me - i asked her to stop because i was drawing something "intricate" (the hair) - and thus, here it is...
Unfinished, 5 x 7" ink on watercolor paper...

Queen of Hearts

what hasn't been said about the Queen of Hearts and her job - dispensing love, destroying it too, then dispensing it again...

update...here's a pic of one of my daughters so you can see where i get inspiration for some of the faces i paint...

Illustration Friday - Breezy

Soon Across the Hudson

For an Art of Jazz show - hopefully it gets in...
Acrylic on canvas - 16 x 20"

Update...i didn't get the painting in on time (drop off was Sunday Mar 1) - had the dates screwed up in my calendar...very disappointed because this is a great show and generally easy to get into...i am learning lessons, learning lessons...some times i feel like i'm back in middle school again...leaving homework at school, forgetting books for studying...

i'm going to reopen my etsy store and probably place it in there...

Illustration Friday - Instinct

As lovely as it is, not a whole lot goes on in a foxes mind...he relies mostly on...that's right - instinct.

about 5 x 7 - watercolor and ink

Early Blossoms

ok, yesterday morning the temperature was 50 degrees, by the afternoon/evening it was in the teens. Today it is 13 degrees. ah, global warming...it doesn't exist right? Except that icebergs the size of islands are vanishing along with it's furry inhabitants. What does this have to do with cherry blossoms? They are due to pop in April and yet here it is February and some are already peeking out...same as last November when it became unseasonably warm for a spell. I know there are flukes in climates and these things happen but this isn't the first year my tree has bloomed before it was supposed to. I truly wish it was just a fluke but, i don't know. My young garden maiden in the painting is perplexed as well.

not quite 5 x 7" - watercolor and ink

SpaceGirl

Art Journal: I had a moment today. I pinpointed and defined an ache a melancholy that i always seem to get when watching anything to do with outer space - fictional or fact-based. It isn't an ache, it's a yearning! All this time it came across as a sadness to me, but it was desire. I yearn to be out there, to float like dust, to hear nothing and see everything.

Illustration Friday - TIME

Illustration Friday's theme this week is TIME. hmmmmm....yeah, i've been kind of painting about this in some form or other the last month...Time is running out? time is flying by? too quickly???

Secrets

Everybody has them. Except for people on reality TV.

4.5 x 6.7" watercolor and ink on Medioevalis Fabriano paper

Death Becomes You

i looked at a photo of my old cat that is now buried under my cherry blossom tree. i wish he was back but that would be too Stephen King-ish. But since we're there, i'd like my grandmother back too.

Illustration Friday - FLAWED

When i saw IF's word of the week was "flawed" my first thought was of Frida. Her body was flawed from a horrible accident which caused her pain her entire life. She was unable to have a child which devastated her, and her marriage was a terribly flawed wreck. And yet in spite of all that, she really was "all that".