Life

Life is about to get a bit crazy for me over the next few weeks, so you may see very little of me. I'm going to Galveston to plan more of my wedding, and to celebrate my munchkin's second birthday! I'm so excited :D I'll also be working on some of my wedding crafts over the week, and I'll post links to tutorials and share photos once things are finished.

The 26th-29th of this month I'll be at Aggiecon. I wont be wandering around this year, so I'll be easy to corner (sorry again for those who missed me when I was there last year!) I'll have a table in the Dealer's room selling my vinyl decals, so if you purchase a print in the art show (no originals this year, I'm traveling light) or if you already have one and you'd like me to sign it for you, bring it by my booth! Also, if you've seen one of my paintings and would like the original, send me an Email at battlemaidenart@yahoo.com and we'll work out a price, and I'll bring it to the show for you.

Sometimes I need the boot

Seriously. Sometimes it takes a little nudge to set me on track. I have a tendency to run on tangents, which leads me to new tangents, and projects that I begin with every intention to finish get left in the wake. There are a few I can think of right now that fall into this category (Awesome dragon painting I started... Dancing Gypsy that's left half finished... one day I'm going to just stop and finish everything I have that's half done.)

I got an Email today from a guy who went out of his way and did a photoshoot for me years ago (I mean, YEARS ago) for a really awesome painting idea I had. He's a super guy, the photos were great, my talent at the time was lacking to say the least, and all sketches that came of it were far from being worthy of the huge and awesome idea. The idea was to paint several of the Norse Gods in settings that were very symbolic of the stories that pertain to them. I was going to begin with Loki (the one who was always the most interesting to me), and Rob was very kind and sat through two photo shoots (which he did completely on his own, wow) to get me the perfect reference photos.

So, my sketches sucked, Rob and I stayed in touch for a little while, and as things happen we lost touch. Years passed, and we arrive to about a month ago. I have been researching more into Asatru, and found a really great podcast that's been a delight to listen to. I started at the beginning, and came before long to an episode completely about Loki (Here's the link, if you're interested) and it rekindled my thoughts on this painting. They've been wiggling around in there, along with other paintings I've been thinking about, shows I'm prepping for, wedding plans, and the constant stimulation of motherhood. Then, today I got that Email. Boot.

You know what? I think I'm ready. Thanks Rob, I needed it!

Also, in a completely unrelated note, I've significantly lowered shipping costs in my vinyl decal shop. I've changed shipping materials, which has allowed me to lower prices. Yay!

Morrigan le Fae

This is a painting of the little sprite that fills our home with smiles and laughter. Of course, like any good fae, she is constantly leaving a mess and hiding my things... but look at that little face! Who could be upset?



The finished painting of my daughter, Morrigan. Scroll down if you missed the sketches and the work in progress. She'll be two in just two and a half weeks! It all moves so fast.

This painting is all mine, no prints will be sold (though her grandparents will be getting some :P)

Thoughts

I have never taken formal art classes, so pretty much everything that I know is self taught. There are a few places I feel I'm lacking because of this, but there are a lot of places I feel I've been able to play and experiment and develop in ways that people who begin as instructed artists don't get. David has been taking a watercolor class this semester, and I've been gleaning tips and tricks off of him as he learns. This is the first time he's ever worked with watercolor, so everything he does is being pretty heavily dictated by the professor. At times it's frustrating for him, but I can see where doing structured projects is helping him develop skills he's going to need when working on completed pieces.

All of this has me thinking about where my weaknesses lie, and what I can do to work on them. I think I'm going to spend some time after completing my daughter's portrait working on my own skills. Like usual, I'll be doing research online, as well as studying other artists for clues to their process, then working on some emulated pieces of my own design. We'll see how it goes!

New painting - work in progress

I've been working on a painting of my little Morrigan le Fae, and I'm really diggin on the results. The idea began as just practice in creating lineart in Photoshop, but I liked the composition so much that I hastily finished sketching it out, printed it, then transferred it to watercolor paper. This is pretty much the same way I do all of my paintings, sketch them out, then use my lightbox to transfer the finished composition onto my watercolor paper, since it prevents me from tearing up an expensive piece of watercolor paper with lots of erasing and redrawing. The only difference is I did my sketch in Photoshop.



This is the reference photo I used, from a trip to Hobby Lobby when I had to use my camera as a pacifier. Morrigan is such a camera ham. The lighting is rotten, but the photo is super cute. I used this as reference for the lineart



This is the lineart in Photoshop. As you can probably tell, I started with the face, then somewhere around the flowers I got excited and quickly finished the sketch so I could paint it.



And here's the painting so far. Her face and her hair are finished. Everything else gets a lot more work. Usually once I've finished everything else I go back to the skin tones for awhile as they tend to look very pale, but since Morrigan is very pale that may not be necessary.

I won't be making prints or anything of this painting, it's all for me! However, after my show next month I plan to start opening slots for custom portraits. If you'd like to have your little one painted as a fairy, elf, mermaid, or maybe you'd like yourself painted as your Role Playing character, or whatever your mind can imagine, let me know so I can update you on the details. Post your E-mail address here, or feel free to send it to me at battlemaidenart (at) yahoo.com. I will only E-mail you once, so no worries about spam!

Back from the land of the dead

Last week I made the six hour drive to Galveston with my (nearly) two year old daughter to visit my family. It was a lovely visit, spent some time with my Dad and my sister and brother in law, and some time at my Mom and Stepdad's ranch, and ended with a huge party on Valentine's day for my Stepdad's birthday.

I took all of my equipment with me, as usual, so I could keep up with orders as they came in. I sat down one day to cut vinyl decals, and was greeted with the icy stare of the dread Blue Screen of Death. After several hours on the phone with what was probably the nicest and most helpful tech support agent I've ever had the chance to speak to, we determined that my hard drive was fried. I freaked. The day was then spent running across town to Frys to pick up a case for my hard drive, then an hour out to a friend's house who luckily had the driver to my decal cutter installed on his laptop from A-Kon last year. I was incredibly relieved to find out that the only corrupt files on my computer were in my boot menu, and all of my images, files, and the like were untouched.

The next day, Dell delivered my replacement hard drive, and after many hours of moving files, reinstalling drivers and programs, and catching up with orders that were placed after the untimely demise of my computer, I'm finally back in business. I'm incredibly happy that I opted for the big full blown warantee.

So, I missed the last day of my own giveaway. How sad is that? No problem though, I'm happy to announce that the winner was Eric! Thanks to everyone who participated.