Climbing

"Climbing" Watercolor pastels

This is a simple one, mostly for lack of time, but also because I thought a nice simple one would be good for a change. I've been reading "Dream Worlds" by Hans Bacher, who is a production designer for Disney. He has all of these beautiful but simple pastel studies of interestingly framed landscapes and people. So while this is not quite anything like it, I thought it would be a good excercise for me to think more about how I frame things.

Pale

"Aunt Margaret" Acrylic

This is my interpretation of the character of Aunt Margaret from Angela Carter's "The Magic Toy Shop" (not a children's book fyi). I read it in college and I love the use of color throughout. Aunt Margaret is so pale that her brother used white paint straight out of the tube for her portrait and her hair is so red it looks like it's fire.

So anyhow, this was my idea for last week's IF theme of "pale" but I didn't quite get it finished in time. Alas! But I'm trying desperately to get back in the swing of things and not get pulled in by the tide of wedding plans.

Happy Holidays!

Sorry, all, but I've been unable to make pretty pictures due to the fact that I'm making most of my Christmas presents because I have yet to learn my lesson. So instead, here are pictures of the minor Christmasification that took place here in Nashville. Since we're going to be gone for most of the Holidays, I didn't want to get tooooo into it, but I couldn't help but do a little bit.
(PS: That is a scarf that is holding up the ornaments)

Balloon

So far untitled, digital

I really did have a plan for last week's illustration, and I really did intend to get it in on time, but the illo got complicated and so did the cleaning. I might still get a chance to get it finished up.

This one also got a little complicated, I spent a long time on the background and on the balloon, but I do think it turned out pretty much as I pictured it. I like the way the colors look. I did, however, have to put Santa in green, so I went for more of a Victorian style for him. I'm still a little bit unhappy with the way the presents are, but I couldn't think of anything else to do with them, and it was time to let it go.

Hopefully today, I will also get the blog decorated for Christmas...

Pretend

"Leiafly" Digital Collage

For this week's topic, after thinking of the "Pretender" series, I thought of my niece, Leia, who often likes to pretend things, and we often don't know what she's pretending. For Halloween she was a butterfly-fairy-angel, and I've sort of just a little bit modified her costume here (affe has the original pic on her site). I've also paintified her, since her hair was going to be way to hard to work with...which I understand is an everyday issue. She's really pretty adorable. It's possible that she might need a wand. Something I'll have to think about. I've also made a forest version and I can't decide which one I like more: