Concepting Gemini

I sometimes get stuck and have to put a piece I'm working on off to the side. I know what I want to do with it, but it still ends up feeling like it needs more. When I figure it out, I pick it up and finish it. Other times I'm so stuck that I give in to the urge to concept the rest of it out digitally because I'm too afraid to take the next step and I need to see what it will look like before I complete it.

So I ran into this problem with Gemini. I scanned it and fiddled with it in Photoshop and the above is the digital version. I still don't think it looks complete, but it's getting there slowly. Below is a photo of the current state it's in. I got stuck when I tried to paint the stars. No matter what brush I tried to use, and no matter how small the brush was, the stars would come out wonky. I think I've had a long enough break from it. Now it's time to solve the brush problem and get back to work on finishing it.

Libra

Libra

India ink and liquid gold acrylic on 
Arches 140lb, tea stained, coldpress paper.

I've always scanned the artwork to post on here, but this time I photographed it and found that the color is much more true, including the line work being much more clear. I used my little rinky dink Elph (I think it's like six years old), so this may be a good excuse to upgrade my camera.

There's gold in them wings!

Capricorn

Capricorn

India ink on tea-stained paper with liquid gold highlights.

One more of the zodiacs that I completed over the winter. (I'm also using this for an IF post because it fits so perfectly for the topic "carry".) This one was snapped up immediately. Weirdly enough I find that people really identify with these zodiac pieces. (I wonder why?... Actually, no I don't wonder. Everyone has a zodiac, so it's pretty obvious. Goodness gracious, I better not start rambling.)

I find it really hard to catch the richness of the color and texture in a photo, not just for this piece but also for all my pieces. So I try all sorts of different angles, and it still doesn't quite work. But it does catch those metallic, gold highlights (maybe, I think?). Maybe processing the photos into web compatible files loses some of those details.

Anyway! Look! Look! The gold is all over the red cloak where the yellow shows!

And here it's in the headdress! (Sorry the photo's at an angle but I wanted to catch those shimmers.)

But (hoorah!) you can definitely see it in the water here!

Lost: The blind leading the blind.

Lost.

The blind leading the blind. I'd like to put her in a deep dark forest where the trees are so tall that one can't see the sky.

Maybe when I have the time I can concept this idea out more. For now, it is what it needs to be.

I haven't done an IF post in such a long time and I forgot how much doing so inspires me and gives me new ideas. I need to do more of this.

The Veil.

The Veil

I sold this piece last week. It's a bit of an oldie that I kept hidden and recently released into the world. I was surprised when it was snapped up, but now that it is gone I find that it had grown on me and I miss it. I created it a few years ago - it was one of the first pieces I did in ink. I had a love/hate relationship with it for quite a while. I attempted to make different versions of it over the past couple of years, none of which I was happy with. And now that it's gone, I want to make another to replace it. Not exactly the same of course, but... well, something in spirit of the original. 

This last photo shows the teeny, tiny sparkles I added. They're very hard to see even in person, but if you get them under the correct lighting, they show up nicely.

Nova - Solo Exhibit at Euphoria, New Haven, CT

My first solo show (woohoo!). It runs through June 30th at Euphoria, 57 Orange Street, New Haven, Connecticut. I'm posting this late due to my busy schedule (and as of late, a lack of blogging prowess). There's currently two weeks of arts related activities happening in New Haven; The International Festival of Arts and Ideas, so if you happen to be there for some artsy related happenings, go see my work. I'll post photos of the opening reception in the near future - as schedule allows!

The invite above shows "Leo" from my zodiac series.