My Entertainment

I finally did some more painting tonight on the gothic angel picture. I did some extra work on the perspective of the road and actually started on her skin. I'm excited to have moved on to something different from the background, though I'll have to go back later and tweak a few things. But at least I can get a little break from it. :)

Just for fun, because I was bored one night, I played around with my sketch, "Another Ruined Cravat" in Photoshop and added some quick color. This was just for fun, and I still fully plan to paint it with watercolor like always. I may even use completely different colors. I haven't decided yet. ;)

Anyone watch True Blood on HBO? The second season started a couple weeks ago. I love that show! I loved the books by Charlaine Harris, so I was really looking forward to the show. I think that they've done a really good job with it. It kind of loosely follows the books and some characters are expanded and events changed. But I kind of like that. Having read the books, it makes it so that I don't already know exactly what's going to happen. That makes it a little more exciting. :)


I'm reading Jacqueline Carey's newest book, "Naamah's Kiss." I love all her other Kushiel's books! They're among my favorite books. This one is set in the same world as the previous ones, but some generations later with new characters. I wasn't entirely sure how it would be, but I'm only about 70 pages in and I'm already really enjoying it. I should have known better since the others were so wonderful! I definitely recommend the others, and I'll probably love this one when I'm done too. :)

That is really all for now. I've started getting feedback about my book from those who've gotten theirs, and so far all is positive! I am so relieved that everyone like it! :) Now I sort of know how authors must feel on the release dates of their books. lol

My ebay sale continues until July 6th! There's a link in my previous post and in the links column to the upper right. :)

Summer Sale!!

I'm having a sale in my Ebay Store! 25% all prints and 15% off all jewelry! Check it out HERE

The Storm...

We had a really bad storm yesterday and my power was out for about 24 hours and just came back on around 3 p.m. It was really pretty scary! Trees are down all over, including one across the street from me. It also blew our barbecue grill over, which took both me and my mom to lift back up (to give you an idea of how heavy it is). It wasn't a tornado or anything, even though the sirens went off. It was just really strong winds, like 75 mph, and crazy heavy rain. When I looked outside, it was like a sheet of white was all you could see. And since we have one particularly leaky window, we have a flooded hallway that we're now trying to dry out. So yeah, that was a wonderful day. But it could have been a lot worse, so I'm grateful.

Oh, and just a reminder that there are only 2 weeks left to pre-order my art book! ;)

"Another Ruined Cravat" Sketch

I'm still working on my other painting, but I had to take a break to do this sketch. It was one of those ideas that I had to get on paper right away. :) I quite like how this Georgian vampire turned out so far.







I played with my sketch in Photoshop to get a better idea of how I want the values in the painting to be. I was too lazy to make the sketch this dark. lol

Even More Painting Progress...

I've been working on some other things lately too, and getting the book stuff ready, so this isn't coming along as quickly as I'd like. But I think that I've finally finished the background, though this is a terrible picture of it. I had to go over all the stones again, because I didn't think they were dark enough and in the process of darkening them, all the detail was blurred. So I had to go sharpen everything up again. I also worked on the perspective a little, narrowing the road/pathway more. The depth before wasn't quite working. I hope it looks better now. I think it may be more obvious once I finally get the angel painted. Then I can tweak anything that still feels off. :)

My plans for this first shipment of books is to have them in the mail by Tuesday! ;)

More Painting Progress and Books!

Here are a couple more pics of my progress on this painting. I was originally just going to have the stone pathway that she's sitting on kind of fade around the edges in a circle around her, like in the sketch. But I didn't think that it looked right once I had it painted like that, so I extended it all the way to the edges.

In the next photo, I added the beginning wash of green for the grass along the sides of the path. I made it fade into fog in the distance. I still have to go in and detail the blades of grass, at least in the foreground.

At first, I was just thinking of creating a painting in the same vein as at Gothic Lament, but now that I'm further along it also reminds me of a couple of my other favorite paintings, Mourning Garden and Moonlight Apparition, and possibly a little Lady Death mixed in there too. :) I was going to name this "Gothic Lament II", but now with all these other influences, I'm now thinking it should have a separate title. Right now, I'm leaning toward "Benighted." For one, I was listening to Opeth while working on it yesterday and I heard the song, and also it fits the mood with its meaning: overtaken by darkness or night.

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Next up, is book news....

I have received my first shipment of my books! I'm not quite ready to ship them out yet. I have to get shipping envelopes, give the books a quick look over to make sure there aren't any obvious defects or problems, sign them, and print out the Dragon Angel prints that come with them. But I'll probably start shipping the pre-orders that I've gotten soon, maybe in the next couple weeks. I'll let those that ordered one know by email when they're shipped. :) It's so neat to see this big stack of my books!!

There's still about a month to pre-order! Pre-orders end July 10th! Dark Visions Artbook

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Finally, I have a framed print for auction on ebay!! It only has a couple of days left now. It is of the cropped version of "Thinking of You." It is really beautiful! Click the picture to check out the auction!

New Glass Tile Pendants and Painting WIP

I've made seven more glass tile pendants!! I had some extra supplies that I wanted to use.

I'm also working on another painting. This is a gothic angel. I've been thinking of it as "Gothic Lament II" because it is similar. "Gothic Lament" was a small 4 x 6" painting, which is one of my favorites, but I've always wished that it were bigger. So now I'm doing something similar only larger at 8 x 12". I decided to make her an angel this time. :)

Darkest Night -- finished painting

I finish this tonight. Another mermaid finally! I don't paint them very often. This is only the 3rd or 4th I've ever done, I think.

I hope you like it! :)

Watercolor and white goauche. 9 x 12"

Prints available on my website... ACEO prints may be available soon. I have so see how it looks that small first.

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