Pretty sweet, eh? Here’s one of the background images in my soon to be completed Alchemy series. I finished 5 of these this week and I’m now working on the figures. Cross your fingers for me that I will ascend to new levels in my digital painting abilities. I have the next 2 weekends to digitally paint and print out this entire series. I got this……I got this.

For those of you who would like to humor me for a second….

I just cut off all my hair!

I was finally over the dread-extensions and I wanted something drastically different. 3 cheers for the classic A-line bob. I now await many crazy/adorable hair accessories that I’ve ordered online.

Now that my thumbnails are done, I can get to work drawing for my Alchemy project. So excited.

Later today I will be doing some photography for my next project featuring poems by Aleister Crowley. Stay Tuned.

Sketchbook homework for drawing class: emotive line quality

A while ago Lucretia Renee Rathmann – proprietress of Dark Fusion Boutique - asked me to create some illustrations for DFB. She wanted me to use photographs from the website for reference, which was sweet, since she is a great photographer. First I came up with this:

Portrait of Lucretia Renee Rathmann - ink and aquarelle, 2012

For reference, I used a DFB photo taken by the insanely talented Christopher Perez. For the rest of the DFB images, I wanted to mute the models a bit so the clothing would pop a bit more. I created the foreground images and the DFB logo in the same style as Lucretia’s portrait, (sans heavy shadows on the models) then brought the images into photoshop and completed them there. I also did 3 variations of each, so there is a white, black, and red version of each model. Here is the result:

Dark Fusion Boutique: Heather - mixed media/digital, 2012

Dark Fusion Boutique: Ashley - mixed media/digital, 2012

Dark Fusion Boutique: Korina - mixed media/digital, 2012

I was feeling festive, so I threw this together in-between classes. This is a super simple pen-drawing from my sketchbook, the background is a mess of different backgrounds under different effects.

Cailleach and Brighde are two sides of the same coin, today is the day of their transformation.

Cretan Snake Goddess. Black and white charcoal. Drawn in 48 minutes

Like ya do.

This was this weekend’s sketchbook homework for the advanced drawing class that I’m in. I’m enjoying the class so far, but I still hate working with charcoal. There is something about having chalky hands that drives me nuts. I didn’t even like playing in gravel as a kid. Neurosis is part of my charm, right?

As awesome as the show was, I must admit that it was packed with people who do not believe in deodorant. I came to this conclusion because the place smelled like a slaughterhouse before any of the bands started playing/people started dancing. I found myself taking a metal inventory of the different things people can smell like when their b.o. is unchecked:

1. Chicken soup

2. Corndogs

3. A bologna sandwich

4. Hint of Skunk

5. A moldy Spicerack

Quite the bouquet. It is so gross that we respond to pheromones.

I went to the show with one of my best-friends, Erin, her buddy Jeffrey, and her 3 kids, Sebastian, Alaia, and Vincent. These are some of the most rad kids I know, Erin must be constantly smug with her superior parenting abilities. Alaia was belly dancing with the best of them, Vincent got to play the big marching band drum when the lead dancer walked by with it, and Sebastian (12 yrs old) spent the evening socializing with 20 year olds. The kid has better social skills than I.

from left to right: Me, Alaia, Erin, Sebastian, Vincent.

I’m so impressed with how rad all of my friends’ kids are, as well as my own nieces and nephews. It makes me very optimistic about how the future will play out.

So after dancing hard all night, bussing back home, and eating half a burrito, I am exhausted. Goodnight, everyone. It’s back to art in the morning! 

Sneak Peak at secret project for Dark Fusion Boutique

I just wanted to announced how freaking excited I am for the projects that I will be working on in the next few months. It seems that my Junior year at art school is a little more conducive to working on the projects that I really want to work on.

Anyway, I don’t want to give anything away, but I will throw out there that included in the aforementioned bad-assery will be a project involving Alchemy, one that is a big tribute to Crowley, and one involving the mythological Wild Hunt. I will also be showing my work at Portland’s first annual Dark Fairytale Ball. SO excited!

Stay tuned, I will post as things progress.

“The mind that is the prisoner of conventional ideas and the will that is the captive of its own desire cannot accept the seeds of an unfamiliar truth and a supernatural desire.”

The Seeds of an Unfamiliar Truth

Acrylic

Valerie Herron, 2011