In the spirit of Halloween here is the first completed drawing of my three piece art card series inspired by using art as a way to work through childhood fears induced by those scary little creatures that still give us the willies in our adult lives. “Chiroptera” is the scientific name for those little winged nocturnal creatures we call bats. I have to say after working on this I’m not that scared of them anymore. They’re actually quite adorable…well, at least the baby furry ones are. 😊
I have to say I’m glad to be done with this piece. Usually I feel this tinge of sadness when I finish a drawing but this time I’m glad and relieved. I started it in October of last year, worked on it a few weeks, shelved it for almost a year and now I’ve completed it. For a moment there I wondered if I would make it or if my interest would fade before I could finish. I don’t intend on making that a habit in my process. Next time I’m going to try to finish no matter what it takes.
I’m still working on trying to get prints of this but in the meantime I can move on to my mini art card series “Little Fears” that I mentioned a couple of posts back.
This drawing has been slow going but I said that I was determined to finish it and I’m almost there. Four more feathers and some touch ups to go and this journey will be complete. I’ve been trying to come up with ways to offer prints of this. I’m thinking about working with this website that offers custom printing called Printful. If anyone has any experience using this platform please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Your input will be greatly appreciated. 😊
Have you ever been scared of something you know was a bit silly? For those who have been with me for awhile, you probably know from an earlier post that one of those silly things that scared me was rabbits. Yes, cute little bunny rabbits. Thanks to the 1978 animated movie, Watership Down, those adorable little creatures have been a life long terrifying bundle of cuteness for me. So I decided to deal with that fear through art which prompted my art card drawing “Hazel“. It’s amazing how working through that drawing and doing a little research on rabbits helped me through how much those little creatures would freak me out. It helped to the point that I have now added the rabbit to my short list of spirit animals.
Since then I’ve been thinking about other creatures in Nature that cause me to wig out.
So in the spirit of this upcoming Halloween season here are the beginnings of a three part art card series on other creatures that cause my heart to race a little faster, inspired to triumph over those little childhood fears that still lurk in the shadows of our adult lives, projecting themselves into our daily realities at the most inopportune times…though I doubt that any of these will end up on my spirit list. 😋
As an artist who is mostly inspired by Nature and all of her creations, I’ve always had a bit of an interest in botanical art. Every now and then I try my hand at doing something botanical. Can’t say I’m all that great at it, especially since I’m doing it using the pointillism technique but I try. From what I’ve seen most botanical art pieces are done using watercolors or ink washes, mediums that just boggle my mind, yet make for some rather vivid and life like visuals. Pointillism is a bit of a departure in regards to techniques used for the art and is more so seen on the textbook scientific end of illustrating plants. Either way, it still makes for some good art.
Here are a few artists who I follow on Instagram that create some rather wonderful works of botanical artistry that are inspiring and delightful. 😀
Darren Sleep – @artyplantsman
Seinjeong Lee – @4lee5
Lauren Boles – @laurenbolesart
Media Jamshidi – @mediajamshidi
Carve & Draw 