wyld_dandelyon: (Default)
My sister, Dragon, and I made a plan to go march with the women in DC, because the voices of women and minorities matter, and if our new President understands anything, it's ratings, and I am hoping he will see all the women and QUILTBAG people and other minorities and allies who care enough to travel to his city to send him a message, and that he will want to earn our vote. If not, well, our other elected representatives will see us, and will remember we care. The house and cats and fish are well-tended, just not at the moment by me.

As I often do when I get together with this sister, we sat and painted together, each on our own projects, but with conversation and critique, sharing of supplies, and cheering each other on.

So, here is the revised (and still very much unfinished) painting:



As always, your comments & suggestions are welcome too (meaning, not just my sister's)!
wyld_dandelyon: (Default)
During a past Sketchfest, I had a bunch of bright colors mixed for another painting and rather than waste them, I sketched a flower garden. I'm not even sure whether I uploaded the sketch The canvass sat there for a while, not inspiring me.

I had a bit of blue and white paint left over from something else last week, so I picked the painting up and painted the sky in behind the flowers. It's amazing what a difference that made. There is a shadow on the canvass in this picture, which is partially obscured by the watermark.



The line from a song came to me: "The spirit of the plants has come to me in the form of a beautiful, dancing green woman."



There's a lot of detail to do still, and clearly some things are missing altogether (for instance, she needs hair), but it's a start.

Comments are welcome!
wyld_dandelyon: (Default)
So, a while back I did a painting inspired by going to Milwaukee's Indian Summer Festival and watching the dancers. I was very proud of it, but it lacked contrast. Still, where I was in skill, I hesitated to mess with it. I liked the composition and a lot of other things about it, and didn't want to risk ruining what I'd achieved.

But my skill and my confidence have both improved, in part thanks to @EllenMillion's sketchfest, and so finally, this week, I risked it.

I made almost no actual changes, but I added layers of paint to give it contrast and I added a lot of detail. Before it was very orange. Now it's still very orange, but it's more than that. (I should have thought to take a "before" picture. There might be one on my computer, but I'm tired, and I'm not taking the time to look.)

So, here is my Spirit of the Desert (with a watermark). It's acrylic on a 9 x 12 inch canvass.



Comments welcome! I'm at the *stare at it for a few days to see if it's done* stage.
wyld_dandelyon: (Creative Joyous Cat)
I did a couple of gift-paintings for someone over on Flight Rising, which were delivered as electronic images. They aren't interested in the physical paintings, so I'm pondering what to do with the canvasses.

But anyway, I haven't been sharing creative stuff enough, so as an intention to both do and publish more creative work next year, I'm sharing them here:





I do like how much most of the people over on FR enjoy art, and how welcoming they are to artists at all levels.
wyld_dandelyon: (Creative Joyous Cat)
A couple of days ago it was Mother’s Day, and—as is usual on my Facebook these days, because I have friends who care deeply and passionately about our world and the people in it—there was a lot of politics on my wall. One of the things on my wall was a friend (admittedly not a Clinton fan) who expressed horror that Hillary was willing to accept support from Republicans. In her mind, that was proof that Hillary doesn’t share any values with liberals.

And I cringed. This was, after all, Mother’s Day, a day when we all—liberals, conservatives, the apolitical, and people whose politics are best described on some other axis—celebrate our marvelous mothers or console our friends who had the misfortune to be born to mothers who aren’t so marvelous. We all value family, just as we all value warmth when it’s cold. Like today—cold and rainy, prompting me to reach for something warm. I tried a sweater, and it was too scratchy. With all the political uproar, I wanted more comfort than that.

There’s this old silk jacket I have. I bought it at the thrift store years ago even though it was a bit threadbare because the colors—purples and blues and greens—are marvelous and it fits gently around me and it’s so soft and sensual. It feels good, like a warm hug made of rose petals. It was old when I bought it, and now the outer silk is pulling apart in strips and shreds. Periodically, I pick this jacket up and give in to the illogical urge (why not just replace it?) to take satin scraps or shapes cut from old silk shirts and patch the areas that are the most tattered.

I pick it up today and put it on long enough to warm up a little, and rip it some more trying to put my phone into a place that, as it turns out, is not the pocket after all. I look again at my Facebook and see more vitriol against that other mother who hopes to help the world from the big white house in DC, and I take the jacket off again. I cut a bit of purple from a ripped silk sleeve I’ve been using to clean my glasses and start stitching it to the coat, and I feel comforted.

Our social fabric is tattered right now, pulled apart by low income and bigotry and fear. But we can’t just throw it away and buy a new one. Someone has shared a quote showing that Trump thinks he can get the nation through hard times by not paying our debt. I sigh. I so very much don't want to see more things like that, so I switch over to Live Journal on the computer and read a poem where a policeman tries to help a person with superpowers who has PTSD. Then I listen to an interview of Hillary, so I can close that tab on the web browser. I enjoy listening to Hillary when she can actually talk about her hopes for what she can accomplish if she’s President, and it’s easier to sew when I’m listening instead of reading. I reflect that our world is kind of like the poor super-kid in the poem, broken and traumatized and scared.

The bit of purple silk stitched firmly to the sleeve, I go looking to see what I can find that’s suitable to put next to it. Our youngest cat, Nebula, is sleeping in a box of material, and is quite bemused when I pull the box out and dig through things around and under her. She blinks at me, strange human, and I rub her under her chin. I find a scrap of white brocade not much more than an inch wide, and some blue satin and green brocade, and part of a tie whose off-white lining could work. And a hairball. Ugh. I brush the old dried mess into the trash and consign that bit of cloth to the laundry, along with some clothes that will probably be donated.

Then back to my old jacket with safety pins and material. I cut and lay down several more pieces and pin them in place. Some of them will doubtless get moved around as I stitch, but it’s a plan. I thread the needle again and continue. The lovely smooth texture of the silks and brocades calms me. It feels as if each stitch is sending healing energy out into the world, a gentle prayer or bit of kind sympathetic magic to help us all in our quest to make the world a little healthier, a little less ragged, and a little more beautiful.

I use up the thread on my needle and tie it off. Next is a spot where the original fabric is just gone, the rough lining showing through. It reminds me of the places where lies and hatred have hurt me and people I care about, but I smile, because here on this jacket I can fix things. More green, I think, to cover this spot. Green would look good. We could use more green in our politics too, and fewer lies. More kindness and less fear. I pin and I stitch, and I send my good wishes out into the world, and in my head is a line from science fiction that has, contrary to all expectations, become popular culture: “Make it so.”
wyld_dandelyon: (Polychrome Wizard)
I really enjoyed drawing that last dragon, so I went looking for another one to draw. For some reason, I couldn't resist this particular shiny dragon with glorious purple wings. Here, I have her juggling five pretty flames.



This one is for Speedemon.

Random Art

Dec. 7th, 2015 08:32 pm
wyld_dandelyon: (Polychrome Wizard)
So, I picked a more-or-less random stranger over on Flight Rising and did a portrait of one of their dragons as a surprise holiday gift. Since FR posts don't make it easy to share art that's not posted somewhere, I'm posting it somewhere!



To PinkiePastel: Rynzin struck me as more of a lover than a fighter, and maybe a bit of a dancer. I hope you like the portrait!
wyld_dandelyon: (Feeling Creative Cat)
I've got new icons! [livejournal.com profile] djinni finished the last set of icons, and a new "icon day" is open for requests. If you want a new icon, his LJ has a link to his website. The first one is this cat with paintbrush, and the second is:

rainbow kitty running 100x100

It's fun just scrolling through each batch of icons, and even better to add to my personal trove of Djinni-art. It's a good break from the more drudgerly parts of life.

I always dread February bureaucracy. Taxes are no fun, and I always worry that I missed some important detail. The addition of Obamacare deadlines hasn't helped that. Reading through just one insurance plan's details is overwhelming. Trying to compare them is beyond that. I finally resorted to calling the insurance plans, trying to figure out important things like whether my allergist and asthma meds would be covered.

I hate it when it looks like my medicine will be covered, but when I try to figure out exactly how much it will cost, I find a message that it isn't in this plan. Right. Another call. I looked up and told My Angel that there has to be a better way!

Well, this insurance company put me in contact with an insurance agent, who made multiple calls on my behalf before I made a decision--but the decision is made. The next bit of paperwork is taxes, but I'm still awaiting a 1099, so I can put that off at least until after Capricon.

I'm going to be doing the Midwinter Faire at Capricon again, and in honor of my Aunt, who left some black paper behind, I'm going to do spacescapes with whoever stops by my table (unless they request something different). So, I'm going to share some in-progress shots of the painting. I started with a canvas that my Dad had primed with black long ago. I have no idea what he was planning, but I started with a little hint of a nebula and then added a planet.

nebula planet

After I started adding more to the painting, I figured I should back up a bit and get the whole canvas for today's in-progress picture:

space

And now, I should head to bed. There's more to do tomorrow!

But hey--if you'll be at Capricon, stop by the Midwinter Faire and we can art together! I may also be set up in the Capricon Cafe at some point. If you haven't painted before, I'll provide intsructions, and if you have, maybe I can learn something from you.
wyld_dandelyon: (Magical Moth Artist by Djinni)
And, of course, other stuff. I try to clear out other errands to leave open time for sketchfest and muse fusion, but it rarely works out the way I want. This weekend, not only do we have both Sketchfest and Muse Fusion, but tomorrow is the only Sunday this month that the others in our writers' group could get together, so I have to review the stuff we're critiquing and head out do do that instead of staying in my own little creative cocoon.

Part of me is yelling, Make room! Make room! Clearly, I need to get better at making room time-wise as well as space-wise. Ah, well, I'll get better at it. I am determined.

But in the meantime, I have a couple of things to share:

Gryphon Nebula for Sketchfest January 2015

Both of these are on 12x12 canvasses, though I like the closeup picture of the Gryphon Nebula better than the other pictures I took--I took a bunch, but the others look less in focus. Maybe I can get a better pic in daylight? Mostly, the cell phone camera is great, but every once in a while, it's ornery. But life is like that in general, isn't it?

Sunset Showoff

You're welcome, still, to stop by Sketchfest or the Muse Fusion, check out what other people are doing, and if you want, leave some prompts.
wyld_dandelyon: (Rainbow Margay Mage)
I got a wonderful sketch that I'd like to share with you all. Head over here: http://silverflameart.livejournal.com/3762.html and scroll down. Mine is the last sketch posted to date.
wyld_dandelyon: (wigged Deirdre)
A long time ago, I was more active in the SCA than in fandom. No one hassles you about glasses in the SCA, but they're Not Period. So, when I got out my sketchbook (which I did a lot, since autoharps are also not period), I drew people without their glasses.

Through some strange mental alchemy, I stopped noticing people's glasses. It was as if they became invisible to me, unless something called attention to them. That persisted during the years when I rarely picked up a pencil to draw, and why not? It's the person that matters, not their clothes--or their glasses!

Then My Angel fell, nearly bleeding to death, and afterward joked to the nurses that her balance was better if she couldn't see. Sure enough, her eyes had, with age, degenerated to the point where she needed different prescriptions for each eye, and the lack of glasses was a bad idea. Suddenly I needed to retrain my brain to notice if she was wearing her glasses. Or at least try to. It's not as easy as you'd think to undo years of habit.

But I've made some progress.

At Worldcon, I joined my sister, Dragon, and her daughter at one of the Sketching From Life panels. At one point, while we were sketching, Dragon talked about the sketching she'd done while studying at the Art Institute of Chicago. She mentioned doing 30-second poses, and the teachers pressing them to draw at least something for each pose. In that zen-drawing state I was in, I responded that that sounded like fun. Several people nearby stared at me as if I was nuts, and Dragon answered, "What it is is really hard." "Well, yeah." I said. But hard doesn't mean not-fun. If you push enough past your limits and dive into the flow of the process, hard can be a great deal of fun.

Later, I went to the Hugo ceremonies, again with my sketchbook, and I thought, "Well, I said it would be fun, so why don't I just do it--sketch the people presenting and accepting Hugos. So I did--with varying levels of success, of course. Pushing your limits is always like that. And it was, indeed, fun.

I drew a lot of people--and I drew a LOT of glasses. The exercise made me very aware of an unsurprising fact. Most of my people, like me, wear glasses.
wyld_dandelyon: (Magical Moth Artist by Djinni)
My porch. Well, part of it. You see, earlier in the season I scraped off an area of the porch that's more exposed to the weather than the rest and took the tail end of some oil primer and painted it. That, of course, left an unsightly white stain on the purple porch.

But life has been busy, with unpredicted time sinks and distractions. So early this week, we had a bit of snow with my unsightly porch paint job still in evidence. So, while watching Bones (now unaccountably a Friday night show) I looked at the weekend weather -- rain. Oh, goodie. So I went out to paint the porch purple in the dark, with just one electric light (if you don't count distant street lights) to guide me. Then I came in and started this post, but was too tired to finish.

I slept a looooong time,

Now it's raining, and I'm hoping the paint dried before the rain started!!!

But somehow I'm not convinced that returning my purple porch to its proper purple counts as a "sketch".
wyld_dandelyon: (cat is ready)
When we moved in, we realized that the plumbing in the downstairs bathroom had a bad leak -- the sink and bathtub drains leaked right onto one of the beams that holds up the house. When we got into the basement and reached up, I found I could put all four fingers into that pipe. A couple years back, after opening up the wall on the other side, we fixed that. I still have a six-inch segment of pipe we removed, that basically lacks an inch-wide segment completely along its whole length.

Not long after that, the allergies informed me that there was some mold behind the plastic tile. Now, mind you, this is inevitable, that's why they don't let you use plastic tile on bathroom walls any more. But that meant tearing it out, which (since it had been glued to the plaster) left me with four walls that needed extensive plastering. I am very excited that the walls are now almost done. I've even put some paint on parts; I'll buy a waterproofing paint for the top layer, so we can use the shower down there if we want to.

So we've been discussing bathroom decor.

A long time ago, I picked up one of those sun-moon-and-stars shower curtains at rummage. More recently, friends gifted us with a whole set of bathroom things on that theme, including an identical shower curtain (read here "window drape" since the window is above the tub).

So I went online to find some suitable towel racks. Instead, I found shower curtain hooks. Bonus! But the towel rods were all unsuitable or boring.

Then I found two of these:

IMG_20130831_024320_166

Now, the color isn't great, but I figured I could fix that. So, last night we watched Babylon 5 while I painted. This one is probably almost done:

IMG_20130831_024209_339

And here she is with her sister, who still has some resin showing through:

IMG_20130831_035313_975

Slowly, we're getting to the point where the first floor bathroom will finally not be an ongoing project!
wyld_dandelyon: (Frazzled Moth Artist)

I'm pretty sure my friends will all have heard about the recent project Kickstarter should not have funded. If not, this guy wanted to publish a "seduction guide" based on "research and development done on Reddit". His words on Reddit, carefully erased prior to sending in his Kickstarter proposal, essentially advocated sexual assault. Kickstarter admits they were informed about this shortly prior to the end of the funding period, but they did not pull the project and they did not even hold the funds until they had time to determine if the project violated their terms of service.

Kickstarter's apology is here: http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/we-were-wrong

Kickstarter admits they were wrong and makes a large $25,000 donation to fight sexual abuse. However, people are still upset, and right now I am seeing more talk about what Kickstarter did wrong than about the creator of the project. Which brings me to this question:

Why does Kickstarter's actions in this matter matter so much to artists, writers and patrons of the arts?

One of the reasons Kickstarter has succeeded so well for so many artists is that they vet projects so people feel confident that they are supporting worthy art.

This was not worthy art. Kickstarter failed in its vetting process (I don't really blame them for that--nobody is perfect and these kinds of abusers are usually very good at hiding what they're up to). But--and this is a big but in terms of Kickstarter's credibility as a supporter of worthy art--Kickstarter sent the money before they took the time to investigate whether there had been a violation of their terms of service.

It's not about whether Joe Rape-Promoter can publish his book, it's about whether buyers of art will continue to trust Kickstarter enough to feel good about donating to Kickstarter projects. If you're thinking "I might be supporting rapists and teachers-of-rapists" when you see a Kickstarter page, even if the artist for this project is your grandmother, you will probably not feel good about sending her your money through Kickstarter.

What it comes down to is that Kickstarter's reputation matters.

Because Kickstarter has made it clear that they have standards for a Kickstarter project and they vet the projects prior to approving them, their reputation matters in a different way than a traditional publisher or book store's reputation. This unique reputation is inherently part of any Kickstarter project--because of this reputation, buyers could feel good about spending money there.  Essentialy, every time they sent money off through Kickstarter, they believed they were supporting good art and keeping worthy artists from starving in garrets. For once, buyers believed, their money wasn't supporting some greedy corporation, but was instead (except for handling fees) going directly to an artist with a dream worth supporting.

Is that a bit like saying Kickstarter gives people a nice daydream of doing good in the world? Absolutely. But it's really not so far from the truth. Artists get paid for their work, books get published, movies, clocks, jewelry and fine garments get made, and the world contains some wonderful things it wouldn't have otherwise. The supporters of these projects deserve to feel good about making some wonderful dreams come true.

Every artist who uses Kickstarter relies on that idealistic daydream, as does every buyer who sends their money off to someone they've never heard of, hoping to get a product in the mail or e-mail some months in the future. It's not just a daydream--Kickstarter has helped thousands of dreams become reality.

So, someone decided to use that dream for evil. Sadly, that's not really surprising. As we know from our best fiction--even our kids' comic books--one must always be vigilant in the fight against evil.

Kickstarter was our artist's superhero, if you think about it. No one wants to see Wonder Woman fail to catch the villain, and we especially don't want to see the villain hoodwink Superman and get away with the money. But in this case, so far, it looks like the villain is laughing all the way to the bank.

No wonder we're upset.  We want Kickstarter to hold that villain accountable!

Here's hoping Kickstarter can do that, or can at least set in place policies that will prevent any other villain from doing the same.  I want that nice daydream of a place where I can safely send money to artists, even ones I've never heard of before, and feel confident that I'm supporting good art and worthy artists--and I want that dream to once again be a part of my everyday reality.

wyld_dandelyon: (cat is ready)
A couple of days ago, I was going to post one of my monster sketches from last weekend, but Live Journal wouldn't let me post. Hopefully that won't be a problem tonight, be cause Elizabeth wrote a poem about the creature in one of my sketches!

So, here is the current sketch of the Unicorn Jelly:
unicornjelly

And here is the link to the poem:  http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/2836864.html

Finally, we would welcome some new prompts, whether related to Sea Monsters or not.  Of course, you're welcome to come peek in on us as we create or even join us.  http://torn-world.livejournal.com/151363.html
wyld_dandelyon: (cat is ready)
I even got Mother's Day flowers!

my mothers day roses with painting supplies

You can see my sister's paints around the edges of the picture. I found myself in Chicago before I realized Sketchfest was happening.

I'm left with the question: Why are sea monsters easier to paint than people???

Now I'd better pay some bills and then maybe I'll have time to scan some paintings.
wyld_dandelyon: (cat is ready)
Life is still overbooked and frustrating, but there are words.

Just not very many on Live Journal right now. But I have a new poem up over at Torn World: http://www.tornworld.net/storypageview.php?id=512

It goes with this painting:

shades of blue bird

So far, May is starting better than April did, creatively speaking.  Here's keeping my fingers...well, crossed isn't the right metaphor, is it?
wyld_dandelyon: (cat is ready)
I was hoping F would fall on Friday, since, well, Friday.

But instead I'll celebrate having so many artists in my life.


amethyst dragon's unhappy surprise cat is ready juggling a rainbow NaNoDreaMer

Icons by [livejournal.com profile] djinni (who will probably launch a new Free Icon day shortly)


eggs by family

Eggs by family!

And of course there's all the artists who've contributed to Torn World or joined in at Sketchfest or who post their works  in progress on LiveJournal or DreamWidth.

Nimble minds and hands
Every artist brings me joy
Each of them unique


Thanks, all of you, for bringing beauty and whimsy to my days.
wyld_dandelyon: (Default)
[Poll #1894820]

Oh, hey, I bet [livejournal.com profile] ysabetwordsmith's poetry fishbowl is open.  Let's go see!

Yes,  here it is:  http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/2702408.html

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wyld_dandelyon: (Default)
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