I celebration of the Chinese New Year, I have this little offering. It’s just the first finished from a series – I have one other inked and two more in pencil stage. When I’m done I’ll have the entire Chinese zodiac.
Thanks to a bout of stomach flu last week this is a bit late… but just squeaked by in time for the holiday. I’m still not entirely happy with the background coloring and the typography, so I’ll probably do some more tweaking before making it available for sale.
Whether this week’s Illustration Friday topic refers to her current status or her barely contained anger, I leave up to you… but I don’t think I want to be around when she finally gets out! Click the image to enlarge it.
… and don’t go trying to change her mind! (Even if it is way past her bedtime…)
I am resolved to simplify things, if it allows me to meet my other resolution to post something new weekly. In this case, this week’s oh-so-appropriate Illustration Friday topic the word is “resolve” a fairly quick one in between working on a slightly more ambitious project.
This is also the first piece of new artwork to be scanned in with my most practical Christmas present: an A3 Mustek scanner. Now I can draw on my 11×17 paper without having to scan it in pieces and piece it together in Photoshop! Not that it was an issue with this one because it was so small, but as I said, I have more ambitious projects underway….
Looking back on this year, it’s been a very busy one. Unlike some people out there, most of the chaos has been good. Crazy-making sometimes, but usually for good reasons. I have lots to be grateful for and despite the current state of things in the world I have a good deal of optimism for 2009.
As far as this blog goes, the thing I’m happiest about is that for the most part I’ve been able to keep a steady schedule, in part thanks to Illustration Friday. At the beginning of this year I committed to posting something every week based on the IF topic. I didn’t quite make that, but given my horrid track record for diary-keeping I’m amazed I did as well as I did.
Out of 52 weeks in the year:
I’m pretty happy with that. The hardest part was getting back into the habit when I missed a whole month over the summer due to my insane schedule.
I don’t know if I can make the same vow this year, since I may have more illustration projects coming in. However, I do promise to post something to this blog every week, and participate in IF when I can. I’m also going to start merchandising my existing art more, making better use of my redbubble account and my CafePress store, and making more art that is directly in line with that. Toward that end I’d like to redo my website (including this blog!) but that’s a secondary priority to making more art.
Is anyone else making an “art resolution” this year?
Another from the archives for this week’s Illustration Friday topic. Click the image to enlarge it! This image illustrates the ancient myth of Leda and Zeus. Zeus, also known as Jupiter, was king of the gods but had a weakness for mortal women. His wife, Hera, was the jealous sort so he had to be sneaky about it. He took the form of a swan and seduced a noblewoman named Leda (this sort of thing happened a lot in the old Greek myths for some reason) and she ended up birthing two eggs which resulted in four children who all went on to become legendary figures as well: Helen and Clytemnestra, who were key figures in the Trojan War, and Castor and Pollux, the Gemini twins. I’m not sure how Leda ever explained all this to her husband…
This picture is available for sale at my redbubble site, in a variety of sizes and formats.
I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and a fabulous start to the new year!