pixels, light and hot wax

My sweethearts went out the other day, and I asked them to bring me home a flower.

Today, in between laundry folding, I spent a little quality time with it, and this is the first obvious keeper (pretty much straight from raw, no fine printing yet.)

AnthologyBuilder.com has announced the winners of the “Match that Artwork” contest and I am pleased as punch that Samantha Henderson’s story The Red Bride, inspired by one of my pieces (below), was 2nd runner-up.

Anna in Red. Photograph.

It has been crazy busy at Casa Jeliza — mostly doing lots and lots of post-processing for ye old day jobbe.

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I just got e-mail notification that my box is back from Windycon …. 10 minutes after returning from my pobox.

Dangit. And I am suddenly not sure if want to see what is inside, anyway.

ETA: Nope, shouldn’t have looked. I don’t like receiving heavy boxes back from shows. *sigh*

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In more post-worthy news, I finally was able to make it to a life drawing session, which was a very welcome return. My not-so-mad skillz have definitely atrophied a bit in the interim, but not as much as I had feared. And something about having my hands straight-up filthy with charcoal just makes me happy. The model was a bit on the wobbly side (new to figure modeling), and had sadly uninteresting shoulders, though part of that was the my angle on the pose. (I could draw shoulders for days normally, I have no idea why.) Here are two of my favorites (these are quick snaps, not proper shots, or I’ll never get around to posting them…)

Hands. charcoal sketch. 2009.

One (winner’s choice) print is being auctioned as part of the “Save Dave’s House” effort. This is a chance to get *any* of my fine art prints, sized up to 12×18. Starting bid is $10. Bids close at midnight on Halloween, PST.

My auction is here
All the auctions are here.
Here is the story of why

Space Koi (work in progress). Photoillustration. 2009

This is not what I intended to create when I sat down at the computer this morning, but it just leapt right out at me. Fish do that, I guess. Now it needs to simmer for a few weeks.

The real problem with the space series is that there is so much subtlety in the deep shadows, and that just doesn’t show up in a web-size preview at all. I suspect this is going to be a big print.

4 new covers are now available at Anthology Builder!

All are also available as prints, and will be added into the galleries shortly:

(030909_132) Rock, Oregon Coast. Photograph. 2009.

Variant of CherryBomb encaustic. Giclee. 2007.

(030909_158) Lone Rock. Oregon Coast. Photograph. 2009.

(030909_132)Hollowed Rock, Oregon Coast. Photograph. 2009.

I’ve added links in the galleries to works that are available for use as covers at AnthologyBuilder, and am also sending them off a fresh batch.  I haven’t decided what to do yet about the works they have available for covers that aren’t in the galleries yet — many of them just don’t really *fit* in.  I’ve also addes some new shirts at RedBubble and fixed the link so you can actually get to the Coalesce shirt instead of going to Cosmic Cat (oops.)

Also, I have now made two of my flower photographs available as prints through RedBubble, which is a sign of victory over my inner control freak.

And because an art blog without new images is a sad, sad thing, a fresh doodle from my sketchbook:

Traveling by Braid and Butterfly

(well, shot this spring, fine printed now. I have never claimed to be a *speedy* artist.)

I am seriously considering putting these two together with a square version of the pussywillow buds and calling it “Spring comes to the Oregon Coast” or some such.