Art & Other Project Updates: April 2023

It sure has been a while!

To keep a long story short (and the long version begins with "I hurt myself on a jigsaw puzzle..."), I have had tendonitis in both arms for the bulk of this calendar year, which has made it challenging to keep up with art and writing. They're now starting to get a little better, so while I can't promise to return to these round ups in earnest yet, I can at least sneak one in for April.

In February I completed a triptych of my girls from Falling World. I really liked Mira and Shaosim's pieces, but I think I should revisit Vri with something a little more dynamic sometime in the future. I really fell in love with the lines I did on her pants, so I wanted that to go somewhere. I still love the pants, but I think Vri deserves a version with her own cool weapon pose, too.

What I really wanted to do with these was play around with a looser and messier way of handling lineart. I fluctuate on my preferred lineart style every few year. Sometimes I love bold lines, and then after a few months I decide lines are bad and either slide back into careful inking or attempting to be a digital painter. My happy place is probably somewhere in the middle, but I haven't quite found it yet.

Next up: a big one! I love this piece. I did the lineart for it months ago, and it's just been sitting on my iPad waiting for me to work up the courage to color. It came out a lot darker than I intended in the transfer from iPad to PC, but I honestly think it works. I really like these characters. I have no idea what their story is about yet, but they're very fun to draw.

Tried something a little different with this one. I like carving flowers out of linoleum blocks, but for whatever reason I don't like drawing them digitally. I also don't ever really share my linocut stuff online because I simply forget it exists.

So! I took a photo of a block I am in the middle of carving, cleaned it up, and colored it. I like this! I think I'll probably do the same with some of my other linocut pieces. It loses something compared to a messy block with all the ragged edges, but...it also has some of its own ragged edges, and those are nice too.