Here are two watercolors from the journals I kept during the month of May, while I was volunteering at Farm Sanctuary in Orland, California. The rest of the watercolors, as well as the transcribed entries, will be part of a final project that currently has no structure nor timeline. I don’t mean to be a tease; hopefully these will satisfy and wet your palate while I work to figure it out.
I’ve recently finished my latest project, a CMYK screenprint of a five-horned stag! The print is available for purchase at my store (link). This post is a step-by-step on the process of its creation.
For the last few months I’ve been casually reading various textbooks on Arthurian Legends. Roger Sherman Loomis’ Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance lays out the history of the legends, many of which are based on ancient gods. In Chapter XIV, Merlin the Shapeshifter: “… we have in Mryddin a deranged god whose special domain was poetry and prophecy.” I found the concept of poetry and prophecy being entwined to be extremely enticing. That art can represent, nay, predict the future. I knew I had to create some sort of portrait for Mryddin, who later becomes Merlin in the legends.
Later in this chapter is the following:
A five-horned stag! Now that the imagery was chosen, it’s on.
Click to read the rest!
1. This coming week I’m going to be screenprinting When I grow up I want to marry a castle! They’re going to be screenprinted posters with three different grays in halftone. They’ll probably be $25 plus shipping, first edition. I’ll keep you guys posted!!
Here’s the original drawing:
2. Monday I’m sitting down with my dear friend Tessa and we’re going to jam, and eventually make some songs. I don’t know where it’s going to go, but I’m excited to collaborate with her again! Our first collab was It was their first spring, which gets me to 3…
3. Going to reprint It was their first spring. I’m going to make the zines available online, too. This will happen before September.
4. Work continues on my new book, The Summer I Forgot My Middle Name Was Grace. I want some sort of manuscript by Winter.
Here’s a photo of my studio with The Summer I Forgot… covering its walls:
For this project I really needed nice white walls to pin stuff to, so I built these temporary walls out of homasote and two by fours. When I work, mostly I stand in this room, stare at the walls, pin, re-pin, and re-re-pin everything into different configurations. Sometimes there are holes and I make stuff to fill the holes. It’s a new process for me and so far it’s been good.
5. Thinking of the far-off future, I need to research stuff for my third book. Reading time needs to go into that.
There we go! Lists make things happen.
