Archive for the ‘Whimsical and Strange’ Category
Fairy Studies
Friday, October 1st, 2010
Just a couple of sketches I did for a tiny painting I’m working on. I’m still not totally happy with either one, so who knows what the final painting will be like!
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, People, Figures and Faces, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: fairy, nfs, pencil, sketch, thistle
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Weeble Wednesday: King in Yellow
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010
The King in Yellow is the fourth weeble in my series of depictions of the mythos of HP Lovecraft. He’s often associated with Hastur, and originally appears in the short story “The Repairer of Repuations.” He is the titular character in a play said to reveal such irresistible truth as to drive any reader or viewer mad.
In keeping with the Neil Gaiman theme of the week, the play is a central part of a pastiche of Lovecraft and Sherlock Holmes that he wrote, entitled “A Study in Emerald.”
King in Yellow, 5″x7″ pen, ink and Copic marker on watercolor paper.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books, Tentacles, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: coloring book, copic marker, for sale, lovecraft, monster, pen and ink, tentacles, weeble, yellow
Hedgehog Hammock
Saturday, September 25th, 2010
When I showed him this sketch, my friend Jeff asked, “Is that a really small person, or a really huge hedgehog?”
My response now is the same as it was then — whatever makes the viewer smile more.
Have a great weekend!
Categories: Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: hedgehog, nfs, sketch
Pooh and Piglet Picking Violets
Friday, September 24th, 2010
One of the easiest way to etch a printing plate is called dry point, where you basically draw on the softer metal of the plate with a sharp steel point, creating grooves in the plate. These never last very long, I only got half a dozen prints out of it (I did 2 editions, 3 each of the black and white, below, and the color, above), but there’s something very satisfying about working directly with the material this way.
The color edition was created by carefully rubbing the inks just into the parts of the plate where I wanted them, and then taking care not to overly clean off the excess, leaving the soft glow of yellow on Pooh bear, as well as the gentle shading on the greenery.
This was actually my very first attempt at printmaking, and I wasn’t sure what to do, so I drew two of my most favorite characters. I’ve given away the rest of the edition so I only have the two examples left, which I’m choosing not to sell because of the copyright still surrounding A. A. Milne’s wonderful characters.
Pooh and Piglet Picking Violets, 10″x6″ etching on watercolor paper, not for sale.
Categories: Daily Art, Flowers, Trees and Landscapes, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: edition, etching, intaglio, nfs, piglet, winnie the pooh
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Random Recipe: Banana Bread
Sunday, September 19th, 2010
Today I just thought, what the heck, I will share my banana bread recipe! It’s all in American volumetric measurements and stuff, I’m afraid, but I’m sure you can figure it out. This is a slightly altered version of the one in the Better Homes & Gardens Cook Book.
Don’t mind the rambling, I’m sleepy. Plus, I overexplain. But there is a monkey.
Banana Bread the Amy Way
Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray cooking oil spray (or just use butter or whatever) inside a bread loaf pan — mine’s glass, I have no idea how this affects the final product.
Dry Stuff:
- 1.5 cups white whole wheat flour (I use King Arthur ‘cos that’s what Safeway carries; normal flour works okay but has a different final texture, and in my experience needs more baking time.)
- 1.5 tsps baking powder
- 0.25 tsp baking soda
- 0.125 tsp salt (one eighth for the math lazy)
- a rounded quarter teaspoon each of cinnamon, powdered ginger, and cardamon
- a few shakes of nutmeg
- a tiny little pinch of ground cloves
Mix all this in a bowl and set aside, making a well in the middle. I like to whisk it together to fluff things up a little, but I’m weird and watch too much Good Eats.
Wet Stuff:
- 3 nice big ripe bananas only a day at most from overripe. I call this the “cake or death” stage. Mash ’em good.
- 1 egg
- 0.25 cup cooking oil
- 0.75 cup sugar
Mash bananas, then add sugar, egg, and oil, and mix it all up with the mashing fork. Get it nice and gooey and well-mixed, though it’s expected that there will be unmashed chunks of banana.
Pour the wet stuff on the dry stuff. Stir until the dry stuff is all mixed in, but only just, to avoid overmixing. Make sure you get the secret stash of dry stuff hiding at the very bottom of the bowl. You know the one I mean.
Extra Stuff:
- 0.5 cup raisins
- 0.5 cup chopped walnuts
Fold in either or both of these — I usually just use raisins, but I’m a weirdo. Pour into loaf pan. Bake for 55-70 minutes or until toothpick in center comes out clean. I usually turn once halfway through, and if it seems like the top is getting way too brown, cover it up with tin foil near the end of the baking. The bake time really depends on the day, size of bananas, weather, and baking gods’ whims, so do keep an eye, though if you do overbake it, it’ll just be a little dry, so whatever.
Cool a while in the pan, and the turn it out onto a cooling rack.
The Hard Part:
For best flavor, once it’s basically cool, wrap it up in tin foil and let it sit overnight. Yes, that means no eating right away, even though your house smells delicious. It’ll be so much better the next day, moist and delicious and all flavor-blended and spiced that it’s totally worth it, but this is the reason I usually bake at midnight.
The Easy Part:
Enjoy! I like it with tea especially. Omnomnom.
Categories: Daily Art, Whimsical and Strange, Words Words Words
Tags: bread, food, recipe, sharpie marker, yum
Elizabeth Halt
Friday, September 17th, 2010
Elizabeth and Atlas were originally drawn in my very first batch of cartoon client, but she recently came back to me asking for a couple of drawings for her website. What started out as two little illustrations we negotiated into a trio of illustrations and a quadruplet of matching buttons (the fourth one uses her original cartoon, above), working within her budget while getting her just what she was looking for.
The first illustration she wanted was for her “Postcards from Heaven” service (the inspiration for my own Love Notes), and in addition to the postbox that she asked for, a little postcard wanted to come along:
Then, after a bit of discussion, we decided on the image of a kneading kitten for her Reiki services — she’d wanted something that portrayed warmth and curiosity, and had suggested a Cheshire cat. After reading her descriptions of how Reiki works, the idea of a cat kneading at the various points on the body came to mind, and this is the result:
Then, after we figured out that there was room in her budget, Elizabeth decided to go for a fourth image, another drawing of her darling dog Atlas for her new animal Reiki service, titled “for the love of a weim.” He was a little more challenging to draw, but I ended up very happy with the result:
After that was done, all four of her images were resized and I made them into little buttons for her site, using screencaps to figure out what would look best in her sidebar. On her site they float in serene white down the side, but I added a bit of a border for their visit here.
It goes without saying that, although many of the images on this site are usable through Creative Commons licensing, these commissioned images belong to Elizabeth alone.
“I am just in love with my new sidebar buttons from Amy. They are so me, and so perfect, and I really do not have enough words to say how much I love them.”
Categories: Completed Commissions, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Whimsical and Strange
Tags: all rights reserved, cartoon, commission, copic marker, nfs, pen and ink
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Weeble Wednesday: Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010
Adding another weeble to my depictions of the mythos of HP Lovecraft, I give you Nyarlathotep. He appears at least twice as a handsome, charismatic Pharaoh gathering armies for the Great Old Ones. He’s also known as the Crawling Chaos, and he shows up in a few other, less palatable forms, in other stories. I had fun drawing his creepy-crawly shadow, not to mention the sneaky monsterified details on his otherwise traditional costume.
Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, 5″x7″ pen, ink and Copic marker on paper.
Categories: Angels, Cthulhu, and Other Myths, Daily Art, People, Figures and Faces, Series and Books, Tentacles, Things I'm a Fan Of, Whimsical and Strange, Zombies, Skulls, and Other Morbid Things
Tags: coloring book, copic marker, for sale, lovecraft, monster, pen and ink, tentacles, weeble
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