Linocut 2

So here's my second ever linocut (well, since I'm this age, done it as a kid too). It was made after a picture I took in the train, and the reflection of the window made some very interesting shapes, resulting in this somewhat abstract print. I decided to leave the lino a bit "messy" and not take away all the little bits that were left, so now it got a few stripes here and there. I made a couple of these prints (about 5) and I'm going to use a few of them to paint over the top, so this work could be seen as unfinished. But I like the shapes anyway, and that's why I'm sharing it :)

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Two portraits

In lack of much work I have done today, I will upload two portraits I have made last week. They are of two relatively new characters which have developed from an RP between me and someone else.

This is Julian, he's a messenger guy and of the same dragon species as my "main" character named Sky. The story behind him is that he's a messenger guy, in a time where mail was only just invented. In this specific setting, he brings around mail between the floating islands on dragonback. The scratches/scars on his muzzle come from an encounter between him and an agressive dragon. His personality is the social type, knowing a lot of people through his work. During wartime he also delivers the news about what's going on in the world, also letting people know about casualties. This is not an easy job however, and it can get quite stressful at times. But Julian is a hard worker and a real altruist. The clothing he's wearing in this portrait is protective headgear made of tough leather and his red scarf, indicating him as a messenger. His blonde hair is a bit of a mutation in his species, seeing as his species usually has dark hair. You could compare it to red hair with humans, slightly unusual, but not unheard of. 

This is Ceran. He's a prince and lives in the same setting as Julian. He has never met Julian though, and he doesn't even live on the same island. His father rules the kingdom and owns many islands around the one that they live on. The white dragons are said to be noble species, and the white colour mutation is thus very valued within the royal family. Though as history goes, Ceran's bloodline is slowly dying out. He has a brother, sister and a couple of uncles and aunts who live on the other islands, but his mother died when he was a young teenager. At some point in the story, his sister falls in love with a servant, and flees the islands in fear of her lover being sentenced to death. The leader of the army (who was supposed to marry this princess and thus get into the royal family) becomes enraged and kills the king to seize the throne, Ceran and his brother Tarik have to flee for their lives. Together with him, their mentor, and their mentor's family, they escape the island to be immersed into an entirely new world, the world in the depths below the floating islands. They might find things that will change their lives completely. Maybe they'll find back their sister at some point? But the world is so incredibly big, and there's so many secrets to uncover... who knows.

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Three more beasts

A couple of more drawings I did today, still feel like I can expand on this somehow.

A slightly traditional looking lion there :)

Also, the reason these are white instead of yellowish like in the last post is because I scanned these with my own scanner. The scanner in college is so much more awesome, picks up all the details and such! That's why I prefer that one greatly.

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Bestiarium

A theme or inspiration I had to work with these last two weeks was "Alles is in orde" (Everything's in order). Everyone in my class got a different "theme", but it's in no way really strict, you can use it as loosely as you want, basically.
I've had plenty of ideas going through my head with this theme, a few of which I have been working on in the print making process. A new idea ocurred to me today, after flipping through some old books. Another way you can look at the word "order" is class, family, category. Mainly, the categories we use to split up the animal kingdom in its many ways. The facinating thing is, old illustrators (mainly those in the middle ages) never seen the animal they had to illustrate for these bestiariums and compendiums of all sorts of exotic animals. This often resulted in misinterpretation of how the animal looked like, only drawing from a description they'd heard. These pictures interested me, and I started to draw a small series of pictures that represent animals in various degrees of accuracy. The whale is rather true to how it looks, but the ibex and okapi look more like monsters than anything else. Especially the seahorse is mindblowing, I based that one on a true picture I had seen, but made it my own nontheless. Anyway, this material might provide basis for later work, we'll see where it goes, in the meantime, enjoy my mini-bestiarium!

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A quick painting

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Some etching tests

Today I've immersed myself in the facinating world of etching! I totally love this technique and I made a couple of really cool things with it. I wasn't able to photograph of scan most of my stuff but I made two small tests (scratched in the surface of smooth/fixated cardboard), which aren't the best I've ever done, but look interesting anyway. I was kidn of dissapointed my scanner ruined the textures, which is the best part of etching imho, oh well, enjoy :)

This is a cougar, and they're definitely not harmless. It could be a cynical comment on such a dangerous animal, looking so cute in this picture. On the other hand, this picture was drawn after a photo of a cougar that got shot for showing violent behavior towards humans, it had attacked a young child (who luckily survived). The cougar might be dead, and he looks so harmless, he might as well be sleeping.

This is the skull of some random animal (don't exactely remember which one), just to test the technique. It's not fantastic, I know :p

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Finally back

After a long, full but fun holiday I thought I would return my attention to my blog rather quickly, but I was mistaken. Not long after my boyfriend left, I got struck down by a rather hefty flu, probably a case of the swine flu even. Anyway, it took me about a week to recover from it, during which time I of course couldn't look after my blog or any other parts of my online life.
I don't have a shocking amount of new material to ut on my blog either, so it might take a while. A new period has started in school, in which I'm taking a minor in printmaking (etching, lithography, screen-printing, etc.) so I should have plenty of new college material in the next few weeks :)