The Cavern Rat

The cavern rat, with scale comparison graphic.

Cavern rats dwell within the depths of caves. With a tail that secretes a sticky mucous they affix themselves to cavern ceilings and walls where they dangle, waiting silently for unfortunate creatures to make their way past. These reclusive mammals move sluggishly most of the time, but can strike with lighting fast reflexes to snatch insects, crustaceans, and small bats that venture too close to their long, deadly arms. They can capture prey almost as large as they are, using a venomous bite that immobilizes their victims so that they can be more easily devoured.

Cavern rats are almost completely blind and rely on their ears and sensitive hairs to perceive their surroundings. Large, bony plates along their back offer protection from larger predators and camouflage them against craggy cavern walls. Cavern rats may be active at any time of day. To them, deep within the caverns, it is always night.

The cavern rat drawing demo is an online supplement to The Explorer's Guide to Drawing Fantasy Creatures which can be downloaded here after signing up for the IMPACT Books online mailing list.

First Anniversary of Fabled Earth!

I just realized last night that Wednesday marked the first anniversary of Fabled Earth! Thanks to all of you who have visited, followed, commented and otherwise supported this blog and my artwork over the past year!

Peryton

I made this drawing of a peryton (a mythical creature that had somehow flown under my radar despite my longtime interest in creatures) as part of the prize for the The Shadows that Rush Past contest I held on my blog earlier this year.

For paper-space and aesthetic reasons, the wings are relatively small. They certainly could not realistically lift a powerful creature like this, especially with his heavy antlers. I think he should get a pass, though, since he's a magical creature.

For a great exercise in imagining how a winged fantasy animal like this would need to look in order to achieve flight, check out Terryl Whitlatch's drawing of a pegasus with massive wings. The discussion that follows is also worth a read.

The Artists of Vashon Island

One of the ferries to Vashon Island.

Last month Vinod and I took a weekend trip to Vashon Island (twenty minutes from Seattle by ferry) to experience the bi-annual Vashon Island Art Studio Tours. Creative people are well represented among the island's population of 11,000. In addition to stores and galleries that carry artwork by Vashon Island artists, the island also has its own art association, movie theater and community theater.

A view of Puget Sound from Point Robinson.

Point Robinson Lighthouse

We stayed in a little cottage that sits on peaceful garden grounds at a B&B called The Artist's Studio Loft. The property is nestled between art studios, homes, and farmlands dotted with unoccupied vegetable stands that operate on the honor system.

On the afternoon we arrived we watched birds waddle after a horse, hoping to find the bugs she stirred up as she grazed in the pasture next door. In the evenings we listened to the pleasant chirping of frogs.

Our weekend cottage.

We made it to just over half of the twenty art studios on the list. We would have liked to see them all, but for us two days wasn't enough. We spent too much time chatting with the artists and admiring their work (and their beautiful homes and gardens). We were impressed by the talent and craftsmanship possessed by every artist we visited during our tour. The thought of buying a piece from each one was very tempting, but unfortunately, being artists ourselves, we couldn't afford to. 

How would you like a view like this from your yard?

Or this?

One of Gunter Reimnitz's ravens guards Gordon R. Barnett's balcony.

We visited the following artists and studios:
Empty Nest Studio
Brian Benno Blown Glass
Barnworks
Liz Lewis Pottery
Brian Fisher Studio
Penny Grist and Larry Muir
Reimnitz Studio
Mary Hosick Pottery
Pam Ingalls
Kristen Reitz-Green
GRB Bells

I encourage you to check out their websites and the Vashon Island Art Studio Tour website to learn more about these artists as well as those we did not have the opportunity to meet this time around.

One of Gordon R. Barnett's beautiful bell designs, the Crocus Bell.

Gordon R. Barnett's work space.

We were envious of many artists' beautiful work spaces. I hope to someday have a special studio to work in rather than a disorganized bedroom awkwardly retrofitted for the purpose, crammed with flat files and tabourets. We would have liked to take more pictures, but it was hard to avoid the feeling that we were intruding in the artists' intimate studio spaces.

It was one of the more relaxing and inspirational little vacations in recent memory. We have to go baaaaaack (for the winter tour)!

Edited to fix the link to Pam Ingalls's website, which was previously not working.

Elven Mage

She is very complementary!

Over the last several months I completed several private commissions. Most came to be after having conversations with Gen Con attendees who had taken an interest in my work. I've done a lot of  drawings for people during and after conventions, but this was the first painting I did for a private collection. Rather than conforming to an already existing style guide, commissions are an opportunity to call upon my own internal style guide–something the client is seeking when they ask me to create artwork for them.

Sometimes I like to examine the drawing and the painting of an image side by side. They're fundamentally the same image, but end up looking quite different once value and color are added. There are things about this character I like better at the drawing stage and things I like better at the painting stage. (Sometimes I like an entire image better as a drawing rather than a painting and vice versa.)

Here, I like the expression in her eyes better in the drawing. There's some subtle emotion that I feel I lost once I went to paint. But the painting has volume and warmth that the linework lacks.

What do you think? Are there aspects of one you like more than the other? You're welcome to discuss in the comments!

Hobbits in Spaaaaace!

Recently I completed another character commission for the same client that requested a drawing of his half-orc warrior character. This time, the character hails from a very different setting: a futuristic science-fiction world. She's essentially a "space hobbit" botanist who works on a space station growing hydroponic plants.

Head studies

Maurice Sendak: 1928-2012

More sad news from the art world. Maurice Sendak, beloved artist and author, died today at the age of 83.

Maurice Sendak had the unique ability to tap into the imaginary life of children through his lively characters and dreamlike imagery. Some of my earliest memories of reading (and of being read to) are of his books Chicken Soup with Rice and Pierre: A Cautionary Tale. I remember fondly the illustrations, the catchy rhymes, and even the sensation of holding those little hardcover books in my hands.

It would be difficult to find a person–child or adult–whose connection to art or reading has not been impacted by Mr. Sendak's work. I'm sure my attraction to drawing at a young age was due in some part to his beautiful illustrations in the books I read as a little girl.

I'm guessing he would have been annoyed by my descriptions of his character with my poor prose, so I'll step aside now and allow Mr. Sendak to speak for himself by sharing some recent interviews.

A hilarious interview of Maurice Sendak by Stephen Colbert, in two parts. I have watched this over and over:
Grim Colberty Tales with Maurice Sendak Part 1
Grim Colberty Tales with Maurice Sendak Part 2

A preview video for Spike Jonze's short documentary on Maurice Sendak:
Tell Them Anything You Want

My earlier blog post on Mr. Sendak with a link to a moving Fresh Air Interview:
Maurice Sendak Fresh Air Interview

My sincere condolences to Mr. Sendak's friends and loved ones.

Adam "MCA" Yauch: 1964-2012

Click to read a tribute to Adam Yauch's life on beastieboys.com

I have been listening to the Beastie Boys' music for most of my life. I was shocked and saddened to hear of the death of Adam "MCA" Yauch to cancer on Friday. I loved his unique voice in both the literal and figurative senses of the phrase.

"Serious" music aficionados might consider my music collection woefully inadequate. For whatever reason, I never amassed the massive CD collections my sister and some of my friends had during high school and college. I was always more focused on visual art, and instead amassed a ridiculous collection of comics, art books and toys. But the Beastie Boys have been a mainstay in my modest collection for at least two decades.

Not my copy, but mine's snugly packed away for safekeeping.

The green cassette tape of Ill Communication lived in my car for many years. It was still riding along with me during college.

Nathan Rabin of The AV Club wrote on Friday:

Yauch’s life and career are a testament to the possibilities of emotional, creative, and artistic growth. A man who rose to fame peddling a proudly obnoxious form of adolescent nihilism grew up to be a man whose life and career were defined by idealism and integrity. Adam Yauch wanted to make the world a more compassionate, loving, and funky place. He succeeded. The world is poorer for his loss but richer for the contributions he made. 

My sincere condolences to Mr. Yauch's friends and loved ones.

Top Ten Inspirational Artists

Final Fantasy VI artwork by Yoshitaka Amano

No artist is a blank slate, approaching their craft alone. We bring a little bit of ourselves to each image: our life experiences, our hopes, our feelings on a particular day and, of course, things we have learned from our artistic idols. This list is my attempt to narrow down a vast group of my favorite artists into a Top Ten of those that have been among my most important influences.

Many of the artists on this list do not have their own official websites, so I had to rely on Wikipedia and fan sites to share images and links to additional information on their lives and careers.

Yoshitaka Amano

The artwork of Yoshitaka Amano has been a great inspiration to me over most of my life. Amano's name was the first I wrote down when beginning this Top Ten list. I discovered Amano's work through the Final Fantasy video game series on NES and SNES. I pored over the Nintendo Power magazines and Final Fantasy strategy guides I bought to collect his images of heroic characters, bizarre creatures, and fanciful technology. Amano's confident, yet sensitive use of line, bold patterns and color was unlike anything else I had seen. It sparked my imagination. Though the graphics of video games from the late 1980's and early 1990's did not always faithfully translate his artwork into pixels, Amano's images transported me into the world of Final Fantasy and made me feel as though I lived there.

Chuck Jones

Like most children, I was drawn to cartoons. I didn't just watch animation–I was also fascinated by the way it was created. By the time I was old enough to understand what was going on behind the scenes, I had begun to recognize the work of individual animators. I was especially drawn to Chuck Jones's style and used to be able to pick out when he was animating a particular character. Chuck Jones was responsible for creating several Looney Toons characters, perhaps most famously the mortal enemies Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. 

Jones had a way of drawing and animating the most outrageous expressions on his characters. The diabolical smile of The Grinch towards the beginning of my favorite Chuck Jones animated feature, Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas, is a perfect example. Much of my art during my youth included cartoon animal and monster characters that were undoubtedly inspired by his work.

Akira Toriyama

My high school era discovery of Akira Toriyama's humorous and colorful artwork marked a turning point in my own work towards designing characters. Out of all the artists on this list, most people probably would have picked him out of a lineup as a major influence on my drawing style at the time. Toriyama is most well-known for his famous manga series, Dragon Ball, and his contribution of character and monster designs for the Dragon Warrior video game series. While some may dismiss Toriyama's artwork as just cartoons, he is an excellent draftsman and can just as easily draw cars and complex fantasy machines as he can alien martial artists. I highly recommend his art books, especially the Dragon Ball illustration books and Toriyama's the World and The World Special. Check out this Tumblr to see more of Toriyama's work.

Go to the IMPACT Blog to read the rest!

The Explorer's Guide to Drawing Fantasy Creatures will be on sale at Northlightshop.com through Friday, April 27th. Enter the coupon code DRAWFANTASY upon checkout to receive 10% off!

What I'm Baking: Bake Sale Edition

To coincide with the Worldwide Vegan Bake Sale and Earth Day, Sidecar for Pigs Peace is holding a vegan bake sale this weekend to benefit Pigs Peace Sanctuary. I baked a bunch of goodies for the sale, including Peanut Butter Blondies and Rocky Road Cookies, both from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar. Check out the recipes below:

Peanut Butter Blondies
Recipe conveniently already online!


Rocky Road Cookies

These cookies are delicious and nutty and fudgy.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup non-dairy milk (I use almond)
2 TBSP ground flax seeds
1/2 cup canola oil
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 1/2 cups plus 2 TBSP all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Dutch cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup chocolate chips or chunks
1/2 cup non-dairy white chocolate chips
1/2 cup roasted almonds, chopped

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350º F. Line some cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the almond milk, flax seeds, canola oil, sugar, vanilla extract and almond extract until smooth.
3. Sift in the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Stir to form a thick, wet dough, being careful not to over-mix.
4. Fold in the chocolate chips, white chocolate chips and almonds.
5. Drop about two tablespoons of cookie dough onto a baking sheet about two inches apart, leaving room for the cookies to spread. To more easily measure and distribute the scoops of dough, it's helpful to use a small ice cream scoop sprayed with a little bit of non-stick cooking spray.
6. Bake cookies for 8 to 10 minutes until they have spread and look firm on top. Let them cool on the baking sheet for at least 5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely. (Or eat while warm and gooey if you prefer!)