Tarot Original Paintings to be released

Well I've finally decided that it is time for me to part from my tarot original paintings. I'd been holding on to all of them up until now. But it's time for them to find some love on peoples' walls rather than the dark interior of a box in my closet! There are a few which will not be sold as I'm keeping them for my personal collection (Page of Wands, Queen of Cups).

I've had requests and nudges from people to indicate interest in the past on various pieces. To keep things fair I will mostly likely be setting a date and time for the release and they'll go on sale at that time, first come first serve basis. Probably will be in January 2011 once I have a chance to recover from holidays. As a general idea, prices for minor arcana ranging from $700-$1000, majors and court cards $1000-$1500. If you're interested in being notified by email of more details when I set the final prices, and when the release date/time will be, you can -add yourself to the notification list-. Monthly installment plans are also an option.

Keyword Sketch Cards

Next batch(es) of special editions going out. Apologies if you have "hermit" selected, I'm ordering more of those from my printer and so those orders won't go out until next Friday.

clockwise: mermaid, origami, searching, victorious, faith, water,
freedome, vibrations, spirit, beginnings, dream

clockwise: passion, dragonflies, tamlin, artist's choice, weaver, dream, perseverance, responsibility

Oakland Zoo

Another zoo trip yesterday for some more reference photos for the next Dreamscapes book. I'm having fun visiting all these zoos and aquariums for this. Oakland Zoo is a lot smaller than San Francisco's, but there they made very good use of what space they have, as well as using the hilly terrain for long meandering paths.

I went with my childhood friend and sketch partner Rubbi and we had a wonderful time making our way through slowly and stopping periodically to sketch.

"Bison cave drawings," due to my poor eyesight and the distance.

Weaver bird nests! Reminded me of "Where the Wild Things Are" which I just saw recently.

Dana thinks this one should be called "Tortoise Descending a Staircase" since it was almost Cubist in its creation! The tortoise sloooooowly walked along the edge of the grass, and it proceeded at a pace that gave me time to sketch it at each point of its progression.

yikes:

New items - Tarot Bags

Had these lovely items come in today! Silky drawstring pouches, good for putting any of your little treasures in (a tarot deck perhaps? Or jewelry or sparklies).

Haven't done a whole lot of painting lately. Aside from not having much time, I've started getting to work on the next Dreamscapes book. I kept telling myself I'd do it "after dragoncon". Well, it's after dragoncon now, so it's time to get going.

Ferret Frolic

Ferret Frolic

Medium: Ink
Size: 5x14

A tattoo commission for war dancing ferrets!

Keyword Sketch Cards

More keyword sketch cards for Tarot Special Editions. Had to restock on kits though, so only half of these will be heading out in the mail tomorrow. The rest should follow in a week. The very brief "down time" moments I had at Dragon*Con were productive!

clockwise: enlightenment, kitsune, tiger, changling, panther, valkyrie, euphoria, dimensions, intent, trust, faith, harlequin

clockwise: gypsy, spider, unicorn, cat, cuchulain, peregrinus, garden, fire, hare, tiger, seeker, sybaritic


tiger (again!), druidic, halloween

Dragoncon Sketchin'

A few other scribblings while at Dragon*Con.
Contribution to this year's charity auction. Drawing on a canvas bag. I rather liked how this dragon turned out!
Back side:

Sketch someone paid for while I was there. "Angel rose":

Dragoncon 2010

As usual I had a blast at Dragoncon. It's always one of my favorite events of the year. The costumes are so much fun to watch, everyone's excited and friendly; and being at the tail end of the convention season means that for all the exhibitors and artists it's a party time as well! I love the chance to meet all my fans and get warm fuzzies from hearing what my art means to them, and also the chance to gabber with like-minds of artist friends. Had a good time hanging around with the ladies of Le Salon des Fantastiques, and my roomies for the show Ruth Thompson and Sandra Santara.

I love visiting the art show as well and getting such inspiration and motivation after viewing the originals of such amazing artists like Donato Giancola, Todd Lockwodd, and Don Maitz. viewing artwork online or in books is never the same as getting up close to the real paintings!

I had a bizarre "small world" moment when I found myself at a group dinner on Sunday sitting across from an artist I had not met before. We introduced ourselves, and it turned out he was a software engineer once upon a time as well. That seems to be pretty rare, I've never yet met another software engineer->artist. Plenty of webdesigners and things, but no one else who ever really dug into programming guts like I used to. Well turned out Marc Scheff used to work for the main competitor of my old Plumtree Software, during that same dot-com boom era.

This year instead of the usual costume-watching at the Hyatt on Saturday evening, I went to the Georgia Aquarium, which was open until 11PM specifically for Dragoncon. It actually turned out to be quite a special experience, especially once the main crowds began to die down and we were among the last few stragglers who could stand in front of the enormous tanks almost alone.

Some sketches from the weekend:

Sunday night, hanging out in the Hyatt bar after dinner at Max Lager's with a huge group of artists.

At the Aquarium:

One of the particularly fun things were all the themed costumes. Mermaids lounging in front of the tropical reefs. Ursula the Sea Witch being friendly with the sharks. Jellyfish bobbing over the heads of the crowds.

Whale sharks and manta rays.

My companion artist (Tiina Purin) for the evening, sketching as well.

As the night wound down. We were among the last stragglers to leave.