Appearances! And finished piece "Whatcha Reading"

Whatcha Reading?

Size: 11x14

Medium: Watercolors

Detail closeup views & Prints available -here-

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Some upcoming appearances in the west coast!

 
PANTHEACON - The 19th Annual PantheaCon will be held Feb. 15 – 18, 2013 (President’s Day Weekend) at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, CA. Shadowscapes will have a booth in the main mezzanine exhibitor area.

FAERIECON WEST - FEBRUARY 22ND-24TH, 2013 at the RENAISSANCE SEATTLE HOTEL - 515 Madison Street, Seattle, WA 98104. Shadowscapes will have a booth in the main exhibitor area.

If you will be attending either event, and would like to make any special requests for books, prints, or originals that you would like me to bring, please do not feel shy about emailing or leaving me a note, to request the pieces beforehand, as I don't bring my entire stock to shows!

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So, back to this recently finished painting. Some scans of the journey:

Initial brainstorming in my sketchbook.

Finalized sketch, ready for painting.

Painting.

 

Dreamscapes 3 sketch & Upcoming Conventions

Cover for the next Dreamscapes book, ready for painting!

Hoping to finish this before Dragon*con sneaks up on me. Speaking of which, here are a couple of upcoming appearances:

• SF BATS (San Francisco Bay Area Tarot Symposium) - August 27-28, Golden Gateway Holiday Inn, SF. Booth in the bazaar from 10am-5pm.

• Dragon*con - September 2-5 - Atlanta, GA. Booth in the Exhibitor Hall.

As always, if you plan to attend this and would like me to bring along any specific books/prints/originals, let me know before the show! I don't always pack everything I have, and so I can't guarantee it'll come unless you speak up.

Wondercon 2011, San Francisco Moscone Center

Turns out I will be at WonderCon this year after all. Initially, I had sent in the paperwork too late, and was on the waiting list, but I got confirmation last month that I will be having a spot after all. Look for me in the artist alley! The booth will be listed in the program book as "Shadowscapes - Stephanie Pui-Mun Law".

As always, if there are any prints/books/items/originals in particular you want me to bring, don't be shy about leaving me a note or emailing to request. I usually only bring a small portion of my inventory, and so if you're looking for something specific, best to let me know ahead of time!

Wondercon
April 1-3
Moscone Center South, San Francisco, CA
Artist alley booth #AA-122

SF BATS and Dragoncon

With both of these around the corner, here's my annual reminder that if you want me to bring something specific with me to the convention please don't be shy to email me and request it. I have a lot of prints and so the selection that I carry with me to the convention is only what I think is more popular. Every year there's always someone who comes up to me at a show and asks if I have a particular print with me and I have to disappoint them with not having brought it. I'm also happy to reserve items ahead of time.

SF BATS - August 28, San Francisco CA
Dragoncon - September 3-6, Atlanta GA

More Remarques

More remarques for the prints I'm putting in Dragoncon's art show.

Almost done, just a couple more to go.

A peek at a few more of them:

Dragoncon Mats

Dragoncon is around the corner again!
September 3-6, Atlanta, GA

I'll be having a booth in the Exhibitor hall, sharing with Elmore Productions; and also will have artwork hanging in the art show. I always like to individualize the prints that I hang in art shows by doing an ink remarque on the mat. Been working on those the past few days:

This one's my favorite:

INATS & Colorado

Had a lovely trip out to Denver. My artist friend Sandra Santara was kind enough to show me around her local haunts. On our way to breakfast at a tasty Cajun joint in Boulder we stopped for a breath of fresh air at this lovely vantage point.

The recent rain made the wildflowers happy, and there was a glowing yellow spread of them carpeting the fields and leading up to the distant blue mountains.

Also took a brief detour to a neat little teahouse full of imported Mongolian decor. I found it interesting that the Mongolian motifs looked almost Celtic with the panels of interlacing, or Venetian in the coloring and swirls. Picked up some yummy teas while I was there: Blueberry Rooibos, and Lady Grey's Garden (Earl Grey with floral accents. Smells and tastes almost chocolaty!)

Back on the road, and we finally meandered back over to Denver to make it to INATS around noon. The signing was a success. Llewellyn folks were super friendly and welcoming to me.

As we drive back to the airport on Sunday, the "Demon Blue Stallion" (as Sandra dubs it) wishes you a safe journey (or something like that). Looks kinda ominous with those glowing red coal eyes and the lurking storms overhead huh?

Keyword Sketch Cards (and conventions)

A few convention notes:
* San Diego Comic-con appearance has been canceled. I decided that it was going to be a bit rough to take off from my family for a full week this year. I do want to get back to it next year though!
* INATS - I'll still be going to Denver,CO next weekend and will be doing signings in the Buyer's Lounge on Sunday June 27th from 2-3pm
* SFBATS - Something a bit closer to home than SDCC. I'll have a booth at this San Francisco show August 28-29.

Special Edition kits that are going out in the mail this week:

PantheaCon

I'll be poking my head up out of the Foxhole in a couple of weekends for PantheaCon. It will be over President's Day Weekend, February 12-15. San Jose, CA.

Drop me a note if you plan to attend, and would like me to bring along any particular items. I always hate to disappoint someone when they show up asking for a specific print that I didn't bring. It's impossible to bring my whole collection because there's a LOT!

While I'm on the subject of conventions, here's the (much truncated) list for this year. Many of the shows I've been a regular at for the past decade will be skipped this year, but I'll be back to my normal convention schedule next year.

Feb. 12-15 PantheaCon, San Jose,CA
July 22-25 Comic-Con, San Diego,CA
Sept 3-6 Dragoncon, Atlanta,GA

Meanwhile, a couple of scribble sketches for your viewing pleasure, for projects currently in the works:

wedding invitation commission

ink drawing commission, sleeping-beauty-ish type of theme

Comic-con

Back from Comic-con! Happy to be home, but once again, I seem to have caught my yearly summer-convention-cold. Such large crowds of people seem to make it inevitable for me. It's a rather sniffly/sneezy homecoming as a result.

Shared booth space with my artist friend Sandra Santara. I have to say that the nice booth setup was entirely thanks to her, as she brought all the carpet panels for hanging our art up on, as well as all the lighting. My usual convention setup is more sparse than this. It was one of the few occasions I had to bring framed originals with me as well, since I drove the 8 hours south to San Diego with my brother this time, rather than flying as I normally do for Gencon and Dragoncon.

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A snapshot of a quick drawing I did one evening in a friend's sketchbook while hanging out at the Westin. I had left my own notebooks and things back at the hotel room, and with a room full of artists sketching away, I needed something to do to keep my hands busy. And since Allen is a goober and takes 3 years ever to scan any drawings I ever give him at shows, I took a bad photo of it.

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At every show, there's always busy times when I can't seem to pull prints out fast enough or answer the 4 questions that are shot my way at once; and then there are the quiet lulls where you wonder where everyone suddenly vanished off to and whether those garlic pita chips were perhaps perfuming the air around you.

I like to dig out my pens and work on ink drawings during the quiet spells. Once upon a time when I first started going to conventions I would actually bring paintings to work on, but I find now that those are too distracting to start and stop constantly. And having to worry about not spilling the water cup is an extra annoyance (especially so in a situation like Sandra and I had at this show where we were crowded so close we were practically in each others' laps!) Ink is nice and easy to pick up when I have the time, and set aside when necessary.

Inspired by a banyan tree I saw recently on my Maui trip whose roots were tangled around a large boulder (which we dubbed "the big ole' tree ball") I scribbled a quick sketch and worked on this for the first couple of days. There's almost a meditative quality about working on detailed line textures.

"Offerings"
7x11 inches
brown hi-tec-c gel pen on bristol board

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And then when that was done and I got tired of twiddling my fingers, I pulled out another sheet and started with some random lines. They quickly resolved into nautiluses, a few photos of which I found floating in my digital camera, which conveniently was on hand. Perhaps a bit of Cthulu inspiration as well. Hard to go to a con and not see something Cthulu. Or perhaps it was just spirals on the mind.

"Nautilus"
7x11 inches
black hi-tec-c gel pen on bristol board

(Semi) Old Pieces Posted to Etsy

Nearly done packing for Comic-con, and matting pieces for Dragoncon mail-in. What a relief. Prepping for the bigger shows is always several day's work of going through my inventory, figuring out what I need to re-order from my suppliers, figuring which and how many of each print to bring along, and just general chaos in the house as I sort everything out into large piles near the front door (for my husband to trip over as he comes home at night). I've managed to streamline things a bit over the years. Inventory of prints is much easier now than it was in my disorganized early days of con-going. (Simply alphabetizing my stock was a huge improvement.)

Found a box of some matted pieces in the garage while sorting out what to bring to Comic-con. I do seem to find a lot of unexpected treasures in the garage huh? Think what I'd discover if I'd lived here for longer than two years! Surprises: the rewards for a scatterbrain.

Anyway, they're mostly little pieces. Not that old, just 2-4 years maybe. Posted them up on etsy for those who might be interested.

* 3 original watercolors, from Dreamscapes
* 7 original ink drawings, from because-I-feel-like-it

Step this way to see the rest of them.

Madly Matting

Past few days have been spent doing one of my least favorite things -- matting. Lug out the heavy mat cutter from its storage in the closet, dig out the sheets of mat board from behind the piano where they spend most of their time serving as sound dampeners (piano in a mostly empty, hardwood floor room is loud!), and set about measuring and cutting. Preparation for Dragon*con, though unfortunately I will miss actually attending that one in person this year! But I will be at both Comic-con (next week), and Gencon (next month).

Though I hate the mat cutting part, what is a little bit more fun is what I do after I've cut them. For convention auctions, I like to do a bit of custom ink art on the borders to make each piece unique. Here's a couple that were just finished today:

Upcoming Appearances:

Shadowscapes will be at San Diego Comic-Con from July 23-26. Look for me at booth #4813, listed under Ruth Thompson's Tarnished Images. If you have any requests for books/originals/prints that you would like me to bring to the show, now is the time to ask for it. Feel free to drop me a note with your requests.

Fanime Tidbits - "hardcore thirty or something"

Halfway through the weekend. Some Fanime tidbits:

* I watched a guy stake out the corner of the hall near my booth as his personal lightsaber skillz showcase arena. Basically a much more agile version of the infamous Star Wars Kid, done right out there in the open: at least twice as old, completely unashamed, reveling in his audience. That's the fun of cons -- letting yourself just be a big kid with no excuses and no self-consciousness. Letting go!

* Chatted with a fellow who stopped by my booth. He turned out to be a lawyer from D.C. on a business trip to San Francisco. He was told by someone back home, "Oh, you should just stay in San Jose. It'll be quiet and peacefully dead there. Nothing ever happens in San Jose." Well he showed up at the Fairmont Hotel, to find this strange thing called an anime convention going on, with a constant parade of costumes and huge crowds of people. Not exactly "peacefully dead". He took it all in stride and jumped right into the fun with a weekend pass. He was talking to me about how after seeing all the artists here, he wanted to go home and see about starting up some pro-bono work for artists. I told him there was definitely a need for that. Far too many artists naively walk into contracts that end up biting them, and there's little most artists can do about it because the size of the jobs just doesn't make it economically feasible to consult a lawyer for every contract. We learn by trial and error, and hope that we don't land into too big of an error.

Incidentally, something I recommend for anyone who has an important contract to review -- look up to see if your state has a Lawyers for the Arts group. They charge a nominal fee, but can give you very good advice, and look over contracts that you really don't want to get screwed on. Unfortunately each state has their own group, and some I hear are better than others. I have had very good experiences with California's.

* Overheard from a fan who was gushing at a neighboring artist a couple of tables over. "OMG! You're only twenty-four? I've been watching your art and I always thought you must be like this hardcore person that's like THIRTY or something."
Gah. Didn't that make me feel old!

Inklings II shipment arrived!

Well that's a huge load off my chest. I was worried that UPS wouldn't arrive in time before I had to leave for my hour long drive to the south bay tonight. Having had all kinds of UPS-woes in the past, I have low expectations; though the situation seems to have greatly improved once I moved out of an apartment and into a house instead. I used to scream curses at UPS and Fedex on a regular basis when they foiled my plans.

At any rate, Inklings II is here. I'll probably be spending a good portion of Fanime doing the cover sketches for the pre-orders. It'll give me something to do during the downtime at the show! I should have them ready to ship by the next Friday.

For any other artists looking for a POD company with good quality greyscale (NOT the laser dots that you'll see with most PODs, which incidentally was what made my search take so long, I recommend QualityPOD. Tell them that I sent you. :)

Inklings II

* $20.00 (+$15.00 for an original ink drawing on the inside cover)

* 56 pages of b&w ink drawings

* 8.5x8.5 inches, perfectbound

Kicking up the Dust

A few days before any convention seems to be the time for really kicking up the dust in my studio. Diving headfirst into the closet and mounds of prints and trying to sort them out into portfolios and boxes in order to bring with me to the show. The frequency of my attending shows is spread out just enough that I have time to disperse all the products back to various corners of the house, garage, basement, and office, until the next convention rolls around. There's probably a better way of managing this, but physical organization has never been my strongest suit.

Fanime is coming up this Friday. Fortunately this one isn't too far; just an hour's drive south of where I live, in San Jose. Close to where I grew up. It's a good chance for me to hang around with old friends during the evenings, and with the few of them brave enough to venture out to see what conventions are all about. Most of them are a bit wary of the prospect. My mother-in-law came to visit me at New York Comic-con one year. She came back to my booth after an hour of exploring, and exclaimed wide-eyed, "There's someone there selling Voodoo Babies!" And we won't even go into my own mother's reaction after a quick trip to the restroom at Baycon a decade ago. Let's just say she was a bit perturbed at some wardrobe malfuctions that were being fixed up.

Taking a break for now. Experimenting with various Riccarelli recipes. Haven't quite found The One I'm looking for yet. Well, they ended up looking quite nice.