A Gaggle of Witches

I finished that painting of a gaggle of bad witches from 'Good Witches Bad Witches' but haven't been able to post it here due to a defunct (and now replaced) computer which I look forward to beating with a baseball bat this afternoon. My new computer is making me very happy.

So, you can see the in-progress painting in my last post, and now here it is finished. It's watercolour on paper and it depicts European witches.  

For those that don't know about the project 'Good Witches Bad Witches' - this is being developed as a children's book about the witches of the world, a series of witch sculptures which will be exhibited in LA and a short film. You can find out more about it by exploring this blog or head straight to the website page here.

Back soon!

Shout Outs!

First, a bit about what I've been up to... I ran out of brown clay and so had to put my tree sculpt on the back-burner whilst I wait for my Amazon delivery, so in the meantime I've planned and started painting an illustration for the book 'Good Witches Bad Witches'. (See my progress below)

I've always been inspired by Norman Rockwell's paintings which show a gathering of people (for instance his 'Golden Rule' which you can see here), and for ages I've had in mind an illustration of my 'bad witches' in a similar crowd setting. And if you're interested n learning more about Norman Rockwell you should check out his page on Artsy (here). Artsy is a great resource for art collectors by the way, so you should out the site anyway!

The first sketch was just to see how many faces (from my sketchbook here) I could get onto one page. Then I roughly scribbled some crayon colour over it to make sure I didn't have all the redheads on one side and blondes / greys on the other. Then I re-drew it, this time paying more attention to form (inspiration from Rockwell). Then I drew it a final time in pencil, and larger.

I hope to have this painting finished by the weekend and I'll post it here when it is.

And now some 'shout outs' as Americans would put it. To everyone else - 'giving credit to / raising awareness of' some of the artists I met at Comic Con last weekend.

Melissa Pagluica. This artwork has a slight Mucha feel to it, but is super original and just beautiful. She writes her own work too - very talented. Check out here work here.

Vin Teng. This artist does amazing sculptures. I actually watched him work at his booth at Comic Con - very impressive. Lovely bloke too. Find out more here.

Jack and the Pirate Attack / Jack and the Zombie Attack. These books were written and illustrated by this fantastic husband and wife team I met at Comic Con. Find out more here.

Mike Bocianowski. This guy's work was so enchanting! Adorable and a lot of humour. See more here.

Josh Shalek. This guy is brilliant! He writes and illustrates his own comics, has done an album cover, and he was one of the most buzzing, ambitious people at Comic Con - and I just love that kind of energy. See more here.

Comic Relief

Just got back from San Diego where I experienced my first Comic Con adventure. Wow... 130,000 people in one space... many in costume, many huge fans of fantasy, sci-fi and comics. It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be!

For anyone who does not know, Comic Con is a nonprofit educational corporation dedicated to creating awareness and appreciation for comics and related popular art forms. (Yes, I just got that from their website). 

Anyway, I had a blast. It was 4 days of fascinating talks and professional panels and admiring artists' work in the main hall.
I found the artists talented, friendly and eager to talk about their work (many of them had used Kickstarter to fund a beautiful book or game).
However, I was prompted to draw this silly cartoon for comic relief when I got back to the hotel on day one. I just coloured it in now using Photoshop. It was inspired by a row of male artists who had their 'verging-on-porn-superhero' artwork stacked all around them, and at the same time ignored all women who came to their booths. Kinda a funny thing I thought, as one artist who drew only redheads totally blanked me when I came to chat to him. After a couple of failed attempts to speak to him I finally slunk off, with a real déjà vu high school flashback thing happening!! ;)

In other news.... my Tall Tales Productions website is back!

The site's been down for a few months as I redesigned it and switched to a different server, but it's back now. However, during the time it was down I had it redirect here to my blog. Now the site is back up it may still redirect you, but the quick solution is to follow the link - www.tall-tales.com and then quickly hit the refresh button (as shown below) if it starts trying to redirect you to my blog. You'll only need to do this once and then it'll always work.

Thanks for taking a look.

Here are a few photos from Comic Con, San Diego, 2015.

comic-con sexism, comic book sexism, comic book artists misogyny. sexism in comics, feminism in comic 

Nerd Alert!

Not content with dressing in big flouncy dresses and fairy wings for the Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball and donning wench outfits for the Renaissance Faire... I am now about to go a step lower further and attend Comic-Con.

I'm only kidding, I think it will be great fun and a great crowd. Next year I'll have my own table there so I'm keen to get a good look at the place and feel for what it's about. I have a feeling I might stick out like an impostor in a sea of Supermen and Galadriels. Should be fun though and I'll definitely show photos on this blog when I get back from San Diego.

In other news.... you haven't heard from me for two weeks as I've been working on projects for publishing, and thus don't have that much to show you. However, last night after my evening plans fell through I sat at my desk and sketched witch after witch after witch.... looks like I've got the next 10 designs kinda covered and so I'll be back to proffering a witch a week in no time.

I've also begun work on a miniature tree.... i's going to look a lot like that old illustration of mine... stay tuned!