Fungi Patterns {Art}

Hello friends!

This week I want to share a little bit of photo editing with you! a while ago I decided to see if I could find anything magical to photograph and went out in the wilderness where I found a little patch of grassland fungi! These beautiful mushrooms were so tiny and their colours seemed so vivid against the green of the grass (especially in December!). And then I thought instead to just editing them, why not manipulate them in Affinity to try and create some interesting patterns.

So, enjoy some wild foraging symmetry…

Symmetry is apparent when both sides of a photo mirrors the each other, createing a feeling of harmony and making the image more pleasing to look at. Now there are some with a great enough talent to do this naturally when using a camera – I find it easier and more fun to put an image into my photo editing and manipulation software (I use Affinity Photo its like Adobe Photoshop.) and then repeat the image the desired amount of times, flipping and rotating were necessary.

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The Grim Squeaker {Art}

Hello friends, I hope the past week has treated you well. 

This week I thought I’d post a new illustration and I thought I’d share this one with you. Reaper Man is the 11th Discworld book by the comic and literary genius that was Sir Terry Pratchett, and is one of the best books out there (actually all the Discworld book are fantastic) Its main character is Death and later in the Death related books the Death of Rats arrives, the first of which is Reaper Man.

The Grim Squeaker is essentially a ‘living’ skeleton of a rat, that wears a black hood and carries a tiny scythe. If you haven’t read the books I totally recommend them! I don’t want to give away any spoilers (even though the book was released in 1991!) because they’re such wonderful books and once you’ve read one or two before you know it you’ve read them all!!!!!

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New Look {artymissk.com}

Hello my friends, I hope you’re having a prosperous start to 2022!

I know the Friday’s are normally post days but this is an extra little one as I finally made the decision to change my domain and blog name.

My former name of kareynolds .net has been a dear friend since way back in March 2013 (I can’t believe that’s basically a decade!) but I decided that artymissk.com was a good step forward in my blogging life as it relates to my Twitter/DeviantArt/Tumblr/YouTube accounts. It was so easy to do and yet I’ve been putting it off for ages.

What do you think of the new name and artwork?

I hope you continue to follow my blog and join me on my artistic and photographic journey.

K

x

The Grim Squeaker At Hogswatch {Art}

Happy Christmas!

On this beautiful Christmas Eve I’d like to wish everyone a truly Merry Christmas and a Happy Hogswatch, this is a little illustration of the Grim Squeaker (AKA The Death of Rats) from Terry Pratchett’s who appears throughout the Discworld series from Reaper Man onwards. I’ve drawn him as the Hogfather to celebrate 50 years of Terry.

I hope all of your dreams come true.

Mind how you go!

Terry Pratchett

Wild Mushrooms {Photography}

In a bid to hold onto the last of this years sunshine (before winter completely sets in) I decided to see if I could find anything magical to photograph and while out in the wilderness I found a very lovely little patch of grassland fungi! These beautiful mushrooms were tiny and their colours seemed so vivid against the green of the grass. I love fungi there are so many species and colours and they grow in the most unlikely places.

So, enjoy some wild foraging photography…and a few doodles…

This is one of my favorites from the shoot. I love how simple and stock-photography-like it looks. The way the light hits the mushroom and the sunlight through the grass just feels so natural…

Now I know never to eat mushrooms I find, I don’t even like to touch them – unless I’m with someone who genuinely knows what they’re doing! Let’s be honest I just like to photograph and draw them so I thought I’d try and put together a little collection of photographs to show off the beauty of these amazing little fungi.

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The White Rabbit {Art}

The White Rabbit was illustrated by Sir John Tenniel for ‘Alice’s adventures in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll in 1866. I absolutely love his illustrations, so this is my attempt at Sir John’s White rabbit of Hearts. I’m quite pleased with it! Drawn with Winsor & Newton Indian ink.

“Near the King was the White Rabbit with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other.

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A World of My Own {Art}

Alice in wonderland has long been one of my favourite things in the world so continuing my experimenting with water colours to try and bring more green and nature inside in the winter and combining my love of all things green with my love of calligraphy and quotes, they don’t take long to do, but look really effective against a white wall – my funny little brain likes to pretend its alchemy!

Little picnic in the woods {Art/Photography Project}

Its happened, its autumn – although I feel like we skipped my favourite season and have gone straight to winter, its so cold!

But I’ve been out in the wild to photograph the change in nature and I took this with me.

The unexpectedly small tea party. Created using paper, unsurprisingly this took longer than expected.  Its made to be about the same size as dollhouse furniture (I think its 1/12 scale) and then I covered some dollhouse dishes.  I made it years ago and found it recently, can’t believe its still holding together!

I made this when I was a Uni as a part of my finals as part of an Alice in Wonderland project. It’s not using actual book pages (I could never destroy a book like that!) but is from photocopies from a book. The paper was then rolled or lined with card to help it keep its shape.

Alice in Wonderland is a big part of my life and I have an awful lot of art to go with it!

Tolkientober Days 29-31

Well this is it, the last post for Tolkientober 2021.

Day 30 was a rest day, thankfully as it had been everyday for about ten days!

Day 31: Home, so I’ve done a quick little watercolour style Hobbiton on photoshop. I’m really happy with how this turned out.

Day 29: Tears – So I focused on the tears of Arwen Undomiel. I then overlaid the Gandalf quote from ROTK.

“Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth,” Gandalf says to the gathered companions. “Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” And this, especially now, is what we need to remind ourselves: that not all tears are evil.”

Whoo! In the words of Frodo Baggins Its done! Below is a round up of all my efforts and you know what it doesn’t look to bad! Also I actually stuck with Tolkientober all month (meaning its the first inktober type challenge that I’ve actually finished!)

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Tolkientober Days 27-28

Only a few more days and Tolkientober 2021 will be finished!

Day 27: Hope – I actually created two pieces for this theme for the first tried to illustrate the beacons of Gondor, as Gandalf says in Return Of The King “Hope is kindled.” and the second I chose another Gandalf quote ‘All we have to decide what to do with the time that is given to us’

Day 28: Battle -I actually really struggled with this one, there are so many amazing battles in LOTR but I couldn’t pick one, in the end I settled on Gandalf facing down the Balrog, because its such an iconic good vs evil battle.

Tolkientober Days 24-26

There’s only two more Tolkientober based posts left!

Day 24: Kingdoms – So I chose the kingdom of Erebor from The Hobbit. Not gonna lie this reminds me of the Starbucks logo!

Day 25 was dreams, so I went with Eowyns dream (even though its Faramir’s in the book!) I’m not entirely happy with this one, but what can you do art is like that sometimes.

Éowyn: “I dreamed I saw a great wave climbing over green lands and above the hills. I stood upon the brink. It was utterly dark in the abyss before my feet. A light shone behind me, but I could not turn. I could only stand there, waiting.”

Day 26 of #tolkientober was stars, so I decided to go with A Rhyme of Lore.

On his way to Minas Tirith Gandalf mumbled to himself a Rhyme about the Downfall of Númenor.

Tall ships and tall kings
Three times three,
What brought they from the foundered land 
Over the flowing sea? 
Seven stars and seven stones 
And one white tree.

Rhymes of Lore are small poems that refer to ancient events of history. Rhymes of Lore seem to originate from the Dúnedain of Arnor, some were known to the Hobbits who also had some Rhymes of their own. The Long List of the Ents may also be an example of Rhymes of Lore.

I’m thinking of redrawing all my calligraphy art with ink and watercolours and putting them all on my Etsy shop!

Sounds like a plan don’t it!

Tolkientober Days 20-22

We’ve nearly reached the end of October already!

Day 20: Beauty – In my opinion Richard Armitage’s portrayal of Thorin Oakenshield was beautiful and this particular pice of CAD took so long and was spread over so many layers.

Day 21: Laughter – I always giggle at the thought that the Nazgul were invisible.

Day 22: The Road – I used that literally and put the road within the letter ‘O’

I really prefer the simple pieces I’ve created for this.

Tolkientober Days 17-19

Wow! I cant believe its already time for Day 19 Tolkientober is flying by so quickly.

Day 17: Hands – Now I’m not particularly good at drawing hands so this one was a little challenging but I’m actually quite pleased with it!

Day 18: Party – I love the iconic ‘no admittance’ sign in The Lord Of The Rings.

Continuing to post as many of my offerings for #tolkientober so that I can actually finish posting them on the 31st. Day 19 was eyes, so I did a quick pen and pencil drawing of Smaug’s eye (it was actually for the eye challenge for DeviantArt).

Tolkientober Days 12-14

Nearly half way with Tolkientober already!

Day 12: Magic – I really love quote art! Its so simple to do but so effective and takes almost no time at all when created using CAD.

Day 13: History – So day thirteen is history. I made my own version of the Arkenstone from The Hobbit movies, by finding a fairly biggish smooth stone and painted with a whole pot of glitter nail varnish!

Day 14: – Quest, so I did a quick pen and pencil drawing of Thorin’s map from The Hobbit.

Autumn leaves {Art}

This weeks theme is leaves and nature and greenery, I’ve sat and embroidered a little sampler of leaf designs, not sure when they’ll come in handy but you never know and it looks quite pretty.

The sampler itself only took an hour or so to finish. The hoop its in is six inches across and sewn in variously sized stitches, Its all sewn free hand using coloured cotton floss at a time onto a natural (and excitingly) eco friendly, recycled calico!

I’ve also been experimenting with watercolours and my set of Arteza brush pens to try and bring more green and nature inside for the winter, they don’t take long to do, but look really effective against a white wall – my funny little brain likes to pretend its alchemy!

I’ve always thought that yellow was my favourite colour, but at the moment a lot of my art is green.

Tolkientober Days 10-11

Days nine through eleven for Tolkientober 2021

Day 9 was a rest day! It feels a lot less challenging with the included rest days.

Day 10: Healing – ‘The hands of the King are the hands of a healer and so shall the rightful King be known’ is a quote from Return of the King (Book) and is about Aragorn

Day 11: Fellowship – I decided to recreate the simple but iconic image of the fellowship of the ring leaving Rivendell. and beginning the journey across Middle Earth.

Tolkientober Days 6-8

Here’s a few more days for Tolkientober.

Day 6: Food – As food was the theme I thought I create the unexpectedly small hobbit tea party, unsurprisingly this took longer than expected.

Day 7: Songs – Just a quick little calligraphy art. The Road Goes Ever On, is a walking song by J.R.R. Tolkien, fictionally written by Bilbo Baggins; lyrics from The Hobbit are –

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.

It’s one of my favourites. I’ve made quite a lot of LotR/Hobbit art over the last year, which is cool when you think that the Fellowship of the Ring is twenty this year.

Day 8: Swords A quick pen and pencil of Bilbo’s (and then Frodo’s) sword Sting.

Tolkientober Days 1-4

So this year I decide to try and partake in Tolkientober on twitter and create a piece of art each day relating to the set theme. I know I won’t be able to complete all the challenges but I’m going to try my best to keep up!

Day 1: Ring – This is a wire ring I made, if I had to design a ring of power it would look like this, the wire is only craft jewellery wire but I love how it sort of looks a little viking/medieval.

Day 2 was a rest day – I love that the challenge includes rest days!

Day 3: Enemy – Enemy would that be a reference to Smaug the Terrible? I love illustrating dragons, they are literally one of my favourite things to draw (the other being bees)

Created in Affinity Photo (its like Photoshop) this Smaug was first drawn onto paper and then copied onto my computer. Overall I think it was something like 65 layers I love the orange colour of the dragon and may put more detail into the background eventually…or maybe add a very small burglar hobbit.

Day 4: Forest – The Forest of Fangorn lies on our doorstep painted with oil on canvas, very much in the style of Bob Ross. I took up oil painting at the beginning of lockdown (somewhat unsuccessfully) but I enjoy it nonetheless. This is one of my better ones and I’m genuinely pleased with it.

After years of using watercolour, oil paint is a totally different animal to work with – I cant believe how long it takes to dry!