- 22:45 is grateful for my "Strange Pillows" mermaid watercolor being featured in a #deviantArt news post: fav.me/n95342
- 23:24 Need art (fantastical)? Want to write, trade DVDs, have bellydance gear? Barter with Ellen: ellenmillion.livejournal.com/989984.html
- 23:10 Thanks to D for buying a Dragon Reader Blank Book from my @cafepress shop! www.cafepress.com/whimsicaldreams.180455
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- 11:04 I'm a "Member of the Day" at www.elfwood.com/ !! Woot!
- 10:59 just updated some SF/Fantasy Convention Listings at emg-zine.com/calendar.php for Oct- Feb.
Always looking for additions/changes!
- 15:18 First: a photoshop demo: Video of what they do to an ordinary woman's face to use it in an ad....
There are other interesting videos linked from this page, too. - 15:24 And if that weren't scary enough, Ralph Lauren went WAY beyond it: BoingBoing: The criticism that Ralph Lauren doesn't want you to see!
How shall I help teach my children to see real people, to (if they choose to draw and paint) to include both the real and exaggerated (I certainly do the exaggerations, but not always these directions), to celebrate all of it, in themselves and beyond themselves? Given that so much of the art about faerie and such has for so long (centuries) also had some exaggeration in this way, what does that mean about us humans and what we seek to see? (I mention that more because that's the slant my own art takes, usually, not because I think that's the sum total of art worth seeing by any respect). It's how we internalize our image of ourselves as bodies, but more than that.
Bless Rubens and Paul Gauguin, and that's just the first two that come to my own mind, and they too exaggerate as I think all artists must somehow...
- 10:34 is enjoying this series of grammar posts: http://ozarque.livejournal.com/tag/amer
ican+english+grammar - 11:01 is in awe (again): hotlink.ellenmilliongraphics.com/ellen/b
annerpostcardshow.jpg She does so much and does it so well! - 20:34 "Getting Real About the High Price of Cheap Food" by Bryan Walsh (Time Mag Online) http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,881
6,1917458,00.html
I wonder if it's coming time to write another post about me, choices, values, analogies, predictions (in my ongoing desire to be clear, right, and yet not arrogantly bossy). Hm.
- 09:07 *grateful!* Marianne added not just a link, but a product panel for Whimsical Dreams at her site www.nidlongdir.com/links.html
- 08:30 Art, FINALLY. http://metasilk.deviantart.com/art/Jessi
ca-s-Shearwater-133811663 - 21:36 Shameless Commerce: CafePress has SIGG bottles! So (now) do I! http://www.cafepress.com/whimsicaldream
s?s=whimsicaldreams&type=280
Lo! LoudTweeter is fixed!! Now, if I can get in and adjust my settings...
One of the things that impresses me about Jessica Douglas's work is her use of references in wings, and her ability to work large and fine enough to get just about every darn feather. Not to mention what David Sibley can do (have you seen his bird guides??!!)
I was noodling about on a 4"x6" piece of paper meant actually for printing cards on inkjet printers. As such, it moderately sucks for watercolors, but once I laid in a background (while vaguely thinking I might work at some of Linda Kemp's techniques), I switched to mixing colored pencils and gouache and thicker watercolors, and kept thinking of Ursula Vernon's advice that people will "believe" any lighting and skin tones if you get the shadows right.
Well, I'm not in their class, on any of those counts. I'm not even sure there are enough shadows (there often aren't, in my stuff). And I know I'm working too small and too impatiently to even get halfway to some of their techniques, let alone toward their deeply practiced skills and cool creativity.
On the other hand, they're all teaching me stuff, I keep going when I can find some damn time, and I'm grateful, and pleased with this as a step towards their levels (say, as of a couple years ago; I may never catch up and that's OK too).
It was a sooty shearwater, by the way.
On gear: Shirts and gifts through cafepress; different mugs and totes and doodads at zazzle; and various print sizes at deviantArt.

I wish I could organize my time (find more time? motivation? would quit reading novels?) and give this stuff (art, sales) the time they deserve. I must change somehow...
This one is for
I wish I could paint this well... and I suppose if I could practice and study as much as Stephanie Pui-Mun Law does, I might get there. I am so in awe. Her work is so rich.
Sorry, I'm not including thumbs; it's not my art. Please click 'em!
- 20:44 Just received EMG-zine anthologies: http://ellenmilliongraphics.com/fantasya
rt/emggroup.php?id=37 + vol 1. WAY more beautiful in person!!
Recommended highly. Get both together if you didn't already.
So I had this gnome I painted the other day (he's a bit less than 3" x 4" -- just a bit too large to crop into an ACEO/ATC). But ... he was just this guy. On a plain background. I'm trying to have backgrounds, really I am.
And I had this digital photo of a four-leaf clover, the only one I ever found (I ran home for the camera that day).
And I've not tried digital collage.
So I did. But oh! I really wish my scanner actually could SEE blues. I can't photoshop them to make the digital file look right enough (it's way closer than the scan, mind you). Does anyone know of a scanner than sees blues, for the someday-upgrade-daydream?
As always, suggestions welcome.
Let me know if you want prints (I find myself too impatient, and I want to show the art before implementing prints) -- the original painting is available too, but remember, there's no background, just the gnome.
Ellen accepted "Snow Fleas" in the Fantasy Gift Shop. Yay! Magnets, prints, totes, cool stufff...
Fiddling again with that cool technique of Linda Kemp's -- the negative space, front-to-back stuff. Plus colored pencil. Working on this while waiting for other stuff to dry. Didn't turn out as I'd thought I was planning, but that's OK.
Original is 3"x7" on cold press paper of some kind, watercolors and colored pencil.
Prints can be available, of course. Original is also for sale (very occasionally something sells and I don't get the image page updated soon enough); email me!
Soft pencil and watercolors on the backside of some cold press watercolor paper.
Original is about 3" x 5" (I have a sleepy feverish child on me, so I can't actually measure it right now).
Available for prints, magnets, and much more at deviantPrints, my Zazzle shop, and Whimsical Dreams. If you don't find what you're looking for, please let me know!
As usual, original is also for sale (very occasionally something sells and I don't get the image page updated soon enough); email me with an offer.
Copyright © 2009 Kirsten Talmage
[Edited to note I've set up STUFF with it. Sheesh.]






