A new piece finished for a local client, about the practical applications of Christianity in daily life. I wanted to evoke the limited perspective of a map while also having some fun with an Americana folk art vibe. Ended up with a bit of a mid-century look with some of the stylization and colors. I absolutely love how it all came together!
Desktop Calendars Back for 2018!
As always, it's been a blast making them. Currently available in two styles over at my Etsy shop.
A Little Break - Family History
I've been working, occasionally and haphazardly, on the digital restoration of my collection of family photographs. We've got some interesting family history on my mother's side - her maternal grandparents were missionaries in what was once the Belgian Congo during the late 1920s until the 1960s. It's always troubled me, the way ancestors' actions can trouble you in the present. From a postcolonial and modern standpoint a lot of what they attempted to achieve and believed about Africa (in general and the Congo in particular) and its people was horrendously mistaken, offensive, and heavily paternalistic (we've got letters, newspaper clippings, recordings, and even an unfinished biography that testify to that fact). Nevertheless, the photographs they took while in Africa are historically compelling and many of them are really beautiful in my opinion. I'll probably be posting them sporadically.
3D Butterfly Cards
Finally done and ready to go! These guys took a bit of work to get done, but a whole lot of fun all the same. They turned out great (the colors!) and the prints were able to retain that dusty pencil roughness I wanted.
More birds!
Sketches for next year's calendar! Thought I'd get a head start.
I've decided not to limit the color palette like in the past, so these ones are shaping up to be pretty bright! Here's an example of one I've been working on, what I think they'll look like more-or-less:
Ghosts of Algarney County booklets for Mocca Arts Fest!
Got a limited run of these guys to sell! Includes seven of my prints with additional little corresponding narratives.
Yet another blog to struggle to update!
If you're interested, I can recommend all of those books, but especially Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, Thrall by Natasha Trethewey if you're into poetry and art history (it's still pretty accessible if you're not!), and Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih (which was a happy surprise when I picked it up on a whim from the library last year).
(With the potential to be a bit more in depth than on Instagram, though.)
I'm working on sorting out these butterflies for my next project(s). They're meant to be made into little 3D greeting cards and prints, with little bendable wings, but I've yet to finalize the production end of it. They'll be cute when I do! In the meantime, the prototypes get to hang out on my wall, next to my bookshelves.
