Illustration Friday: Haunt!

Two in a row for Illustration Friday entries! This week's, Haunt, brought many ideas, and the one I liked the best was this image of being haunted by worries at night. While working on it, I heard a piece of the beautiful Men at Work song, Overkill: "Ghosts appear and fade away." It fit perfectly.

Raccoons!

Here are some sketches from a new story idea about....raccoons!

Sky -- Illustration Friday

I am excited to be back doing Illustration Friday challenges after a little while away! This week's challenge is "Sky," a great topic, full of possibilities! Some weeks I struggle and struggle to come up with an idea, this week's came pretty quickly: a girl leaning her ladder on the clouds and discovering the strange water-like quality of the sky. I'm not crazy about the execution -- sketchy and quickly colored in Photoshop -- but I am so happy to have an entry. Thanks to Creations by Mit for her encouragement!

The Tarot Card Collective

Here is my mostly completed painting for a group show with the Tarot Card Collective, a group of 22 artists in the Lowell area. We each picked a card from a deck of the Major Arcana cards to interpret in our own style and medium. I picked card number 2, The High Priestess.

My painting will be in a one-night group show in Lowell on Halloween.

Painting this piece was a great process to go through; I got a lot of helpful feedback that helped me add and develop details that really made the image more interesting to look at. I will remember and use the advice going forward! 

A little about The High Priestess: she represents looking within to find answers when struggling with a decision. She sits, representing stability, and is between a black and white column, which represent good and evil, opposing forces at work. She holds scrolls which contain all the knowledge you will need, and holds the crescent moon, a symbol of night and intuition. The curtain with pomegranates behind her blocks a view of the sea, hinting at the vastness of knowledge beyond this present decision. She wears the crown of Isis, also a waxing, full and waning moon, symbolic of night and intuition. I think she is a good card to get, a positive and guiding force, one that asks us to slow down and listen intently to ourselves for answers we are seeking.

My intent in the painting was to make an approachable Priestess, instead of a dark or haunting one. Someone who is a little uncertain herself, but still playing the role she has been asked to play.