This is a sketch I finished yesterday, to practice making stone textures in pen. I feel like I somewhat succeeded, but I still need to practice illustrating depth. For example: that sculpture of the goddess is supposed to be sitting in a recess in the wall. I don’t feel like I did a good enough job of showing how deep the recess is. It could be fixed with tones, though, probably.
Oh, let me explain what this sketch is showing:
Jamie Roberts, the figure in the foreground, is approaching the entrance to the abandoned temple/city of Kinyaht. Kinyaht is entirely underground except for the entrance, which is covered in sculptures of the Goddess.
In their mythology, the Goddess created the World, and when people and creatures die, they return to an otherworld called The Way. In this mythology, the easiest way to get to The Way is through caves and going underground, so some people got together and built Kinyaht, an underground temple.
By the time Jamie and her friends find this temple entrance, though, it’s revealed that no one has been in Kinyaht for over 500 years…
I’m looking forward to developing this environment further, and practicing more backgrounds, landscapes, and environments. It’s something I want to get better at.
Thank you for reading! I’ll see you tomorrow with a new post.
There’s no review today (I’ll have a new review for Review Day Tuesday next week).
Instead, I wanted to give you an update on my Superhero Ladies series of sketches.
I already wrote post after post about them, even one featuring Malarkey Maddie, a superheroine sketched for the series.
Well the good news is, there are now 31 sketches done, which is more than enough for the eBook!
I still have to spot check quite a few of them, but I can show you some of the finished ladies in the series.
And here are some snapshots from my camera of some of the looser, sketchier ones.
This one was actually named by one of my Twitter peeps. Thanks, @JN_Monk!
That last one is a trans girl because I realized towards the tail end of this project, “Crap! I could have incorporated more trans girls in this line up!” I’ll see if I can muster up at least one or two more, because I want this collection of characters to be diverse and inclusive, just like ladies IRL.
Although that reminds me of how I was going to add at least a few magical girls in this line up, as well, but in the end I really only got one. Oops.
The next step with this series is to make a sketch or two more, touch them all up, and then format them into an eBook so y’all can get a copy of this awesome collection for yourself!
Well, I originally said they would be printed and ready by January 31st. I’ve been talking to the folks who will print the book (who are the same folks that printed the book edition of Validation), and I have pretty much everything together.
However, I’m fixing some formatting errors before I send the book off to print. I want this book to look its best, darnit!
But that means the book won’t be available on January 31st.
The latest the book will hit the market is February 13th (and yes, that IS a Friday the 13th. No, I’m not superstitious about it).
You can still pre-order a copy, so I can reserve a book JUST FOR YOU from the printer (because I like you, reader, and you are awesome). It’s $10, and that price includes shipping.
I did not find out about this badass until earlier this week. I should have known better than to stay ignorant for so long, because Rosa Bonheur is her own special kind of awesome.
She was raised in a socialist family that sought equality for the sexes, and she smoked cigars, cut her hair short, wore mens clothing (even gaining a permit from the police to do so), and it was rumored that she had lady lovers (why else would Art History Archive call Anna Klumpke her “special companion until her death”?). Most importantly, she was a world-renowned painter at a time when women were not regarded as artistic.
She was born in 1822 into a family of artists – her father was a trained artist and each of her four siblings had a vocation. Because training women in the arts was rare and unheard of in the 1800s, Rosa’s training was under her father as an apprentice in his shop. She copied engravings, drew still lifes, and copied paintings by masters in the Loeuvre. She also frequented “masculine” areas like horse fairs and slaughterhouses to study the anatomy of animals.
As a matter of fact, her subject of choice in her paintings were almost always animals, and she became famous for her animal paintings. She showed at the Paris Salon so many times the judges eventually gave her permission to just send her work in rather than go through the jury process.
Her most famous painting is Le Marché aux Chevaux, or “The Horse Fair,” show below:
When it was shown she was 31 years old.
She won quite a few gold medals for painting in the Salon, and also got the following honors over the course of her life:
Honorary member of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Société des Artistes Belges,
Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (she was the first woman to get this award)
The Cross of San Carlos of Mexico
member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of Antwerp, Belgium
Commander’s Cross of the Royal Order of Isabella
Catholic Cross
The Leopold Cross
honorary member of the Royal Academy of Watercolorists of London
Mérite des Beaux-Arts de Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
Officier de la Légion d’Honneur (the first woman honored with this position)
While her badassery was well-recognized, she eventually decided she didn’t like the spotlight and so she retired to the country side, drawing and painting until her death in 1899 at the age of 78. Many of her sketches and paintings were found posthumously by her aforementioned “special partner” Anna Klumpke.
If you want to find out more about this awesome painter, check out the Art History Archive, and books like Rosa Bonheur by Rosalia Shriver.
Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you on Monday.
As I wrote before, for the month of January, I’m drawing one new superhero lady every day. Once the month is up, I’ll be compiling the sketches into an eBook.
Today I want to show you one of my favorite ones I’ve done so far.
Her name is Malarkey Maddie.
Malarkey Maddie!
I loosely based her on a fan I met at Phoenix Comicon, who wore a shirt saying something like “Crush the Patriarchy!” My response was, “Down with the Patriarchy! Up with the Malarkey!”
Malarkey stayed floating around in my head for a while until this sketch series happened. Then I thought back on that fan and that phrase, and went, “What if a superhero lady incorporated that into their superhero name?”
And Malarkey Maddie became a superhero.
She may not fight against the Patriarchy, since it’s an abstract concept and not a person. So she has yet to get an arch nemesis.
She IS, however, super strong and has the ability to fly.
She doesn’t have a story yet, but she’ll be mentioned in other stories I’m working on. Maybe she’s the favorite superhero of Charlie from Charlie & Clow? Or Tracy’s favorite comic book hero?
Who knows what the future will hold for Malarkey Maddie?
If you have any ideas, I would love to read them in comments.
