The Extinct Fine Art Gallery

Me and many other very cool artists are participating in the Extinct Fine Art Gallery.  My paintings are going to carry over into the next "cycle" of exhibits on Friday, so you have a couple more days to see the first round and-

"Trish, this is your first blog post in two years, where the blazes have you been?" 

Ah yes.  Well, in a word, I've been busy.  I've been gradually shifting my online presence over to BlueSky, and that's proven to be more of a project than anticipated.  It's been hard, but I hope to get back into the art sharing and blog-posting groove.  Thank you for your patience.

The 2020 Paleo Rewind

Before we completely leave 2020 behind, it might be nice to do a year in review type thing.  And while there are a lot of options out there, I don't believe there's one that's more on brand for me than a Paleontology Year in Review.  Since 2020 was a Lot, even in the realm of prehistoric creatures and the people who love them, this Paleo Rewind gives each month to a different YouTuber and the result is a roller coaster.  Here's the whole shebang, edited together by E.D.G.E.: 

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Art of the Day: Another older painting but another one whose joy and energy I want to bring into the New Year.  Corgi owners seem to like this one.  And yes, Fairies riding Corgis is a Folklore Thing.

"Roger Rabbit and the Secrets of Toontown"

Goodness, I don't even know where to begin with Richard Williams.

I, like many, first learned of the man thanks to "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", a film that simply does not exist without Williams.  This awesome television special, which I remember watching during its premier, is an astounding look behind the scenes.  And it feels like it's from a completely different planet now: animators, voice actors, and effects technicians are all given as much attention as the human stars.  More in fact!  Imagine!



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Art of the Day!

The History of Speculative Zoology

Here's a very nice three-part series by Ben G. Thomas on the world of speculative zoology.  It's a fine introduction to a topic dear to my heart, and goes over most of the major works.  Enjoy:







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Art!

I can't very well let May end without some Mer-May art, now can I?

On Moleskine Altenatives - Again...

Here at the old art blog, I like Sketchbooks a lot.  And I like testing Sketchbooks that are sometimes promoted as Moleskine alternatives.  Over the years, I've met and drawn in quite a few Moleskine alternatives and their quality can vary wildly.  So, in the spirit of the holiday season, here are the four most recent Sketchbooks, reviewed:

I talked a bit about the ZenArt Supplies B6 Sketchbook before and much of my opinion still stands.  I did learn that this Sketchbook takes art markers very well (with insane bleed-through) as seen above, which helps alleviate some of my criticisms.

This awesomeness is the Illo Sketchbook and it is so good.  The pages are nice and thick, and I think I could've easily got away with drawing on both sides, which is a very unique feature among the books I'm reviewing today.  It loves watercolor, pencils, inks, markers and more.  This is, after all, the Sketchbook that saw me through this year's MerMay.  The Illo is my favorite Sketchbook out of the lot and I've already got another one waiting in the wings.

Unfortunately, this means our next two Sketchbooks aren't so great.  This is the Leda Art Supplies Sketchbook.  If you bought a Sketchbook from Amazon recently, you've almost certainly seen it advertised.  I really didn't like the thinness of the paper and that floppy flexible cover is a killer.  And speaking of covers...

We've come to my current Sketchbook and... Look, I love all me Sketchbooks like they are my babies.  This is the Handbook Flexi-Sketch, and about halfway through it's rating a big old "Yikes."  Those pages are thin, thin, thin and they even roll over and give up at the sight of one of my trusty ballpoint pens.  But it's the cardstock-thick cover that seriously messes me up.  What a shame; I really liked the other Handbook I tried way way back in that first post.

So there you have it, four different Moleskine-alikes reviewed.  My verdict is get yourself an Illo, then maybe get another for your Secret Santa.  Have a great holiday season everyone!

Hooray, It's Mer-May!

I'm starting to warm up to month-long daily/weekly art challenges.  Not sure if I'm going to do weekly wrap-up posts or do a long one at the end of the month; we'll see.  Anyway, I love Mermaids, you love Mermaids, let's spend this whole month making art of lovely ladies of the water.

It's Inktober!

Heck yeah!   Headover to Inktober headquarters for instructions, a prompt list, and more.  I'm probably going to do weekly roundups again.

The prompt for Day One is "Swift", and who else could I possibly draw for that?

Smaugust Finale!

By request, a Lion-Dragon having fun on the beach:



Toothless from memory:



And a bonus Meatlug (also from memory):



Steven Magnet!



And finally, since the theme for Folklore Thursday was Pirates, here's Leon Lyngbakr and Captain Stupidbeard about to have a real bad day.



Whew!

Smaugust Week Four!

So... I needed to draw something cute with dragons after the latest "Game of Thrones". So here's Axew dancing to her favorite song. (It is, of course, Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk".)



And speaking of "Game of Thrones", have some massive spoilers (and a "Die Hard" quote.)



If you like cats and dragons, let me introduce you to the strange Alpine mythical beast, the Tatzelwurm:



A little dragon with a fabulous array of headgear:



The Folklore Thursday theme was Fairies, so here's a Pyrallis. These tiny Fairy-Dragons from Cyprus are attracted to light (indeed, they're said to live inside forges) and are so small, they look like dancing sparks.



A friend on Facebook asked me to draw Falcor from memory, so here he is:



And finally, here's an Oroboros who has just watched this and is just so happy to be trendy again.



Five more days of dragons left!

Smaugust Week Three!

Guys, I really like drawing dragons!



My sister called this scene in the latest episode of "Game of Thrones" the "Well, if my cat lets you do that, I guess you're okay" moment.  But I couldn't help but think it could've gone bad really quick...



I did not care much for "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" (more like "Wizard Politics and How to be Bored by Them"), but damn did it have some nice-looking dragons.  Here's an Occamy guarding her silver egg and wondering if it's still fanart if you did not care for the movie?



And talk about crap endings.  Seriously, where would those idiot Wizards be without this sweetie?



I looked at some of the old Dungeons and Dragons sourcebooks for inspiration. Is it me or does the Red Dragon on the old Monster Manual look like a big goofball?



For Folklore Thursday, I painted an Eclipse Dragon who immediately regrets so many things:



Finally, here's the dragon drawn on the last page of a Sketchbook:



...and the dragon drawn on the first page of a new Sketchbook:



And here they are together! 😄

Smaugust Week One... and Two

Smaugust!  The month of daily dragons!  This is the first of what will hopefully be a weekly wrap-up of all the dragons I drew in the past week.



Got to wondering, if the "Game Of Thrones" dragons have only the two legs and two wings, why aren't they quad-launchers?!?!?

And thinking about it and getting a little fed up with all the wyvern-dragons in pop culture lately, anatomically believable flying tetrapods that are magical and breathe fire, I drew Leggy here.



And here's Curly.



And Puffy.



And Giant. I like to think she's bright bright orange and periodically has to let the forest grow over her to blend in.

Then a lot of things happened over the past weekend and I did a catch-up day of drawing Dragon Pokemon from memory:



Dragonite



Salamence



Flygon



Hydreigon



And a bonus Goomy!



The theme for Folklore Thursday this week was creatures of the forest.  A quick bit of research led me to the sad tale of the Dragon of Mordiford, pictured here before things rapidly go south.  (Note that in some versions of the tale, the dragon is described as a Wyvern [quad-launcher or not is never specified], so I gave this guy a few Wyverny features like fangs and a tail-blade while keeping him a proper dragon.  6+ limbs, damn it.  Heck, in other versions of the story, the dragon has multiple pairs of wings!)



And finally, some fanart of a special boy from "Shin Godzilla", which I watched with my dad.  One or both of us might have sworn out loud when this thing first appeared. 

See you next week!

"The Breach"

My thoughts on the D23 and SD Comicon fallout are coming later, and probably well after anyone could care.   For now, let's talk Sketchbooks.



A Saunders Waterford Sketchbook from St. Cuthbert's Mill.  The Lamborghini of English-made watercolor Sketchbooks.  It was gifted to me by my cousin this past Christmas.  Here is it post-cover customization, with good old Carnegie Collection Corythosaurus for scale:

As you can see, it is colossal.  Imposingly so.  And probably very expensive as the paper quality is insanely nice.

As you might imagine, I can't wait to fill this book with goofy-ass animals and crazy characters.

Because it's KaiJuly, I figured why not start with some fanart of the King of Monsters himself?



I love getting to play with scale.  I had a lot of fun looking for photo reference of whales backflipping and I'm pretty proud of that sweet sky I painted.

Additionally, it's not a bad transition, because guess what month it is?



I want to see if I can do a weekly wrap-up post of my daily dragons this month.

WDW Trip Report: Epcot Gets Artful! Like, More So Than Usual!

My family's most recent visit to Walt Disney World was a bit of a doozy.  There were lot of brand new (and new-to-us) events and shows and rides to be experienced.  My personal priority was the brand-new Epcot Festival of the Arts.

I arrived on the very last day of this festival.  Fortunately, it was early enough that I could run right through the International Gateway from the Boardwalk (our first time staying there and we love it) and have myself a whirlwind tour of what the fest had to offer.



And for the most part, what Artful Epcot had to offer in terms of art was... Epcot itself, being artful.  Epcot really is a downright beautiful place, and the many artists working throughout the park on both temporary and lasting pieces made it all the more lovely.  Furthermore, since they were preparing for the upcoming Flower and Garden Festival, the gardens were fabulous works of science-art.

And cooking is a science and an art as well.  Don't you forget it.  This festival wasn't about to let me.  Yeah, it turns out that this was really the Festival of All Arts, But Mostly Culinary Arts.  I didn't have time to try any of the food, but what I saw looked like it was more visually appealing than appetizing.  I'll direct you to the good old Disney Food Blog to have a look at the many and varied "Deconstructed" food.  (I did finally try School Bread this trip and... I don't get it.)

There's also the matter of the Figment's Brush With the Masters scavenger hunt...



I swear to God, years and years of Art History classes and I have no idea how to react to this.



I found my new Twitter avatar though.



Figment's Brush With the Masters may be the ultimate perfect storm of Disney-cutesy and "We can't possibly let kids be bored for even a second in World Showcase aaah!"  But it's nice to see something (or anything, really) done with Figment in Epcot proper.  And anyway, I want these adorable frames.



Of course, one of the nicest overlooked attractions in World Showcase -one of the things that attracts *me*, at least- are the many galleries to be found in nearly every country's pavilion.  I had the "Frozen" concept art gallery in Norway to myself, the Kawaii gallery in Japan was fantastic, and I loved the exhibit of concept art from Shanghai Disney in China.  (But somebody help me identify the sheep in the above Twelve Friends.  E: It's one of the lambs from "Mary Poppins".  Sucks to be Danny from "So Dear to my Heart".)  They stick around long after the Festival, thankfully.



I did get to visit one temporary gallery in the Odyssey building (and being open looks real nice on the Odyssey).  It was full of lovely concept art by Mary Blair and Herb Ryman, including the above Ryman piece that hit me straight in the childhood.

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Art of the Day!

Thus inspired, I made some Artful Epcot Art of my own: