The big lesson

In preparation for the art crawl two weekends ago, I had so many ideas. Ideas about things to make and sell, how to decorate, and how to display all my new creations I was gonna make. I made a list in my last blog post about all that I hoped to achieve, fully realizing that time was my only limitation. Certainly my imagination couldn't be bothered, as if it ever was or is, with the concept of time. In instances of shows and conventions I am always thinking of something new, something special, and I can't help believing that I can do it all.
The lesson that I always learn is that I can't do it all. But this "can't" isn't a bad kind of can't, at least I never see it that way. Because I need to think of what I CAN do to make all my ideas more possible.
If I want to be able to make pretty handmade bracelets or decorated boxes or wings or paintings or drawings or whatever; I need to create small times throughout the weeks and months to make those special creations possible. Not just the few weeks leading up to an event.

The biggest lesson ever for me - I can't do it all and that's ok!
So here's to being more creative all year round, sporadically of course, but more creative just the same.

more and more

I didn't realize I had forty posts, yay for me, congrats me! But what I wanted to say was about some of the exiting things I am working on. Like a list....so here it goes.

-new fairy sketches - like the one I showed in the last post. I got one more done to sell at the art crawl, but am aiming for two to three more.

-fairy wings - testing out making some new models! I am making them in canvas just like the ones I made in one of my posts from last year. I am aiming to have four to five pairs to sell.

-fairy knot bracelets - I got some very pretty specialty ribbon and special sailors rope and am adding "found things"for decoration. I hope to have a whole pile to sell at the art crawl. Each one sweet and different in it's own way.

-inks - I have just finished filling in blacks for four of my husbands comic pages. I'm a good helper!

-poster - I don't want to say to much as of yet, since the project has just begun, but I am going to design poster/posters?/postcards for a classic children's series of historical fiction. It's for a very special society and will promote reading. More on this in the future, to be sure!

So as you can read I am a very busy girl, however, very happily busy. A lot of these projects are ones I am doing for the upcoming art crawl that my husband and I are going to be opening our doors for. I hope to sell some of the items I had mentioned and perhaps make an etsy account after the crawl.

For more information on my wings I made in the past please visit two earlier posts of mine and read all about them! the shape of wings to come  and the shape of wings to come..there done

For more information about the Saint Paul art crawl don't hesitate to email me for specifics on my building at www.megarts17@yahoo.com or for more general questions visit http://www.stpaulartcrawl.org/

I want to draw another fairy princess

Among other projects I have been working on lately, I was pleased to be commissioned for a sketch. It took me back to the grade school days where my girl classmates would ask me to draw princesses for them. One of my favorite subjects!yay!  I was asked for just that kind of drawing once again. My client asked that it be a fairy or a princess drawn in a sketchy way. And so I tried to be sketchy about it. She really liked a tiny drawing I posted when I had first started my blog.
What I realized however is that I can't be sketchy, in the frenzied exited lines full of energy way unless I have a particular idea that I am trying to get out of my head to express. If I am sitting to do a new sketch that I haven't thought of before, the process is slower and more thoughtful. Each idea from the outfit to the hair and the position of the hands is considered drawn and redrawn....... Anyhow this is how my thoughtful sketch turned out. It is a favorite that I was happy to send on it's way to an inspired recipient.

Fairy princess 5x7 done in pencil on handmade rag paper.

 Copyright 2011 Megan Rheault.

 Laurel of Abundant Empress LLC, who now owns the sketch, said the picture inspired her and I hope it will inspire me as well to keep drawing great and wonderful things to share.

fairytale trees in the breeze

I would like to re-introduce my lovely fairy tale silhouette trees. They are from the background of the MarsCon t-shirt/convention booklet cover. The trees started out with just branches and no pretty foliage. They were looking kind of scary, like when snow white is running threw the forest and the trees are clawing at her dress. The feeling of the poster was supposed to be cheerful and magical so I did a little bit of research to figure out how to begin drawing in the leaves. With the rite reference shot for inspiration I drew more and more more leaves and branches. The trees started to look so pretty and very spring like, not so menacing any more.

This tree was used in the front. I think this may have been the first tree I drew from the series. The branches make such nice patterns. I am trying to think of what other applications I could use them for.

This tree was also used in the front. By layering the trees in photoshop and slightly changing the color it creates depth in the image.

These three trees were used behind the other two. They are a little less detailed because of how I had planned to layer them. All images as always on this blog are copyright Megan Rheault 2011.

All the trees were drawn on tracing paper, which is a favorite drawing surface of mine. They were first sketched in pencil and finished with ink pens. The very fine lines were done in point 2 or point 1. I hope to draw more of these enchanted forest trees. Maybe I will make up some patterns with branches or do another layered forest scene.

Days of magic!

MarsCon 2011 has come and past and we had such a fantastic time; meeting new people, making new friends, helping with panels, and visiting party rooms at night - woohoo! Everyone was so kind, friendly and welcoming. We were treated so well by all of the conventions amazing volunteers, who were so helpful. Thank you to everyone who attended and to all of the wonderful dealers and volunteers.


Here are some pictures we took at the con...enjoy!

This is Joe and I at our table. From left to right we have a box of prints, my Ferlin and His Paper Hat moc up book for display, a tiny stuffed animal fox (more on that later), business cards, magnets, Tastes Like Good books 1 and 2,  Asha mini comic, and introducing "Nerd Journals" by Josh Murray. Behind us we have an extremely gorgeous dress by Rae Lunquist of Dreamsticher costume. And to the right you can see a super tiny part of Julie Bowman's merchandise of Mythical Creations.

This is a close up of my book and our magnets and business cards. My little fox is in there too.

This is my little fox I was so proud of the whole weekend. Julie Bowman of Mythical Creations made her, but the fox had no clothes! Julie was making some kimonos for her other creations and gave me the pattern and supplies to make one for my fox. So I went on, over the course of the weekend to make my fox a little kimono complete with black embroidered stars, a little obi belt, a pendant, and a pretty hair thingy. I thank you so much Julie for sharing your pretty supplies and creative wisdom! I had so much fun! My fox says domo, suimasen, arigato, namaste - and then she bows politely.

This is a closer uninterrupted view of the dress that was behind our table. It is a copy of the "breath" dress from the movie Ever After.  It has lots of detail everywhere with many layers and shades of white gauzy fabrics and trims. Again it was created by Rae Lundquist of Dreamsticher Costumes. Amazingly pretty!

On Saturday night there was a masquerade contest. We saw some of the people lining up in their costumes and took a few pictures, but then we had to go eat cause we were so hungry. Luckily we got back just in time to see the winning contestants, although we didn't get pictures.  There was a group dress up as Wizard of Oz characters, steampunk gals and guys, the Harry Potter cast, the Ever After cast, fairies, and other fantasy and science fiction characters of all kinds. Here are a few more picts of some great costumes.

Voldemort getting schooled by Sirius, Harry, and Hermione. Apparently Voldemort had just come out of a make up demo.

Very cool dragon armor. He is perusing the wares of Mythical creations.

The two gentlemen in the center, brothers as it were, had great steampunk costumes complete with detailed accessories of all kinds.  You can also see the cowardly lion and some fair ladies. Thank you for posing for the picture!

This is a very nicely detailed tank device for catching something. Spirits perhaps? It had meters on the side.You can see technological advancement goggles hanging on his shoulder as well. Thank you again gentlemen.

Hopefully you can see from these few pictures that there was so much fun to be had! The whole weekend was full of all sorts of events from panels on costuming and makeup, geek music performances, tea parties, an art show and auction, a dealers room, science room, a den of gaming, panels on artmaking and business, and of course nightly party's in themed rooms. Thank you again MarsCon 2011, until next year!

quickly!

A super quick post! It has come up really fast, my husband Joe and I are the artist guests of honer this weekend at MarsCon 2011! For more information visit marscon.org
We look forward to meeting some cool new people and showing you our artwork!

visit me everywhere!

Today I am working on my portfolio and gallery sites as well as doing some new posts for this blog. I love my blogging, but the portfolio and gallery sites are not my favorite to update. If only I did(or didn't) label my files so cleverly, I might recall which is which.

But when all the sites are updated they are very pleasing to look at and they showcase my latest and greatest work.......and who wouldn't be completely happy with that.

To visit my portfolio site go to megarts17.daportfolio.com
 Be sure to click on the little "i" at the bottom of the image. It will give you a little information about the piece.

And to visit my work in a gallery setting visit me at megarts17.deviantart.com

There will be some of the same images displayed on both sites. I feel that the portfolio site is a bit more tailored looking and is very simple to navigate. But the gallery lets me put more information about my artwork and allows for comments and critique.

So please go and visit.... and go again so that you will see all of my sure to be sensational updates!

While I never!

When I was looking at all of the MarsCon work I have posted I realized that I had never ever posted an image of the promotional poster that my husband Joe and I did from way back. There was a lot of work and many elements of drawing that went together to make both the promotional poster and the convention book/t-shirt design. So here they are....Text has been added to the designs by our wonderful contact for MarsCon, Kristy.

This is the promo poster that Joe and I did earlier in 2010 to advertise for MarsCon. It is a version of the poster before text was added.

Poster with Text.

For this design I drew the princess, mermaid, fairies, castle and background. Joe drew the sorceress, wizard, snarky, and the frog. Everything was a separate element that was inked by Joe. We scanned in each character and put everything all together and colored it on the computer. After we finished the poster we sent it off to Kristy for approval. She then added all of the information like the title, important people, and the website www.marscon.org/2011

Here is the t-shirt design that I debut in a previous post.

Here the text has been added and notice our signatures underneath our characters!

For the t-shirt design I drew the princess, fairies and trees. I then inked the trees while Joe drew the sorceress. He continued to ink his character, the fairies, and my princess. We then scanned everything into the computer, put it together, and colored it on photoshop.

I am so proud of all the work that Joe and I did. Working together was a wonderful experience and many thanks to Kristy again for making all of the text look fabulous!

The great Ozma of OZ

This is one of the fabulous women that I drew over November and I am so very pleased with how she turned out. A friend of mine Kelly Brown is working on a comic series called Woe is Oz. He has asked a few artists to draw characters from the series, bringing their own style to each piece. The character that I was asked to draw is a grown up version of princess Ozma.

This is the final image, except the real one doesn't say pixiegirl studios. I have been drawing figures rather large lately and had to scale down my sketch to fit it on a sheet of 14x17 bristol. The drawing is in graghite, which I chose to pencil really darkly so it would look as if it was inked.

I have always loved the character of Ozma and I wanted to think of just the rite way to draw her to do justice to the lovely original inks by John R. Neil and of course the re-imagining of her character in Woe is Oz. I wanted her to look modern but still Victorian and definitely stylized with a teeinsie waist and large head. In my original sketch I had thought to do a background and border that would be a mirror showing her hands behind her, holding her staff. Perhaps a future painting is in order?!

This is my original little sketch on a scrap sheet of paper drawn in pen. I love sketches, they have so much energy!

 To find out more about artist Kelly Brown visit his site at  www.kellybrownillustration.com
To find out more about the ongoing comic book series Woe is Oz visit www.woeisoz.com

In November and December

It has been a very long time. i don't like long times apart but it gives stories to tell and so many things to say. I have often wondered where to start again though. Do I go on about things that happened in the last bits of the old year? I think just a little bit maybe and then I can be free to contemplate all the wonderful new-ness that the this year will bring....

I left off with the suka free art sale that my husband Joe and I participated in. It was particularly snowy that weekend but we were grateful to everyone that had the opportunity to come visit us. Joe and I were also very happy with how our artwork looked displayed together on the walls and our tables. We had a cheerful time in the warm indoors meeting new people and reminiscing with old friends.

This is Joe and I standing in front of our artwork from the Sucka Free art sale.

Again this is our set up from the sale. We had a computer in place for any paypal purchases and had books on one table and prints and buisness cards on another.

Threwout the rest of November and into December my husband Joe and I worked on a very large project for the MarsCon sci fi fantasy convention this March. We have already done a promotional poster which included characters that will be featured on the convention badges. This time we have finished the design that will be used for the convention booklet as well as t-shirts. All that is left is some line work pieces for the book, which I am eager to start.

This is the newest MarsCon illustration that Joe and I did together. We are very very happy with how it turned out. This is the image that will be on t-shirts as well as the convention booklet. The princess and sorceress were characters we made up and introduced in the promo poster.

Although I have shown you the t-shirt design for MarsCon, I am currently getting some images ready to post to show you how the final image came together, as well as an ilustration I finished up in November of Ozma of Oz......!!

To find out more about the 2011 MarsCon convention please visit their site www.marscon.org/2011/index.php
To see the artwork of Joe Rheault visit his sites at  www.dirtyinks.blogspot.com and www.dirtyinks.deviantart.com