Be Mused Art » Fairies

What I am doing for the summer

Melia — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 17:00:01 +0000

Yeah, I am really bad about keeping my blog updated over the summer. K is home, lots of stuff going on, not a whole lot of time to paint, so not much to share usually. But I have been getting some drawings done, I have discovered that I am a sketchbook snob, and I am going to be teaching starting in September.

How did I discover that I am a sketchbook snob? Well, first they had this great deal a few months ago on sketchbooks at my local craft supply. They were marked down 40%, then there was this coupon for an additional 25% off your entire purchase including sale items. And I thought “I got through sketchbooks pretty fast, why don’t I stock up on these that are on sale and use my coupon and I won’t have to rush right out and get a sketchbook in a couple of weeks.” Then suddenly my sketching slowed. I hated the paper falling out since this one wasn’t my usual spiral bound book. It wasn’t as easy to carry around since the pages would fall out as soon as I tried to turn a page. I hated it.
Then I was at a Dr. Sketchy event and won a moleskin sketchbook. I liked how it was bound, but the slick paper drove me bonkers. The drawings were turning out fine and the pages were not falling out, but it felt like nails on a chalkboard to run my pencil over that slick surface. It was just weird.
Then while out and about I didn’t have a sketchbook and my darling husband wanted to just sit and hang out at a coffee shop. So he took me to an art supply store and bought me a new one. It was spiral bound, had a nice medium tooth to it, slightly heavier paper, but still sketch paper, not drawing paper. And I sat down and spent over 2 hours sitting in a coffee shop just working on a dragon head. THEN I started working on a fairy cat. And then a unicorn and a mercat, then a mermaid. These are not my usual sketches either, but very detailed time consuming drawings. And I did them for the pure pleasure of drawing. Of feeling my pencil move across the paper. There were also studies of eyes and other things that not one would consider a finished drawing. But it all made me so very happy to be doing. So now, I will never again buy a sketchbook just because it is a good deal. I might spend a few pennies more, but I want the joy of working on the paper I want to work on. And to be honest it isn’t like the paper I had such joy in working with was all that expensive. It was a whopping $6 for a 9×12 pad.
And as or the teaching – an art journal workshop at my local art supply store. If you are in the area, the classes will be held at the Hobby Lobby in Garland from 4-5:30 on Mondays starting Sept. 13. All you need to bring is an art journal (140# watercolor pad recommended) and a sharpie. All other supplies will be provided for only $15.

Sassy – A fairy sketch

Melia — Mon, 23 May 2011 19:45:35 +0000

This is a sketch I am working on in between trying to learn how to do some digital art. I am probably going to change the feet position on this one, since the reference photo for the pose the model had on heels, and I think I like the bare feet for fairies. I mean do they really need to wear those evil shoes when they can fly everywhere? Feet want to be free and should be any time you don’t have to worry about stepping on something sharp.
Speaking of my fashion designs for fairies, have you noticed something all my fairy costumes have in common? I do a draping neckline on them. Started drawing my fairies I kept thinking about how they would get into clothes with those beautiful wings coming out of their backs. So they have these tops that look like they probably pin together at the neck and shoulders, sort of an adaptation of the toga.
When I was a little girl I couldn’t decide if being an artist or a fashion designer would be more fun. My 2 main forms of indoor play were going through Grandma’s fabric scraps and making art. And since Grandma made costumes for all her friends for an annual costume ball they attended, I had some awesome scraps to play with. The year they had an Arabian Knights theme was my favorite. All that chiffon and lame’ and satin and sparkly trims had me in heaven. I used the bar stools to to tie chiffon to the legs to make harem tents and wrapped fabric around tea towels for beds and made little pillows for my Barbies with little belly dance costumes for them.
I think my fairies have become a melding of those childhood days of improbable fashions and painting. I suspect that I have never really grown up and that I will always be continuing that pretend play that I started as a very young child when grandma let me play in her scraps and bought me crayons and watercolors and only fussed when I used the pool table for an art table or picked all the green peaches off her peach tree.

Crimson Wings

Melia — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 03:48:21 +0000

I have been so very busy making art, that I haven’t been making time to blog. Bad me. Or maybe not. Crimson Wings is one of my recent paintings. I still have my latest mermaid to list and show and am already working on a new mercat.
This week has been very exciting for me. I will admit to being a bit of a geek and getting down right giddy about new tools. This week my new scanner arrived. What is so very cool about it is that it will scan my 11×14 inch paintings and I won’t have to go out and get them scanned. Since I scan the inking as well as the finished painting, that led to me having to wait to paint until I could get to the printer. I suspect that the end result will be more larger paintings by moi.
Also recently I signed some new licensing contracts for fabric blocks and iron on transfers with Kat’s Magical Patches. I am very excited about these. Long ago and far away I used to make crazy quilts. It is what I did to recover from art school in order to keep creating even though I didn’t want to paint anything during those years. When I found myself spending more time designing the embroidery patterns, I decided it was time to pick up the paint brush again and sold the sewing machine. These patches remind me of the tobacco silks that were popular with the crazy quilters back then. And now I find myself dreaming of crazy patch again. A little mercat with pearls sewn on and green chenille yarn couched down for sea weed. Or maybe a fairy cat with satin stitching in that cool embroidery thread that changes color with the light.

Fairy Face ACEO

Melia — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 04:11:36 +0000

See I managed it again. I am so excited to have completed a painting a day for 4 days now. Once again I was fighting a headache and other annoyances, so this is one that had been inked previously that I finally got around to painting. But I did complete it.

Star Dancer

Melia — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 03:28:40 +0000

I have been working on this one for weeks now. Okay 2 weeks, but with all the ice and snow it has been a very long 2 weeks. But she is done. What took so long? Those medallions. Lots of little spaces to work with.
Actually I am very happy with this painting. It was created for the Enchanted Visions Project and inspired by the Art Nouveau artist Mucha.

Morning Cup Fairy Cat

Melia — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 02:32:02 +0000

And here we have the second painting in my painting a day challenge. Today was all sorts of crazy with it being my daughter’s tenth birthday celebration. Handmade cupcakes due to milk allergies, so all sorts of crazy. And still I remembered to walk nearly 2 miles and get my daily painting done. Okay the painting is trading card size and it was drawn and inked a few months ago – but I still finished it today. Crossing my fingers that I will finish my Star Dancer tomorrow.

Ice Days

Melia — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:06:54 +0000

First I was working on a Pay It Forward project that I posted on my fan page about. I might have to do another one next month, that was fun to be making art for specific people. Then came the horrible migraine. After that we have had the family home for 3 days with ice.
I know, you Northerners think we are a bunch of babies here in Texas. But we just don’t have the infrastructure to deal with cold like this. The best our town can do, is sprinkle some sand on the roads and say “sorry about those rolling blackouts”. I am just grateful that we have a fireplace, even if 360 days of the year I curse it taking up so much wall space. Today I hope to get some more details into a sketch I worked all day on yesterday. I will paint whenever my studio warms up enough that I don’t think the paint will freeze before it dries.
Anyway, you all want some eye candy, cause this here blog is supposed to be about the art, not complainin about the weather. So some of the PIF paintings and the beginnings of a sketch for my next project.

Snow Elf and other thing

Melia — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 02:19:51 +0000

This week’s illustration Friday theme is “Winter”. I did this little snow elf a couple of weeks ago, and this seemed like a good excuse to post her.
I have been busy of late. With the holiday season there was much in the way of family gatherings, gift buying/making and giving and receiving as well as lots of cooking (by James). With James doing the cooking and dishes, it meant I had more time to paint despite the crazy holiday rushing to and fro.
Oh you want some proof that I have been busy? Welll…. Okay here is some of the things I have gotten done in the last couple of weeks…..
And guess what? There is more. But you have to check out my facebook fan page or my etsy shop to see it all.

A Wayward Path

Melia — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 07:28:10 +0000

Things have been busy as usual around here. I guess the biggest piece of news is that you can now create my art for yourself with cross stitch patterns by Misty Dreamz.
Also for all you taggers, My Tag Art is now offering some cool bulk deals and you can get a huge discount, and can then make you own cool tags and avatars.
And of course there is the art. For those that have been following my art for the decade that I have been actually sending it out into the world, you might recognize the style that I have been working in lately. So who remembers that belly dancers and the mandalas? Yes, they are both back with a fantasy twist, with a little bit of Mucha’s art nouveau style (which has been showing up off and on for years).
My artistic style seems to meander along a twisty little path, and every so often doubles back on itself, so I can pick up a style that seemed to have been dropped by the wayside. Everything I see infects my art and sometimes it takes months or years to figure out how to incorporate this new vision on the world with what I was already doing.

In the beginning – oh about junior high or early highschool – I drew cats. I could copy a photo of any cat with prismacolors and a piece of mat board. Then I went to my first sci-fi conventions. Thst turned my world upside down. I was only 16 then. In college, I picked up an interest in mythology and prayer book illuminations. And that became a major influence. Then after college I was so tired of painting that I took up crazy quilting and researching Victorian life – which introduced me to Art Nouveau. After my daughter was born, I lost the sewing room to a nursery and picked up belly dancing to get back in shape – which lead to belly dance paintings first a pop art then a cubist style as I became more focused on capturing the movement of the dance than a realistic representation of the dancer. And of course a bit of research into eastern culture and meditation played out in the form of elaborate mandalas. Then I came back to the kitties, they started to sprout wings, which lead to fairies with art nouveau style borders and backgrounds.

Which is how I find myself today with sketchbooks filled with art of a variety of styles and subjects. And I have been cutting those sketchbooks up and scanning the sketches to save as digital files, and putting the originals up in a special shop on etsy.

A watercolor Sketch and A Ferret

Melia — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 03:52:33 +0000

This weekend, I worked on my ferret fairy and then went to Dr. Sketchy’s in Dallas. I actually did one sketch all in watercolor, not even pencil for a preliminary sketch. BTW it is availble on etsy for only $5. I have been selling off sketches to help motivate me to scan all the sketches, instead of storing so very many sketchbooks.

And then of course my ferret fairy