A belated Happy New Year to this blog. I hope everyone is getting off to a good start!

I just wanted to post again and remind any watchers here that my sketch blog has been updating daily again over at oddsketch.blogspot.com. Also, to thank you all for watching this blog as well. I have paintings and site updates on the way, including the division of my children's and fantasy portfolios into separate sites.

Hello blog readers!

Some of you may have noticed that I took a little hiatus from this sketch blog after I finished my first 100 posts. I'll be starting it up again this Saturday, though! I'll also be setting up a backlog to post daily when I'm out for the winter holidays, so you can look forward to another 100-day stretch of uninterrupted sketch posts.

Hope you're all doing well! I'll be posting again soon.

- Emma

This pumpkin is about the size of a grapefruit and was given to me by my neighbor's daughter, Kendall, so I decided to carve something fun and unusual (for my pumpkins).

This is a pair of twin ACEOs, representing Frith and Inle (the sun and moon concepts) from Watership Down. They're a little more symbolic and less representative of individual characters but they still obviously bow to themes from the book. These cards are full bleed and meant to sit side-by-side.

SOLD

Watercolor, 4x6"

I had a bit of scrap watercolor paper hanging around, so I doodled a dragon on it. Then I decided to use a little color and... well, I like the result.

The scales on this guy are similar to those of a hairy bush viper (with some exaggeration). I think the fringe was inspired by marine iguanas. I do like putting catfish whiskers on dragons, but these came out very eastern-looking. Fun stuff!

Watercolor, 6x8"

A fun little painting of a fictional raptor species. I had an urge to do a red-and-black colorway, and this was the result.

Watercolor, 5x7"

Funny, I thought I uploaded this one a while ago.


Further experiments with mixing watercolor and gouache! I've set aside my gouache paints except for a large tube of designer's white, which I mix with my regular watercolors to make colored gouache. The result is a separate pallet of gouache colors that properly matches my watercolor set.

I realized I haven't uploaded anything in a while, so here's the line art stage of a watercolor I'm working on right now. Not all of my watercolors have inked lines; sometimes I paint the lines in instead which allows me to use the full spectrum of color to do make subtler effects. However, on small paintings like this one (5x7") I can get much better definition using the ink.

Ok, so! Experiment time!

I'd like to try my hand at making small homemade books for a variety of purposes. Firstly I would like to be able to make portfolios for self-promotion mailers. Additionally if the process is efficient and the result looks really cool I might want to make editions of hand bound artist books for sale.

The options I've come up with so far (which I am not sure are viable for either purpose):

Staple Binding
+ Fast. Makes half and full sized books. Durable for small amounts of paper.
- Visible staples look cheap, though some kind of binding tape on top might help if there's also a cover. Need to buy a long-arm stapler.

Simple Saddle Stitch
+ Fast. Durable for small amounts of paper. Opportunity to use colored thread for added visual punch.
- Requires new hole punching equipment. Only half-sheet sized books.

Hand-Stitched
+ Can add as many pages as needed without sacrificing durability. Has the potential to look damn cool with the right paper even without extra coverings.
- Many steps make this process very time consuming. Special equipment is needed to improve efficiency and reduce risk of physical harm. Still, sharp objects and the pressure needed to piece several layers paper make self-injury a small hazard.

Ribbon Loops
+ Can use standard hole punches on computer paper to prepare the sheets and cover quickly. Relatively Durable and high potential for adding unique materials. Comparatively easy cover inclusion.
- Not as tight as a sewn book binding. Dependent on knots for durability.

Hybrid Loops - tie small stacks together across the binding edge like in hand-stitching, but also use the ribbon loops to fill the holes and attach the cover.
+ Can use standard hole punches on computer paper to prepare the sheets and cover quickly. Relatively durable and high potential for adding unique materials. Comparatively easy cover inclusion.
- Might take a little longer than plain ribbon loops.

The simple saddle stitch technique is shown on this page. It appears viable for sending out booklet sized portfolios.

The ribbon loop process is one that I haven't found strict documentation on but was inspired by the photo at the bottom of this page about traditional portfolio binding. I have high hopes that the process could be successful, for larger books and ticker stacks of paper. Because it relies on precut papers and a regular three-hole punch for everything the work time should be minimal and I won't need to get a giant paper cutter right away. If it's not holding together after a little experimental abuse, I'll try my hybrid loop/stack solution.

If anyone knows of another efficient homemade bookbinding solution, please let me know! If the handmade thing fails, there's always lulu and the iPhoto book printing (at least for promo). I just think it would be really cool to be able to do it myself if I want to because it would lend me a lot of flexibility in how I present my own work.

As someone a little on the short side, sometimes I wish I had a trick to reach the high shelves.

Psychopomp is the archetype used to describe any mythical being who conducts souls to the afterlife. Though my first thought in this sketch was for Ankou, this sketch mixes themes from several psychopomps.

Ankou, as near as I can tell, is a title or position rather than an actual deity of death. The stories come from the part of France across the channel from England. Basically, every new year the first adult to die becomes the new Ankou and is tasked with ferrying souls to the afterlife for one year before he can join them himself.

Here's a quick breakdown of the elements that got stuck into this consciously even though they're all from different cultures: the fellow on the left is the current Ankou, the symbol on his pendant is the elder futhark rune elhaz (which I once read is associated with Valkyries and dangerous situations), the dog is an allusion to the Old Shuck, and the boat obviously refers to Charon.

I've got my own ideas about the soul coming up the steps, but for now I think it would be fun to let you guys make up your own stories about him if you're curious.

A couple of initial thoughts on frogish faeries. I've got some more and some less human concepts that might get doodled up later this month as time allows. Still trying to make hair work on them...

And of course, the guy on the left isn't actually missing an arm; I just got carried away with drawing his vest and wanted to keep it as a costume study so I made my little hatching note that I use in turn-arounds.Naturally after drawing frog-fae comes a toad variation. Toads have so much skin texture that giving her human hair doesn't seem to clash as badly as it would with a frog's smooth skin.

She seems awfully possessive of her blueberry.

Happy Saint Patty's Day! I'm sitting at the computer drinking tea and eating fresh scones as I type. I'm not wearing a stitch of green though.


Little, childlike hummingbird faeries! I think these guys came out awfully cute and they're high on my list of "things I need to paint in color." I was thinking of a Ruby Throated for the little girl at the bottom, since that's the species that always came to the feeders in RI.

Also, the sketch on the right was attacked by the memory of the 80's and his hair suffered a mullet.


This was the first page I sketched of the bird faeries. Again, I think that adding some color would really separate them from harpies. That, their humanoid arms, and their tendency to hunt insects and drink nectar rather than eating human beings.

I'm uploading a small backlog of sketches today, and I'll start with the "scarier" creatures.



Hob Goblins are nasty little man-eating monsters that I used to draw a lot back in high school.
They have a short torso with all limbs roughly the same length which allows them to run on two limbs or four. They're probably about as accomplished at walking upright as the fossil hominid Lucy, but opt not to do it very often. I didn't finish the loose sketch because the gait seems a little awkward; it needs something more like a leap and less like a gallop. I still like the gesture though so I left it on the page.

From an Irish folktale of the same name about a woman whose home is invaded by a group of twelve witches, each with an increasing number of horns growing from her forehead. The first five are in this sketch. Eventually the woman is able to save her family by following the instructions of a spirit living in the well outside.

The story's an interesting one, I might illustrate it in a full painting some day.

Hrapp is an old Icelandic ghost from the days of the early viking settlers on the island. I read about him in a book that contains translated stories from many sagas of the prose edda. It's called "The Sagas of Icelanders" and it's published by Penguin Classics if anyone is interested in vikings, though most of the stories aren't so supernatural.

Hrapp was a nasty piece of work in life; he found excuses to attack his neighbors and generally make life miserable for his own household. When he lay dying of an illness in his old age he asked his wife to bury him head-up as if he were standing under the doorway of his house so that he could "watch over the household." His ghost then proceeded to kill the servants and livestock and generally cause chaos.

Hrapp's corpse was dug up and moved to the outer edges of his land, but he still managed to kill people or drive them crazy. The farm lay uninhabited for over a decade until it was given to another man as a reward for heroism. One night, Hrapp was keeping the farm hands from leading the cattle into the stable and the new owner came out to challenge him with a spear he'd been given by the king of Norway. Hrapp grasped the spearhead and broke it off, then sank into the ground and dissapeared.

The next morning they dug up Hrapp's corpse for the second time, and though he'd been dead for years his body showed no sign of decay. They burnt his body and scattered his ashes, and that was the end of the haunting.

Brownies! Looks like the cat's after his cream, but I like to think they have some kind of friendly relationship.

The blending stubs have been abandoned. I like my textured shading, kthnx.

Aside from their pot of gold shtick, Lepracauns are also cobblers (shoe makers). The strange thing is, they never make a pair of shoes, they're always only working on one.

Three different character sketches that ended up somewhat blended into each other thanks to the all that grass the sleepy fellow is laying in. I'm thinking that with the grass that long this is probably the first time that the sheep has been to this field in quite a while. Definitely not expecting to find a little cobbler sleeping in his salad.

Another strange bit of morbid folklore for today: the Washing Women are seen around secluded bodies of water. They are the ghosts of mothers who die in childbirth. The story goes that for seven years they have to wash the clothes of those who are about to die before they can pass on.

On a tangent, I found an old set of blending stubs today. I have mixed feelings about the results, but overall it was pretty fun to smooth things out so fast. I'll have to play around with it a little more though.

Merrows. Kind of creepy, not-very-pretty fishmen. There seems to be some disagreement about whether or not they have legs.

Like a lot of aquatic faeries they do their share of drowning sailors and brewing storms, but my favorite story is one called "the Soul Cages." It's about a merrow who uses the souls of drowned sailors to light his garden walkways. He doesn't mean any harm by it, he even thinks he's doing them a favor by giving them nice warm jars to stay in out of the cold of the ocean. A man eventually finds out about it, gets him drunk and lets all the souls out of the garden while he's asleep.

Just playing around today with some more Puka Scribbles. They say that the Puka's human visage is that of "a dark hairy man."

As a shaggy old pony the Puka invites people to ride on his back. Unlike the Kelpie he doesn't kill his passengers; he just takes them on a wild and terrifying ride before dumping them in a bramble patch somewhere. More of a practical joker than a predator.

I've also heard of eagle and goat Pukas.

I thought I'd try out some hand lettering as a new approach to graphic design. I think I like the results of these. You might recognize a couple of these as redesigns from old school projects.

And by the way, these are done on separate pieces of 2.5x3.5" watercolor paper - that makes them possible ACEOs in addition to their packaging design function.

So, more selkies! The first one has a little group of them, the second sketch shows a pony-shaped puka on a little pier, courtesy of something my friend Caitlin mentioned at the Strawberry festival this past weekend.

There's likely to be more artistic nudity like this over the course of this month's project.

A selkie inspecting an old pocket watch covered in bladderwrack (that seaweed that has the air pockets). Selkies are seal faeries that can take off their skins and come ashore as humans.

(I watched the Secret of Roann Innish today.)

A couple different varieties of trolls. More variety to come tomorrow.