Dystopian Daydreams

Earlier this month, I hopped my first flight in three years and headed out west for a family reunion in Oregon, near Crater Lake. There were lots of campfires, cups of coffee and catching up, after years of not seeing one another. All in all, it was 110% worth the 21+ hours of travel time to get home.

During the visit, my 13-year-old niece told me her genre of choice is teen girl dystopian novels. I applaud her taste. So the above is an attempt at something dystopian for her, which just ended up looking steampunk.

But who’s to say you can’t navigate the apocalypse in a hoop skirt?

Obligatory Crater Lake National Park snap. Snow! In June!

The Nineteen Hundreds

Doing a deep dive into some Edwardian photo reference and this wistful guy felt like he deserved a portrait. Cheer up, buddy, electricity and antibiotics are on the horizon.

"You don’t need your eyes to see"

I saw Wolfwalkers with my sister and her kids last week and oh my, what a movie. I didn’t think anything could possibly top Song of the Sea, but Cartoon Saloon absolutely outdoes itself with the art in Wolfwalkers.

So, I couldn’t resist doing a little warmup drawing of Mebh Óg MacTíre today. That girl has sass in spades.

"Don't let Kristin make the coffee"

I was watching The Brokenwood Mysteries the other night and it dawned on me I’d never done any fan art for the series. So, problem solved.

This is the calendar / These are the dates

I’ve had The Ghost of O’Donahue stuck in my head for weeks. And if you’ve got to have a song endlessly looping in your head, this works rather nicely.

A Habitat

I keep adding bits to this days. Fifteen minutes here, ten minutes there. Slowly, it adds up. Not as fast as I’d like, granted. But it’s more on the paper by the end of the day than when I started.

And that sweater sleeve is the Shore Cardigan pattern, which I finished up late last autumn and basically spent the winter (and most of the spring) wearing.

Inklings

I had a chance to print the block that I was carving last week and have a few prints now up in the shop. It was a fun change of pace to step away from pixels and get ink on my hands.

Also, I have two illustrated coasters available for sale over on the Nucleus Portland site. There’s some great art over there, from a wide range of artists, so be sure to have a look.