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Post by LaFille on Sept 19, 2006 3:24:43 GMT
The artist, quoted from her website: "Hi!
I'm the artist.
Um.
(Man, I hate writing these things...)
The Artist
Well, anyway. I'm the artist, I'm 27, and apparently unlike most other artists, I have not been drawing since my stubby fetal fingers could close around a prenatal pencil. I did the usual drawing as a kid, but my mother was an artist, and thus it held no romance for me, so I attempted to rebel and become a scientist. At seventeen, I sat down to Learn to Draw, since it didn't occur to me that drawing might not be a skill you could just learn because you wanted to, or might require talent or something, and fortunately, I seemed to be right, because I've been drawing ever since.
I did not go to art school, but I did take a few drawing classes in college. My major was in Anthropology. I went into art because there was more money in it. (How sad is that?) I'm currently a freelance illustrator, artist, and creator of weird thingies. I live in North Carolina, with a great husband and a mediocre cat.
If you want to know more about my life--god help you--I keep a blog which includes art, rambling, ranting, and up to the minute bulletins on the Defective Wildlife Zone behind my house.
The Art
The art is done in a number of fashions. Some of it's digital. A lot of it's digital. Some of it is done in real media, generally some combination of acrylic ink, fluid acrylic, watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, etc. Feel free to e-mail and ask how I got a specific effect, I'm always glad to ramble.
I do a coupla conventions a year, including Anthrocon in Philedelphia and TrinocCon in Durham.
Other Work
Other projects and randomness...
Bark Like A Fish My thrilling blog! Wherein is recounted daily my tales of defective wildlife, struggles with the Great Issues of Our Time, and of course, the whining when art is hard.
Digger Digger is my webcomic, the tale of a lone wombat in a strange and disturbing world. Updated Tuesdays and Thursdays, the current page is always free, but the fairly extensive archives require a subscription to Graphic Smash.
And at long last, we have that wily chupacabra on-line again! Irrational Fears
The Book of the Gear -- A blog containing the narrative of Eland the naturalist, as he traverses that strange place, the Gearworld, with his faithful guard Heinrich and an irritable mule named Mirabelle.” You can see her website here: Metal and Magic.
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Post by LaFille on Sept 19, 2006 3:27:28 GMT
Wombat and Gears "The personal symbolism drips--wombat, goldfish in bag (what, you thought my personal symbolism would be serious? Tchah! Dunno what you're thinking...)--and the gears might just be a reference to the gearworld, rather than being actually set IN the gearworld.
If that makes any sense.
What does it all mean? Is it "Potrait of the Artist Portrayed as a Wombat"? Is she reaching after inspiration, in the form of a small white moth? Dunno, seems too Deeply Meaningful, and I am automatically suspicious of things that wave their symbolism around and do little dances and bludgeon you over the head so that you Damn Well Know There's A Symbol Here. (This is why I hate Rush songs.)
All I know is that we should not ask about the goldfish. The goldfish is everywhere. Fear the goldfish! (Well, not really. It's a nice fish. I think.)"
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Post by LaFille on Sept 19, 2006 3:30:34 GMT
Sings-to-Trees: First Aid "Elves are healers of magical creatures, sure. Well, the cute or pretty ones anyway. If a big-eyed baby manticore gets orphaned, there are elves there before the first tear hits the ground. If a hippogriff gets a hangnail, elves will wait on it hand and foot until it's too fat to fly. And if a unicorn gets a stone in its hoof--dear lord, call out the national guard, there'll be elves peeling grapes and fetching pillows at all hours, the finest elven podiatrists will be called in, it's a crisis.*
But if a troll hurts itself? Yep, there's only one elf you call in then, our patient and long-suffering friend, Sings-to-Trees.
*At least one exceedingly clever warlord was known to exploit this tendency by turning a half-dozen unicorns with head-colds loose immediately before a battle, causing a total defection by the enemy as they all rushed to offer laps and hold hankies."
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Post by LaFille on Sept 19, 2006 3:33:29 GMT
Tribal Wombat "Driven to the edge of madness by the slow drying time of acrylics, I flung down the paintbrush and screamed "I'm a digital artist for a reason, goddamnit!" and fled to the waiting digital embrace of Painter. Then I proceeded to hammer out this little aboriginal wombat guy in seven frenzied and heavily caffinated hours. I have a soft spot for wombats. I feel better now, having proved to myself that yes, I can TOO paint realism. Whew."
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Post by LaFille on Sept 19, 2006 3:36:30 GMT
Atlantis Calling "A fish warrior, a coral reef, light shining through water...what more can one ask? This painting is about two years old now, but still one of my favorites. It's also a CD cover for "Evolution Theory" by the band Rare Earth.
As for what I was thinking while painting--well, I hate traditional shell-brassiered mermaids with a passion bordering on the religious, and so I set out to make something a little more adapted to his environment, with the brilliant markings of a reef fish. And, since I despise the work of Lassen with an equal passion, I limited myself to things actually found on reefs, which generally don't include multiple species of whale, white tiger cubs, pastel planets, or equally sacchrine derivations."
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Post by LaFille on Sept 19, 2006 3:39:49 GMT
The Fennec and the Ant "I think I just like very small things threatening rather larger things..."
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Post by LaFille on Sept 19, 2006 3:41:41 GMT
Eland Interviews the Vegetable Lamb "Nothing terribly exciting here--I just wanted to draw Eland the antelope again, and since I was thinking of him as a wandering ancient scholar like Pliny or Herodotus, the Vegetable Lamb was a natural.
Allow me to explain.
Once upon a time, people believed in the vegetable lamb.* Growing out of the ground on a stalk through the belly, the vegetable lamb was half-plant, half-animal, a sheep tethered by the stalk to its root system underground. Depending on the version of the story, once the animal had grazed everything it could reach, it either starved to death and went to seed, or it broke the stalk and went bounding across the landscape, kicking up its leafy little heels.
The vegetable lamb was believed to live in someplace far enough off that nobody could check the story easily, but not completely mythical--i.e. usually the less civilized bits of China. The Tartars got used to the sight of the more adventurous European scholars wandering around asking which way to the vegetable lambs, and they eventually realized that killing tourists was fun, but selling them crappy souvenirs was where the REAL money was, so a cottage industry sprang up in carving fake vegetable lambs. Some of these were pretty impressive in their own right, and a few can still be found in museums.
Obviously--normally I wouldn't bother to say it, but it's the internet, and You Never Know--the vegetable lamb does not really exist, and we don't really know who cooked up the story in the first place, but it's a neat idea. So I had Eland interview one.
Edit: Whoops! Forgot to mention that it's thought that the vegetable lamb first originated from people encountering raw cotton, a wooly but obviously vegetable substance and trying to explain it...
*No, really, they did. I'm not making this up. As recently as the 1700s, people were still writing about the vegetable lamb."
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Post by Shan on Sept 19, 2006 3:41:43 GMT
Ohhhhhhh, I love her paintings. Tribal Wombat is soooooooooooo cute. I also like Wombat and Gears. These little creatures are adorable. Sings-to-Trees: First Aid doesn't appeal to me as much but I still like it. Great find Fille.
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Post by Gray Lensman on Sept 19, 2006 3:44:30 GMT
Some interesting stuff here, though I can't say most of this stuff speaks to me personally. Maybe I'm just not into wombat art. I do like Atlantis Calling, though. That is rather an intriguing piece.
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Post by Shan on Sept 19, 2006 3:44:40 GMT
Ooooooooooooo, more. "The Fennec and the Ant" and then " Eland Interviews the Vegetable Lamb" and not quite as appealing " Atlantis Calling." The girls are going to love you Fille. They will absolutely love these when they see them.
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Post by LaFille on Sept 19, 2006 3:45:17 GMT
Mouse Mage "Every now and then I get the urge to do a deathless, meaningful painting, a painting for the ages, a painting that tackles with the big subjects of life and death and love and loss and suffering and glory.
Then I go paint mice in little costumes, because let's face it--that's really what I'm good at.
While I am notoriously reluctant to commit to any series, ever, under any circumstances, no matter what, I will go so far as to say that a set of mousey magic-users would be awfully cute. Mousey druid! Mousey shaman! Mousey brujah! Mousey sorcerer! The possibilities are endless! That doesn't mean I'll do it--my Muse is perverse and likes to prove I can't tell her what to do--but I'm willing to admit it'd be cute."
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Post by LaFille on Sept 19, 2006 3:48:10 GMT
Cool, I'm glad you like; or at least, appreciate. ;D And I'm not done with her diversity yet...
See you in a bit! ;D
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Post by LaFille on Sept 19, 2006 3:58:06 GMT
Alternate Frogs VI: Frog Ducks "The very first painting I've done using a background based on photos I took with my new digital camera. Yes, I was photographing pond scum. Mmm...scummy. The frogs here are the colorful North American wood frogduck. Judging by the coloration, they're both males. They can be found in ponds, lakes, and are a favored subject of the frogduck decoy carver.
More seriously, I had no idea what to paint these little guys--I had the background done, and the best idea I'd come up with was to make them little tigers and call 'em Sigfried and Roy. So I just sat down with ten thousand layers, slapping rough color patterns on them--loon, zebra, okapi, quail, badger, leopard anything I could think of, and James voted in the woodduck. (The loon was a close runner up--I gotta do frogloons at some point.)" She did quite a few alternate frogs: Alternate Frogs I: Bluejay FrogAlternate Frogs II: FrogfinchesAlternate Frogs IIIAlternate Frogs IV: Frog and OrchidsAlternate Frog V: Chameleon Frog...And there are other mutant froggies in her frog gallery.
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Post by LaFille on Sept 19, 2006 4:02:44 GMT
Steampipe Forest "The rusted metal trees make this one for me. I suspect I'll have to paint more. I know this scene takes place in a courtyard of sorts, and sometimes it snows. This would not be remarkable, except that it's underground. Very large rooms sometimes have their own weather, in a limited fashion, although I don't know if they go so far as to get flurries. I suspect she will need to go through that door eventually, and I know she didn't come out of it, but that's about all I know. Except that I have to paint more metal trees.
The perspective in this one is slightly out of true. I tried. I did all the stuff with grids and vanishing points and horizon lines that you're supposed to do. But as often happens, over the course of three days of working, despite every trick and leaving the linework on seperate layers to refer back to, it inched out of alignment, or proved to never really be IN alignment, despite my best efforts. If I were less honest, I'd try to explain it away as the fact that this is an unreal sort of space and you're meant to have a sort of visual unease, but the fact is, the tiles simply defeated me. (The wall's okay. It's the pesky tiles.) Oh, well--as they say, no work of art is ever finished, only abandoned. And I am still enamored of the trees. It was worth it just to concieve of the steampipe trees."
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Post by LaFille on Sept 19, 2006 4:06:50 GMT
Azeazelbunny "Bob had a sinking feeling that his correspondance course, "Learn Ancient Enochian Summoning Rituals By Mail!" had left out a few important bits.
That, or the Easter Bunny had gone REALLY goth..."
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Post by LaFille on Sept 19, 2006 4:09:53 GMT
The Fisher "Come with me," the man said, "and I will make you fishers of men."
"What possible good is that to me?" the fisher asked.
"The flesh of men is not so sweet as fresh-caught trout.
And fish may jerk and gasp and die upon the line-- but they do not whine.
You'll get no complaint from herring, mackerel, saradine-- but hook a man and he'll complain on every slight he's ever suffered, from the cradle to the grave.
You'll beg to throw him back.
It would be a better trick, entire, to make men out of fishers."
--------
"Um. Yes. My apologies for descent into the wretched realms of free verse, but there was a distinct cadence in my head, and you suffer my doggerel as a result. Mea culpa! This is the price I pay for wringing My Little Dinosaurs out of my brain--it gets to do stuff like this, and it doesn't explain them to me at all. It's a follow-up to the Owl Saint, I guess. They seem to be from the same...err...world? Plane? Chunk of grey matter? Religion?
Somebody's going to ask what creature this is supposed to be--fishing cat, Pomerian, Persian, fox, maybe a really poor rendering of that large weasel called a fisher--and the answer is, it isn't. It's nothing in specific. It's not an anthro animal in the conventional sense, it's just another thing from my head trying to look wrong the right way.
If you locate a meaning, I hope you brought enough to share with the whole class."
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Post by LaFille on Sept 19, 2006 4:13:02 GMT
Root Falls "I know, I know, everybody likes the weird little stories. I like 'em too. They usually come to me as I'm working on the painting, and solidify into a pithy paragraph towards the end of the painting. I had another artist tell me once that he thought my paintings were like the punchlines to my jokes, and I've always thought that summed it up pretty well.
Occasionally, though, something comes along that doesn't have a story, that's just a pure visual. In this case, I just had this idea of a cliff, and high falls, but instead of water, a spill of tree roots. I really wanted a sense of...I guess, massiveness, or height, or something. I suspect that, given my recent doodles of houses built from tubers, and giant root cities and whatnot, that this takes place on the same world, probably the one with the Rootveldt, but I don't really know much beyond that. I don't do many landscapes, and this sort of thing, which requires more use of the airbrush than is usually my wont, comes out much more obviously digital than I usually go for, but still, whatever gets it out of my head!"
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Post by LaFille on Sept 19, 2006 4:26:55 GMT
Ok, done for tonight... I'm more into her more realistic stuff (which seems to end up being her digital one, finally), but I like all of them for the humor and originality. And cuteness. ;D She doesn't bother herself going into conventional or self-seriousness, and I love that. Shan, I'm glad if your girls find stuff to their taste in her art as well. I'm pretty fond of Tribal Wombat and Atlantis Calling too. And how not to melt for the poor troll with Sings-to-trees... She has a bunch of troll pieces, and they all have that kind of caricatural look. I love the Fisher and Root Falls a lot as well. Her frogs are cuties. And the steampipe trees idea... ;D
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Post by Shan on Oct 9, 2006 23:43:29 GMT
Just got back around to this thread Fille. Sorry it took me so long. Out of the last ones you posted, I like Azeazelbunny, The Fisher, and Root Falls. The wings on Azeazelbunny are great and I love the little guy he/she is holding. The horns and ears give a great affect. I also like the idea of the nails being so long and the ability to pick up such a tiny creature without harming it. I also see caring and interest in the painting. Root Falls is really a unique idea and one that is carried out well. The roots, with all their shapes and knots could easily be a waterfall going over the cliff. The Fisher is just cute. I love the way she does Wombats. The frogs are cute too, but I lean towards the others more.
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Post by LaFille on Oct 10, 2006 2:35:47 GMT
No problem for the delay... I've been pretty much away too. Sorry from my part as well for the quietness; I've been busy too, on my side. I promise to come with updates soon, though. Still applies. Was not supposed to, but it seems like I lied again; I'll stop talking about the future, it curses me everytime. The Fisher and Rootfalls are my favs too. I like the steampipe trees idea, though; and the alternate frogs idea. Funny things seem to happen in this head... ;D In the hand of Azeazelbunny is a pink lizard; it seems to be another of her symbols that pop in often from paintings to paintings. Often with domesticated slugs.
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