Voyage to a New Blog

I'd like to invite you all to travel with me to my new "official" blog! Actually, it isn't new at all-- over six months old-- but I wanted to work out a few bugs before I made the formal move.

I think things are in order now, & with the end of the AlphaBots project, this seems like a good time to travel onward. I won't take this blog down, but probably won't be updating it, so I do hope you'll join me over there. You'll see a lot of duplicate content from the last few months at the moment, but I promise there will be new stuff coming soon!

http://www.leahpalmerpreiss.com/blog/

Drawing Table

I finally took a few pictures of my studio. This is my drawing table set-up. Yes, pretty much everything in my studio is this jam-packed.







Now you know why I felt strangely at home when I saw the studio of Henry Darger.http://www.art.org/collection/henry-darger/

Birth of Longma

Here's a little bit of process for Longma, the Dragon Horse.

The original page from Young People's Natural History was scanned & printed archivally, then I began adding thin layers of paint (Golden Fluid Acrylic, sometimes with a touch of Golden Open Medium).

Between the first & second scans of the painting, I added a wash of green to the image area. Unfortunately in doing so I lost all the detail from the original zebras, which I'd hoped to have faintly showing through in the final. But so it goes!

The final art is on my Oddments & Curiosities blog.

Z is for Zebra

Alas, all good things must come to an end. This is the final entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet. Sob!

I have a feeling these red envelopes are also an endangered species. (See more Netflix doodles here... while they last.)

Black rollerball & white gel pen on Netflix return envelope.

p.s. It helps if you pronounce the "Z" in British fashion, i.e. "zed."

p.p.s. Can you find the hidden message? (Click if you need a closer view.)

Y is for Yellow-Bellied Water Skink

This week's entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet is a super-quickie, because it's my husband's birthday & we spent last night doing some advance celebrating.

Interesting how many yellow-bellied whatsits are represented in nature's alphabet. I don't recall so many other belly-color names showing up. And I don't think there are any lily-livered skinks, &c., so it's not that they were all named by B Western characters. Which just reminded me of that lovely oath from Zorro, "meal mush & goat's milk!"

Enough tangents! And sorry, skink, for putting you through such contortions to simulate a "Y". You may stretch out now.

Ball-point, marker & white gouache on brown paper, with some Photoshop tweaking.

Oops, one more tangent: today is the day when my Curiotype alphabet finally overtakes Animal Alphabet (assuming I can get that one finished along with birthday doings). Feels a bit sad to have both of them drawing to a close...

X is for Xerus

This week's entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet.

I have a soft spot for squirrels-- they may steal my tomatoes, bury pecans in my potted plants, & generally get up to all sorts of mischief, but it's so much fun to watch their antics! The xerus was a new one to me, but I love their super-upright posture. They look like they've been taking ballet for years.

Ball-point, marker & white gouache on brown paper, recolored & otherwise tinkered with in Photoshop.

W is for Widgeon

This week's entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet.

Ball-point, marker & white gouache on brown paper, recolored & otherwise tinkered with in Photoshop.