Return from the long slumber, new art and efforts

 I didn't think that Blogger/Blogspot was still a going concern with most people but I see that there's actually a ton of people (or bots—hello, bots) viewing this so I'm going to bring it back tentatively. For one thing, you don't know about me and BIRDWATCHING, which I've documented at length on Instagram and other sites. More on that in a bit though. I've only done one of these so far but I've taken enough pictures to keep me busy for a while working them into paintings. 

My goal right now is to get a good pair of binoculars, and to replace my wide-angle lens that seems to have stopped working. I mostly use the 300 mm though. Anyway, I'm not a photographer by any means but it's been a huge source of calm and comfort to find all of the amazing birds that live in my neighborhood in Texas.

Above is my greatest recent victory, grabbing a picture of a scissor-tailed flycatcher while I was on the phone with my mom for Mother's Day, and one appeared right in front of me. 

Since I stopped posting here, we moved, some things changed at work, Covid happened, I went to grad school and got a master's degree in English, and now I'm back pretty much back to my old routine and painting and wondering where all the time went.

For now here are some new paintings, and we'll figure everything else out later.

My first love is 1st edition Dungeons & Dragons-inspired art so that's been most of my time in recent years, going back to what I loved to do when I was 13-17.

And more recently, a love of vintage Halloween postcards is still a thing. 

Here are some new places where I have social media accounts:

Threads: ArtBySarada

Bluesky: Xelucha

Here are some old places that I've resurrected recently: 

Tumblr: ArtBySarada

Pinterest: ArtBySarada

Bird adventures, gothic exploration and classic D&D are all going concerns for the time being, more about those soon.

Announcing my new Etsy shop, Crewel Sister!

It's a little later than I had intended, but I finally launched my second Etsy shop this week, called Crewel Sister. I will be selling original embroidery creations, based on nature imagery and concepts in folk horror, or general occult/gothic imagery, along with anything else that catches my fancy. The 1960s/1970s retro look is a big inspiration, but so is more antique embroidery.  We'll see what happens!

 

Here are the first few items that I have up for sale, incorporating some imagery that I found appealing. For instance, an all-seeing cosmic eye in a bare tree.

Some gothic poisonous flower imagery, incorporating an antique looking design with a skull and a violet or pansy.

And of course, I can't resist a nod to my gothic paperback book covers, with a lady with long hair traversing a moonlit night with a candelabra...

I'll be experimenting with some retro designs that make me think of the embroidery kits that I saw as a kid in the 1970s as well.

My favorite subjects right now are these little classic traditional embroidery icons, which nonetheless suggest something from a world of fantasy and magic.

I will also offer custom work and commissions, within my range of ability, and on similar topics.

Please check back to see what else comes along, and "favorite" my shop on Etsy for more!

Through May 1, 2017 you can get $5 off your purchase with the code 5FORFRIENDS. If you're reading this, you're a friend!

Sci fi surrealism, rust monsters, and a few more unicorns.

Aside from working on a lot of oil paintings recently, and waiting for them to dry, I have a sort of unthemed mixed bag of things to share for the moment.

 Earlier this month I contributed a piece, "The Sea Corridor," for a greyscale art contest at Jerry's Artarama in Houston. I got a nice set of oil paints for my efforts, and the painting (18 x 24 inch on a gallery wrapped canvas) is taking up a big chunk of art closet real estate here now, in case anyone within driving distance of Houston is interested in making an offer on it. :) Blurry photo with glare courtesy of my perpetually poor lighting conditions and lack of a professional grade photo studio.

The "fish-owl" was inspired by a couple of lines in the book "Babylon" by Rene Crevel, and there are tiny little fishes budding off of the branches that were inspired by lines in "The Goose of Hermogenes" by Ithell Colquhoun, unless I'm getting my surrealist novels confused. I tried to put some of my favorite elements in this -- woods, corridors full of billowing curtains, gliding down a passageway like the famous scene in Jean Cocteau's "Beauty and the Beast"...just some things that I like, blended into a sort of collage.

I also have prints available of a colorful, surrealist-inspired painting I did a few years ago and kept in my personal collection. This is a 5 x 7 print for sale but I can also make 8 x 10 (or 9 x 12, even) on request.

"Beneath the Green Sky"

"The Lair of the Rust Monster"

On a completely different note, I'm slipping an 8 x 10 print of another of my "personal stash" paintings into the mix this week -- I love D&D module covers from the early 80s, which was my formative era. I liked the art more than anything else really, since I rarely got to play with other people. In fact, check back for a post about those soon. 

"The Shadow and the Candle"

Back to surrealism, this oil painting is also in my personal stash, just a stream-of-consciousness piece I did, of whatever came to mind at the moment that I wanted to see. Subconsciously inspired by my love of Leonora Carrington, in ways I can't quite put my finger on. I'm keeping the original of this, but 5 x 7 prints are available at the link above, and 8 x 10 can also be made on request.

Finally, I have prints up now of a couple of the unicorn paintings that I did last week.

"Beneath the Purple Unicorn Tree" 5 x 7 print

"Groovy Unicorn Room" 5 x 7 print

And soomehow when Easter rolled around I think I neglected to post this picture, that I did for the season. But really, aren't moonlit bunnies suitable year-round?

Thanks for looking, and I hope that my next update will be a little more focused, but really, what's so great about focus?

Halloween around the house

I realize that Halloween has truly -- sneaked? snuck? -- up on me this year because I've barely taken any autumn leaf pictures (too rainy on days that I have time) and I haven't gone anywhere or done anything relating to the season. I just listed this painting on Etsy, which probably has a Halloween association of some sort since it's got an owl and groovy night stuff in it, but then again it's kind of an all-purpose fantasy painting.

But, you know, having Halloween stuff in the house all year long I kind of lose track of when the actual holiday is. My Halloween stuff is messy and unorganized, but it's always there!

I do love my horror dolls by Bastet2329.

The Halloween curtains are always up of course.

Anyway, that's just a few clicks around my messy abode, where piles of books and records/CDs are pretty much on every available surface. I don't put much of my own art on the wall because that would mean I'd have to frame it!

Yay 50 followers!

I just noticed that I hit 50 followers here, not counting those who have subscribed via email. Thank you to everyone who is looking! I read through the postings on my blogroll every day, and I am trying to comment whenever I can, so your views are very much appreciated.

Halloween is only a week away and I am completely at a loss for what to do about it. I tend to have a little Halloween in every day of the year, so the actual day is intimidating. I usually don't do anything special, I'm afraid!

Looking back through some old photos though I found these -- photos of the large 3 x 4 foot paintings that I did about five or six years ago, around this time of year. They are the largest paintings I have ever done - versions of a couple of things from my web gallery, http://www.artbysarada.com, with a few extra details thrown in. Shipping was the most difficult part of the whole thing, because they were too large for the USPS. I remember taking them to the UPS store, where they had to ship them in bicycle boxes and I think it was around $150 to ship them just a few states away. I would love to do something large again but I would probably have to have someone come to pick them up if they were any larger!





I did get my new batch of 5 x 7 prints this week, so I'm slowly getting around to listing them. This Halloween owl playing with a clutch of sugar skulls, was a favorite painting when I did it three years ago, so I wanted to make prints of this one for sure...




And in the meantime a psychedelic autumn owl wound up happening as well. This is just listed as an original right now, but like anything that I have a high-res scan image of, I can make a print from it.


That's about it for now...hopefully I'll have time to do something festive this week!

real and illusory mushrooms

It's getting cooler out, but the summer of endless mushrooms continues. The mud is getting darker and thicker, the trees downed by lightning strikes in the summer are now covered with heavy fungus growth.


This strange procession of mushrooms up the trunk of a downed tree, were particularly striking. Again, I'm limited by the fact that photography is not my main pursuit in life so it's just dumb luck when I can get a picture in focus.


Then of course there are the illusory mushrooms. I was looking at my Indian bedspread with my glasses off, and I would have sworn that the patterns formed these strange spotted mushrooms. I liked that idea so I jotting it down before I lost the image. The owl and the hedgehog are purely gratuitous! But walking around with my glasses off might be a good way to come up with ideas for things to paint, now that I think about it.

Woodland creatures on parade

Well I'm posting this on all the sites that I frequent, because I'm just tickled with how it turned out. Although by calling it "Twilight Halloween Parade" I might be inadvertently inviting fans of a certain sparkly vampire series to click on it, that was certainly not my intention. Sometimes 'twilight' does in fact refer to the time of day!

I like the long rectangle as a canvas size and I have a few blank ones lying around for other purposes. Since I'm not a fan of stretching my own canvases (believe me, I would just break everything in the house in my attempt to stretch them...and also my entire workspace is one-half of the sofa, so I don't have a lot of room to maneuver) I am happy when they offer interesting sizes in the stores.

The critters in this painting are inspired by my woodland friends and things I've encountered over the summer. The woods have been full of mushrooms in every shape, size and colour this summer, and I've seen an unusual variety of moths and caterpillars even during the day (though not a luna moth yet this year, I am sure they are around). As for black cats, well I have one so they are always around. We had an owl in the vicinity this year that I heard many times at night, and we had bats in the attic last year -- this year I helped to build bat houses for a conservation group. The ponds were full of giant snails and everywhere I went I seemed to be walking smack into a spiderweb.

So here is a little parade of my friends as they carry their jack o'lanterns on a trick or treating expedition. This painting will be featured in the Etsy holiday showcase tomorrow most likely, and I will try to book another showcase spot later in the month for something or other as well.

Moon Owl

I don't usually do horizontal paintings these days but that was my preferred style, back in the day. I'd use 16 x 20 canvases and do a complex fantasy/D&D sort of scene that I'd never finish because it seemed like too much space to cover. I switched to 9 x 12 after scanners came along and that became my preferred size. Now, I still use those but I really like these little 6 x 8 canvases. I can do just one small, focused idea where I'm not spending a lot of time filling in foreground or background, and I can just take a small subject and do a lot of different variations on it. I don't know why but I really like 6 x 8.

Anyway, here's an owl! I've purchased a showcase spot on Sept. 1 in the Holidays section on Etsy, in hopes to getting my Halloween stuff out there at the start of the 'serious' Halloween season. I usually flake out!

I wanted to do something that was simple and not complete looney the way my tastes normally run. Just a nice owl!