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.

Pre-Halloween sale through Sept. 21!

 For the next two weeks (until the clock strikes midnight as the day turns to Sept. 21, central time) I will have a 20% off sale in my Etsy shop. The coupon code is HALLOW2015 and is good for any amount, any number of times.

Here is a sampling of some Halloween themed items in my shop, though you can use the coupon on anything. Both originals and prints are available of many items.

The first item below is a new painting -- an 8 x 10 inch acrylic on canvas. I sketched this last year when the Halloween Artist Bazaar did a "dark hollow" theme. I did two paintings on that theme last year but saved a couple of my ideas for this year, so I just finished it up -- a fox, some luna moths and some pumpkins in a twilit grove.

Stay tuned for more Halloween stuff throughout the next two months! My first selection of ghost stories for the year incidentally is "In Ghostly Company" by Amyas Northcote. Don't know how this one got past me before but it's definitely time to read it now!

Twilight in Fox Hollow

"Flames of the Ghost Lantern"

 

"Lost in the Dark Hollow"

The Owl and the Pussycat Went to Tea

 

"Cauldron in the Dark Hollow"

 

"Sisters of the Crypt"

 

"The Silent Grave"

 

"Keeper of the Keys"

 

"Tower of the Zombie Girl"

A glimpse at what's new for Halloween -- cats, tentacles, ghosts and vampires

The skulls are on the shelves in the craft stores, so it must be time to get a few more Halloween-friendly items out there into the world. This post is just a chance for me to round up a few new items I have on Etsy this month!

I started a few little (3 x 5 inch) canvas panels with black cats on them a long time ago and only just now finished them up for the season. It might be a little bit obvious who my models are, at this point.

 

"The Door to Autumn"

 

This is Angelique, who turned 3 this year and is the most wide-eyed, excitable cat I've ever met. Her eyes are always ROUND and every object is a potential toy or prey. I'm not sure what she was looking at in this picture...oh no wait I do, she was listening to a Keiji Heino record, actually. So I guess she was trying to figure out what to do with those fascinating dissonant sounds...

  

"Playful Pair"

And here we see Shinobi -- age unknown but he's probably at least 8 by now. He's on a diet these days, since hitting about 24 pounds, so there's a lot of cat going on here...but stoic and bulky as he is, he's a real sweetheart. When we play with them with the laser pointer, Angelique (and the other cats...unpictured) zoom around the room, limbs scampering and paws flailing. Shinobi waits for it to come close and he just steps on it with his paw and sniffs it. He's a pretty cool customer.

I've also added one to my revolving collection of "ghosts in bottles" -- the first ones I've done in color, so that's fun, right? Yay!

"Ghost Gallery"

And I've added one to my "traumatized pumpkin" collection as well - this time it's blue tentacles making everything weird and alarming.

"Entangled"

Finally, for now, there is an 8 x 8 painting I did for some album art, but I am offering it up for sale on its own now. Inspired by images in films, along the lines of Hammer from the early 1970s, the long red cloak trails off in a surreal and symbolic gesture of a river of blood.

"Ascent to the Haunted Peak"

 Thanks for looking, if you are looking...more Halloween and haunted art coming soon!

A Few Gothic Visions for Halloween

I have plenty of orange pumpkins and black cats available year-round for the Halloween aesthetic, but I am really into surreal grey images at the moment. Although not a conscious influence, I think that the Edward Gorey intro to "Mystery" in the 70s was one of those formative images in my life, and something that I connected with immediately. The black and white drawings of mystery clichés -- the garden walls, the statues and urns, the strange dark figures lurking in the background -- I can't even remember specifically what was in it, without rewatching it, but that kind of imagery formed a kind of blueprint in the back of my mind for All That Was Good.

The thought of a half-seen, shrouded figure; a ghost flitting through a topiary garden or past a cemetery gate; a broken fountain in an abandoned courtyard; a cracked urn overgrown with ivy -- they thrill and delight me like nothing else in the world. Even in the films I endlessly watch from the 60s and 70s - Italian gothics and giallos, Hammer horror, surreal French vampire films - carry this aesthetic. It's where I live, what can I say? Here are a couple of small paintings that pay tribute to those glimpses of haunted spaces.

 "The Hidden Window"

"Lost in the Garden"

While I'm at it, here are a few more typically Halloween images, but with a muted grey monochrome look to them -- highlighted by a single bright color of a ghoulish or ghastly image. I may add to these before long, but so far there are three.

 

"Besieged by Tentacles"

"Aflame"

"Traumatized"

Through Oct. 15, you can get 15% off anything in my Etsy shop with the coupon code AUTUMN14 to celebrate the season.  Use it as much as you like, pass it along...get yourself or a friend a little something for Halloween!

Dark Hollow and Dark Holler

As September draws nearer, things are getting pretty serious with the Halloween stuff popping up. Here are a few more entries in the Dark Hollow art theme by Halloween Artist Bazaar members, as well as a couple of new prints that I have up on Etsy -- which are not Dark Hollow prints, but hey, they are still Halloween.

But another item worth mentioning right now is that over on Dark Holler (see how I did that?) record label, there is a new album available from the band I have been involved with for the past 15 years, Stone Breath. This time around the album is all Timothy and Prydwyn, the pairing that initially drew me to the band when their "A Silver Thread to Weave the Seasons" album was released in the late 1990s. I'm on a bonus track here, but by all means please check out the full album for the most heartfelt, perfect acoustic music you can expect to hear this year. You can also investigate the entire catalog at Bandcamp if digital versions are your thing.

Over in the art department...here once again are my new Halloween works but this time I am talking about the prints that I now have available. You can choose the in 5 x 7 or 8 x 10 inch sizes, and all are in stock as of this writing.

 "Lost in the Dark Hollow" print in 5 x 7 or 8 x 10 by Art by Sarada

 "Cauldron in the Dark Hollow" print in 5 x 7 or 8 x 10 by Art by Sarada

As a side note, I have a few other prints now available of older Halloween art and I will be adding more as the weeks move along their merry way.

"Witch Twins" print by Art by Sarada

"Twilight Tree" print by Art by Sarada

And as promised, here are three more items from other Halloween Artist Bazaar artists. That link right there is to the full HAB shop, but you can also find our stuff on Etsy and other locations...check for the tag HAB, to find a nice assortment!

"Tiny Witch Shrine Box" by Wicked Alterations

"Spooky Tree with Headstone Coffin Box" by Odd Origins

"Will of the Wisp" by Twilight Faerie