Brigid Ashwood Art Blog

Art & Words

2012-05-10T20:18:17Z

Logo Design Process - new project Art & Words with publisher Candlemark & Gleam. I'm illustrating a new printing of Poe's The Raven!

The Fairy Society - Art Scams

2012-04-23T14:27:49Z

The Fairy Society. I am so very sick of talking about this organization. And I'm even sicker to hear that they've never really gone away, never really stopped preying on unsuspecting artists. This weekend they popped up again. A fellow artist was very frustrated to hear that people are still being duped by this company. I agree it's terribly frustrating. For a lot of reasons.

Here's the thing - every career, every field has it's pretenders and scammers. It's just part of the world. It's almost a rite of passage that in your career you'll run into something like this at somepoint. The best you can hope for is that you'll get a quick crash course in avoiding this kind of crap in the future.

It is important as a professional to do your research before you sign up with any company. BUT I understand it can be difficult sometimes to do research. What if you reach out to an artist for a reference on a particular company and they don't respond, or their response is vague and non-commital? Yeah, that's difficult. I understand. But listen, it's virtually impossible to completely protect yourself from every bad situation out there. At some point you'll sign the wrong thing or make the wrong deal - I can just about guarantee it. Don't beat yourself up or get bitter, just learn and move on.

And here's another tip - DON'T get mad at your fellow artist's because they didn't warn you or tell you. I guarantee you somebody, somewhere, has spoken out about whatever bad deal you experienced. Just because you didn't come across it, doesn't mean it didn't happen. Also, hate to break it to you - but none of us will hear the best of warnings before we are ready. If you don't want to hear a well intentioned warning, you won't. I've warned many people about things and it did no good, they proceeded anyway only to later come back and say "they should have listened". (To be fair I've been on the other end of that as well)

Additionally - people have lives! Who wants to spend all their time and energy on this kind of crap?! Your fellow artists don't owe you a living, a safe passage or a COMMUNITY. You/WE must BUILD IT.

As far as warning each other about crappy businesses out there - sure looks like a central repository for such things might be a good idea. So I made a TUMBLR for this purpose.

I made a TUMBLR because I don't want any of this crud on my webspace. (Comments are closed here for that same reason - feel free to bitch on the TUMBLR page tho) I also made a TUMBLR because they get great Google search results - and because it can easily be added to anonymously.

So if it's important to you that people share information about bad companies and clients - then go add your story to that TUMBLR page and share it around. That simple.

Now - get back to making art.

;)

TIPS TO AVOID NASTIES:

Check their feedback on Etsy & Ebay - actually read the comments of negative feedback. Note similarities - this is a red flag!

Does it sound too good to be true? Then it is!

High turnover? Bad sign

Weird behavior on the part of the "leader"? Bad sign! READ THIS!

Tips for avoiding scam artists - HERE.

Good luck!

Gratitude & Freebies

2012-04-19T13:18:11Z

^This is a present for you!^

I know a lot of us are going through tough times right now. Things are rough - the economy sucks, politicians seem to be going crazy, family members get sick, people are being laid off. Yikes, there's a lot of hurt going around! And a lot of stress. I wish there was something I could do.

I know when I'm feeling down, what helps me fight the stress the most it is to keep gratitude in my heart. (I know this is all very sappy, bear with me). I think about how things could be worse - I think about the positive things in my life - what I have to feel fortunate about. Gratitude helps so very much.

I was thinking about this all the other day as I watched my Facebook timeline fill up with a lot of rather depressing status updates from friends, aquaintances and members of my Facebook Fanpage. I wished there was a way to give all my "virtual friends" a gift, a little warm fuzzy to cheer them up. If you all lived in my neighborhood I'd bring you a batch of chocolate chip cookies. But you don't....So what to do?

So I'm doing what I always do - I'm sharing art. I love to share freebies of course (desktop wallpapers HERE, Geek Kid Crafts HERE) but I wanted to share something that people could share forward, that you could pass around, email to a friend etc. Hmmm....

Then this week I read this article about butterflies and it all kind of came together. The article says (in a nutshell) that scientists have discovered that butterflies, with their looping trajectory that looks random and directionless, actually follow a flightpath.

I thought this was such a great metaphor for life, especially the kind of life many of us are living right now. As much as our path may loop and dive and appear to veer off course, we must still keep our eyes focused on the future and our wings committed to the flightpath.

So there's your gift (above) .... please feel free to share it however you see fit! (No commercial usage of course)

And I promise to make you more. Because I'm so grateful for you.

Giveaway Winners

2012-04-04T17:05:50Z

Thanks to everyone who entered the Giveaway! I cannot tell you how charmed I was by your answers. I have to say that I went into this thinking that at the end of the Giveaway I would give you the "right answers" what I found was that you had more "right answers" than I did!

Many of you guessed creative influences that I had not intentionally added to the piece, but in retrospect I must admit are clearly present in the drawing; a subconscious addition culled from the collective unconscious, the creative aethers, that we all have access to.

So for the curious, the creative spirits that I intentionally added to the piece are:

- Van Gogh - his face can be seen in the palette on the left

- DaVinci - Vetruvian Man in the stack of papers on the left.

- Shakespeare - his signature on the spine of the first book under the door.

- Virginia Woolf - her signature on the spine under Shakespeare's book.

- Hemingway - his typewriter on the right.

- Isadora Duncan - her ballet slippers

- Klimt - stylized carvings on the tree limbs

Some of the fabulous guesses made in the comments include:

Lewis Carrol
Kepler/Newton
Burmester
Poe
Galileo
Tolkien
Joyce
Rimbaud
Kerouac
Anton Pieck
Stradivarius
J.M. Barrie

NOW! I extended the giveaway by a few days last week because some blogs had picked up the info and I wanted to give more people a chance to enter. I also added another winner.

The two print winners are Jenny Davies-Reazor and Sam (chosen randomly)

Since this was so fun - I'll be hosting another giveaway soon - so stay tuned for another opportunity.

To those that didn't win, but wish to purchase a copy of the print you can do so here:

8x10 print signed

Large print (actual size of the original) signed

Entreating - Silverpoint Drawing & Win FREE Art

2012-03-26T17:02:58Z

O! for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention.

After weeks of painting and drawing quite a lot of "commercial" artwork I've finally something new to show that is wholly personal in nature. If you follow this blog you know I'm in the midst of a writing project - a story, that will be an illustrated novel (or 2 or 3 or whatever-the-hell-it-is-that-is-not-up-to-me.) It's scary working outside your comfort zone, yet it's the only way to work if you want to be an artist that works at the highest level you are capable of - if you want to grow, and if you want to create meaningful work.

So I've been plugging along, committed to the story, indeed the story won't have it any other way. It's emerged in layers, it's made it's own connections independent of my hand, it's told me things I found astonishing, yet I know them to be true. The story is set in this world, now and in the past. There are many stories in the story - and one that is apart from the others, yet at the very heart of it all. It's incredibly personal to me. It's the embodiment of my relationship with my muse, although it's not about me, it's about the characters.

It's always a challenge for me creatively when I'm sharing work that is very close to my emotional heart. I tend to be frightened of it, and then I procrastinate. So, in the grand tradition of creative procrastination my Muse has allowed me a small comfort, she's given me a drawing. Happily, two of the beings in the story have taken form on paper for the first time. At the risk of waxing poetic (too late?), I have to tell you - this was such a joy for me to draw. I felt like I was meeting old friends for the first time, and every bit of the design flowed like cool clear water from my hand.

The figures present in the drawing are:

Mina - the doll-like figure. She is a Muse.

Traipser - the crow, he is also a Muse, although he doesn't know it yet.

Muse's like Mina work with many humans over many hundreds or thousands of years. A piece of a soul might reincarnate over and over again, the same spark of inspiration being present in many different artists during many timelines. So for instance the same bit of spark present in Beethoven, might reincarnate and inspire a DJ in London now. Muses's are responsible for awakening the spark present in us all. It's a hard job, often we are resistant, and not all genius is good.

The original is 8x20, silverpoint on toned paper. The title is 'Entreating'.

Since I'm so happy to share this with you, I thought I'd have a bit of a "contest". There is a great deal of not so hidden symbolism in this piece. If you find the symbols present, please note them in the comments. I'll choose a random winner from the answers. The winner will recieve a large format signed print of the piece. And I'll be sure to reveal the "right" answers at that time.

Click to embiggen.

Here's a little help:
This drawing is an important scene in the story. In the drawing there are elements that represent some of the creative geniuses that Mina has worked with over many decades.

Can you spot them? If so name them, and leave your answers in the comments. I've included large snips of the drawing so you can investigate clearly.

Good luck!

Balancing

2012-03-15T18:53:00Z

This year my art goals are pretty lofty. One major thing I'm working on is a drastic expansion of my commercial body of artwork. As an artist I work in two main categories of art, with some overlap.

My Personal Work: This consists of whatever I want to do, exploring themes and projects that appeal to me on an emotional level.
My Commercial Work: This is comprised of commissions and concept art for manufacturers, or trends my agent suggests that I explore because they are highly marketable right now.

Often these two groups do overlap. For instance when steampunk hit big, I'd already been exploring themes along those lines in my personal work and suddenly all the images that I had that could be viewed as steampunk were gaining a whole new audience.

It's a challenge in a slow economy to eek out a living as a working artist. For myself, succes in this area has meant continuing to build and maintain my commercial work, while also persuing personal projects. From the outside looking in, fans of my work might not see much difference between these two categories. And that's fine, I work no less hard on my commercial pieces then I do on my personal work. And many of my commercial pieces follow my personal interests. For example a new painting - Lord Ganesha was painted with several commercial pursuits in mind, and yet he's always been a favorite of mine and I've hoped to find time to paint my version of him for a long time.

Remover of obstacles - Ganesha (aka Ganesh) is one of the most beloved of Hindu Gods. A recent Facebook meme reminder Ganesha devotees to "Don't tell Ganesha how big your problems are, tell your problems how big your Ganesha is".

BUT.... you knew there was a but...didn't you? ;) For the working artist, well for THIS one anyway - the ongoing struggle is the balance between painting what feeds my soul, versus what feeds my tummy. The eternal hope is that most of what I work on will fall into that sweet spot I illustrated above. Work that feeds my soul, and inspires my audience and also pays the bills. So while I'm working on all those commercial paintings this year, I'm also working on another project - a project that began as an inspiration for a novel and has now turned into something a little richer.

At this point I've mostly given up trying to force THE PROJECT into a recognizable shape. It's decided on it's own that it first wants to be an illustrated short story, then a series of paintings, and lastly if I can get my literary shit together, a novel. That's what it's told me. So there you have it.

Yesterday a piece of lovely from THE PROJECT decided to come out and play. A simple sketch, a moment from the short story that has been bouncing at the back of my eyelids for weeks. I finally pulled it out and set it down. The doll in the sketch is Mina. She's a Muse. Her crow friend is Traipser, he's a kind of Muse too, but a little less gentle with his methods of inspiration. I'll leave you with the sketch and ask you to feel free to share your thoughts about balance, work, art and inspiration.

P.S. WHOOPS I forgot I've got large format prints available now - for those that are interested!

Ancient Angels - Flower Series

2012-02-29T14:56:05Z

I just finished a series of commercial paintings I've named Flower Angels. It's a series I've had on my "to do" list for a while but not having eight arms I just hadn't gotten to it yet. But as trends ebb and flow, so does the pressure from the manufacturers one works with. So when my manufacturers get louder, I tend to have to rearrange my painting schedule a bit. This is how these four angels flew (so to speak) to the top of my list. ;)

Angels are calming and inspiring (my friend and fellow artist Jessica Galbreth paints lovely, ethereal angels ) and while they are always beloved, it does seem they are enjoying a bit of a spike in popularity right now. And why not? With roots that run as deep as Ancient Sumeria and being an integral part of the spiritual doctrine of many of the worlds religions; angels are at once a symbol of hope and comfort to many people.

I hope I did justice to the spirit I was trying to capture. I hope you find the images inspiring. (To Buy Prints CLICK HERE)

Click to Enlarge

Pansy Angel

2012-02-16T21:13:58Z

I'm working on an Angel series right now. Here's the first. Pansy Angel. (There are four images in the series, lotus, rose, poppy & pansy. Others coming soon)

Geek Valentine - FREE Download

2012-02-07T17:23:28Z

Yay! This month's craft is Geeky Pop-Up Valentine Card. The color version can be downloaded HERE.

If you want to color it yourself, you can download the black and white version over at the GeekMom.com blog HERE.

(In fact check out the GeekMom.com blog for lots of geeky valentine stuff! Including last years geek valentine cards.)

The cool thing about this Pop-Up is that the heart face comes with accessories. So you get to customize the look of the heart face however you wish!

On Writing...

2012-02-01T04:19:45Z

Alright so you might remember my sordid confession a few weeks back. The little project that is labeled "the book thing" in the file cabinet in my head. There has been much procrastination surrounding this task for about two years now. So much so that I finally sat myself down and laid out a rule. I demanded of myself that I had to begin writing, actually WRITING before the end of this month. Today at about 6:00 pm I'm proud to say I had a lovely little smattering of about 4,500 words. Not too shabby.

At this point there is hardly any eloquence present anywhere. I've given myself permission to just tell myself the story now, just to get it down. So far this results in lots of pages that sound like me, talking to myself. Rather clinical really. I wouldn't say that anything really sings off the page yet. Although in a fit of self indulgence I did manage to shed a tear while channeling a little dialogue from one of the more beloved characters. So that was nice.

Here's that bit. Which probably won't make you cry. Not even a little. ;)

"I’m not a painter, I don’t have an economy of fluid brushstrokes with which to paint for you a portrait of the events of this evening. I cannot give you a framed synopsis of what’s transpired. I only have a thousand words - a thousand clumsy, imperfect, woefully unsatisfying words. Words that hang about my head like boulders. There is so much to tell you. There is so much that is important. So much that you MUST know, and all of it at once."