Month of Love 2018, prompt “blue.” My attempt at a Mead Schaeffer-style duotone piece.
I struggled a lot with this prompt, starting and scrapping a couple of different ideas before this one came up just a few days ago and grabbed me enough to finish. For whatever reason, if I had to assign a color to it, women loving women always felt blue to me (perhaps because of the Sapphic -> sapphire similarity, or gay being frequently signaled by pink), so this felt apropos.
My second Month of Love piece.
Much as I love the androgynous and soft butch looks, I also really love femme ladies and fancy dresses. :3
Tara Abernathy (from Max Gladstone’s Craft Sequence) for the first prompt of Month of Love 2018, “Black.”
I’ve been wanting to do a piece for the Craft Sequence books, which I discovered and fell in love with maybe a year ago, and this was the perfect push.
Modeled for by the lovely @labillustration, a great artist in her own right.
My first entry as an official artist on the Month of Love!
An updated portrait for my Pendragon knight, Tyrelaine. It was supposed to be of her regular self after a supernatural-beauty curse was broken, but, uh… I fucked up and made her possibly prettier than the portrait I did of her while super-beautiful. >_>
For the third Month of Fear prompt, “paralyzed.” Thought of those moments when my mind was just empty with no desires nor willpower to do the stuff I had to do, and basically all I could do was lie flat in bed maybe scrolling mindlessly through the internet. It feels like a white void physically pressing you down.
Done for the Month of Fear 2017 second week, “shiver.”
I really enjoy doing the Month of Fear/Love challenges, because they give me an excuse to try things I don’t normally do. Er, yes, I could just do them anyway with my own stuff, but… I don’t, for some reason. So it’s great as an impetus.
Done for the first Month of Fear 2017 prompt, which is, unsurprisingly, “howl.” (I am gud at title.) An exercise in limited palette and trying to be a bit looser with my rendering.
Commission I did for a friend’s BF’s birthday, of an ulfhednar, a Viking wolf-warrior. Lots of fun, even if I did have to scrap it midway through and start over (the original one I went with just wasn’t well-composed).
The splash (hehe) image I did for Team Meeting Games’ fun little game jam game, Don’t Spill Your Coffee, now on Steam Greenlight! While the Supremo edition is still being worked on, you can play the original build from itch.io.
Done as a wraparound cover for the first in a theoretical YA series about an order of gryphon riders.
Done mostly because the image popped into my head and I really wanted to do something that would make my twelve-year-old self scream in glee. (Though it ended up changing a fair bit from the first image in my head.)
Artist Priscilla Kim generously shares with LFF about her work in the realm of fantasy realism and painting women almost exclusively, her latest project, advice for aspiring artists and more…
Where are you from? How did you get into creative work and what is your impetus for creating?
I
can’t say I have a specific place I’m from, as I moved around a lot as a
child, but I am generically an urban American. I’ve most recently lived
in Austin, Texas, but currently I’m traveling around the world for
2017, seeing a few countries and working remotely on the go.
I’ve
been a reader for as long as I can remember, and so originally I wanted
to be a writer. (It’s still a goal, it’s just taken a back seat to
being an illustrator.) That slowly shifted over time into art, starting
from when I picked up roleplaying in my early teens and wanted to depict
my characters.
Ultimately, I
create because I enjoy the process of creating. It doesn’t get much
deeper than that. I really enjoy the mix of calm and problem-solving
that making an illustration provides, and I like having something at the
end of the day that I can point to and say, “I made that.” I paint in
the realm of fantasy realism because it’s what I’m drawn to the most;
the subtleties and challenges of capturing light, color, form,
everything in a realistic fashion, while also injecting magic, is
endlessly fascinating.
Tell
me about your current project and why it’s
important to you. What do you hope people get out of your work?
While
at the moment I don’t have firm plans, I do have a pet project - a
series of illustrations, and possibly also some writing, showcasing a
world based around a post-apocalyptic King Arthur, reincarnated as a
girl in a world where most humans have died and the remainder have
pulled in on themselves in tribes. It’s aimed at a YA audience, and I’m
hoping that it pulls readers away into a new world with beloved
characters in the same way that my favorite books/series did for me as a
child and teen.
Artwork by Priscilla Kim courtesy of the artist.
Does collaboration play a role
in your work—whether with your community, artists or others? How so and
how does this impact your work?
If
collaboration is defined as something where multiple people have equal
or near-equal impact on and sweat in a work, I can’t say that it’s
something I do much. I tend to hole up in my room or at a coffee shop
working alone, most of the time. I do, however, end up soliciting
opinions and feedback on almost everything I make. There is no piece so
precious that another set of eyes can’t provide a fresh perspective.
Beyond
collaboration, though, I would be utterly lost and floundering without
the community of artists that I’ve found; the support, feedback, and
camaraderie has been irreplaceable. In a real way, I don’t know how far I
would have gotten without them. Considering
the political climate, how do you think the temperature is for the arts
right now, what/how do you hope it may change or make a difference?
Honestly, my work is mostly entertainment -
entertainment that I hope connects with people, as all the art I’ve been
affected by has connected with me no matter its source, but I don’t
deliberately seek to make big statements about the world or effect
lasting change.
In general,
however, I am saddened by the decreasing importance of the arts in the
public mind, even as more and more of our media and everyday life is
defined by the artists who make our entertainment, education,
advertising, and everyday design.
On
the other hand, the increasing access of the internet and the ability
to connect with other artists and see art of all kinds online has, I
think, resulted in a much broader palette of options for any beginning
artist. You can get a stellar education and exposure just from resources
obtained online, especially with the amazing databases that museums are
photographing and putting up.
Artist
Wanda Ewing, who curated and titled the original LFF exhibit, examined
the perspective of femininity and race in her work, and spoke positively
of feminism, saying “yes, it is still relevant” to have exhibits and
forums for women in art; does feminism play a role in your work?
Absolutely.
I tend to paint mostly women, 80% because I just enjoy painting women,
but the remaining 20% because I want to give a greater role to women
than I have historically seen in the genre arts. I really enjoy seeing
different takes on strong heroines with agency, and want to return the
same. I’ve joked before that I paint warrior women as wish fulfillment,
being tiny and not physically-imposing, but it’s one of those “just
serious haha” jokes. I think everyone likes to feel strong, in one way
or another.
Ewing’s
advice to aspiring artists was “you’ve got to develop the skill of when
to listen and when not to;” and “Leave. Gain perspective.” What is
your favorite advice you have received or given?
Make
a lot of work. Use the process to a) get better, and b) figure out what
you want to do. Everything else comes with doing the work.
Les Femmes Folles is a volunteer organization founded in 2011
with the mission to support and promote women in all forms, styles and
levels of art from around the world with the online journal, print
annuals, exhibitions and events; originally inspired by artist Wanda
Ewing and her curated exhibit by the name Les Femmes Folles (Wild
Women). LFF was created and is curated by Sally Deskins. LFF Books is a
micro-feminist press that publishes 1-2 books per year by the creators
of Les Femmes Folles including the award-winning Intimates & Fools
(Laura Madeline Wiseman, 2014), The Hunger of the Cheeky Sisters: Ten
Tales (Laura Madeline Wiseman/Lauren Rinaldi, 2015) and BARED:
Contemporary Poetry & Art by Women (Edited by Laura Madeline
Wiseman, 2017). Other titles
include Les Femmes Folles: The Women 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016
available on blurb.com, including art, poetry and interview excerpts
from women artists. See the latest call for work on the Submissions
page!
Check it out, I got interviewed by Les Femmes Folles!
Okay, I lied on my previous Month of Love entry - I guess that won’t be the only one I did for the month this year. :p For the final topic, “light.”
Got inspired by another painting (”Sycorax,” by Abdul Abdullah) and the initial idea for this popped into my head, though it ended up very different in the end.
My yearly one piece for Month of Love. (Well, I suppose two years isn’t quite enough to make a habit, but I do find it funny that I did exactly one image for Month of Love last year, too.) Directly inspired by walking on the beach at Hokitika, New Zealand, and seeing the pieces of half-burnt driftwood there, bleached grey-white and charred black.
