Dark Goddesses

Painted four of them. Here are the two I like best: a version of Kali, and Nyx, the Greek Goddess of the Night. Actually, Nyx hardly looks mysterious or as if she is capable of begetting Desire (as she did in the Greek myths); but she's turned out to be a favourite with everybody else. So, looking at my creation through the eyes of others, I've come to see her attractiveness too.

These have been done with graphite, watercolours (pencilled in and then washed) and pen.

Games People Play

Loteria. I only heard of it because we had to come up with four cards each. It's a card-game that's played in Mexico, apparently. I don't know how they play it, I only know that the deck contains 54 cards, each different, and numbered one to fifty-four. The images range from the abstract, like El Diablito (the Devil) and La Muerte (Death) to solid, clunky ones, like El Cazo (the Saucepan) and La Bota (the Boot).

I chose to do the ones below because they are all connected with water. I almost did them all in blue too, but then I overthrew my prissy, orderly self and here are the results. Orderly, but pretty? Or just pretty orderly?

All my references were taken from Flickr CC.

Stick-Stars

There was a stick-figure swap posted, and I thought why not. I did these, though I started out intending to paint some Warli-style stick people. I'm so pleased with these (and so are a lot of other people) that I'm thinking of doing a series on classic Indian movies.

Twenty Minutes, All Told

We were to spend thirteen minutes on one ATC, and get four of them ready in 52 minutes. I laid out the paints, paper, brushes and water, getting this whole lot finished in twenty minutes, including drying time. One thing I'm still not done with however: patting myself on the back. Heh-heh.

Oh, and I have to confess that I spent a lot of time planning the entire thing... but nobody said to include think-time in the final figures presented. I call this set Primaries, not only because those are the colours used.

Blue and One Other Colour

That was the challenge, to use just shades of blue, with one other colour. I didn't think that white was a colour, but apparently it is. These half-faces were painted using Winsor Blue and Prussian Green, which is actually a shade of blue.

Alohomora!

May the doors open, may there be a lovely kiddie book to illustrate, not, NOT, oh never, an English textbook! I've been harking back to the days when I painted for kiddie books and magazines. So, when there was this swap of characters from Harry Potter, to be interpreted just as the artist pleased, I jumped at the opportunity. At last, some illustration.

I used the books for reference, not the movies. And, I chose four of the staff at Hogwart's for a portrait session. Here they are: Trelawney and Lockhart and Umbridge and Moody. All these teachers have been painted in watercolours.

My scanner's acting weird, so these have been photographed. That's why the tilt.

Gypsies

I've been painting ATCs on a new site, not WetCanvas. The swaps are more manageable here, for you only have to do sets of three/six paintings upon any theme. The tough part is that you get negative trading points if you don't send your art within the stated time. Oh I love the pressure... or do I hate it? Difficult to describe the feeling.

Anyway, one of the themes was It's a Hard-Knock Life: Gypsies and Vagabonds. Here are my Banjaran. The moustachiod gent is from a photo by MeanestIndian on Flickr CC.

All these cards are in watercolour, on watercolour paper from Auroville. I've made a special attempt to paint them in muted tones, especially after getting drunk on colour with the Solstice paintings.