Rose Red, Rose Red
Did you think Snow White dead?
Seed and shard, apple heart.
None shall keep you apart.
*Enjoy a compilation video of the messy but fun process of making this picture, sung to the traditional folk song, "Rose Red."
I still only know how to use a small portion of Artweaver's digital painting tools, but I love experimenting with it! And I can't wait to share more projects this summer.
In May, I made quite the lofty pronouncement . . . I wanted my joy back! A slanting sparkle I lost long ago when I gave up part of who I used to be to time. Now after many mangled drafts, I am happy to share the Lunar Halo edition of Stealing the Dark Moon:
I must confess that this single piece took me months of messing around on Artweaver. While not a perfect mirror of my initial idea, I learned a lot from practicing. And I have so many projects I look forward to tackling next! I want to illustrate three of my mom's poems. I have a backlog of children's stories and novels I wish to create art for in the future.
I hope with each new experiment, I gain a pixel's worth of confidence.
On June 18th, I will make a promise to myself here and on Substack: I shall fold all the beauty I can find into a paper boat and set it free every Wednesday.
Whether it sails into a welcome inbox, or drifts into the utter silence of the void, I won’t wait to be told my ink is good and ready. It’ll just be good. Good enough for my own happiness, anyway!
I want to push my creativity out of my comfort space and see just how far I can ink my heart out . . .
I want my joy back! To give myself permission to sketch my dreams out with a free if clumsy hand. These are cropped from old Paint pictures from 1997-98 back when I had a desktop computer and hand mouse to exercise my imagination. Definitely no Mona Lisa level of artistic talent here, but . . . their wildness makes me smile. I used to sketch with pencil and on the computer all the time, but as a teenager, I did it less and less. I let that part of me atrophy. One of the goals of my Cynestia Moon project is to explore new (and old) avenues of creativity and fun. So expect more crazy Paint experiments in the future!
Titled "Door of Dimensions." I was really into Star Trek and the scifi coolness of black holes.
Titled "Verda." Oh, I had a giant world saga planned for this story...
Titled "The Star Rover." I adored the spray paint feature for nebulas.
Titled
"Zilfa." A much loved character I created in my childhood. She was
named after one of my favorite authors, Zilpha Keatley Snyder.
Titled "Wind Daughter." I'm afraid I forgot her story . . .
Titled "Medowen Girl." Okay, so this fairy's face kind of frightens me, but I love all the detail I poured into the flowers.
More recently in 2023, I dabbled in Paint with my witchy edition of Cinderella!
It's high time I started creating the lunar lore of Cynestia Moon! I imagine she is a faraway empress who reposes in an iolite palace on the dark side of the moon.
Something like this iris in all its airy, gossamer petal perfection:
*Snippet from my poem "Heaven is Too High for Us." First published in NVCC Fresh Ink.
Salutations! Cynestia Moon is a brand new, yet very old project of mine.
I will be sharing snippets of poetry sifted from my ineluctably accumulative decades, and other random musings still in the process of eclosion. I also write stories on my sister blog, iffymagic.com.
I hope you enjoy the syllabic smorgasbord coming from my mind! I can't promise any of it will make sense, but I hope it will stay with you for awhile, and maybe sometimes, make you smile or sigh . . .
Time to Dust Off and Don Your Dreams . . . While I’m usually more drawn to the tinsel glitter of the winter holidays, my younger sisters hav...
