Artist's Seal

I have always loved the look of those bold red symbols seen in much of Asian art. This isn't a new fascination either, I've admired them for a very long time.  It's such a dramatic punch they typically is the finishing touch on a composition, and without it, those pieces would often feel unbalanced. 

From what I've read these seals are highly varied and for artistic purposes tend to hold alot of meaning and symbolism for the artist.  In fact many artists have a number of different seals they use to sign their work.    

For a long while I've wanted to create one for myself, but what would it be or say?  I'd probably set down to design a seal for myself hundreds of times only to end up with pages of ugly or bad ideas.  Then finally, one day it hit me.  The seal I designed is centered around the Japanese and Chinese character for 'true' (or just or pure, but since my site and online persona is Truepinkas, we're going with true).

Digital (Adobe Photoshop)

I also wanted to point out that I'm not Asian.  I am unfortunately sure that there are many people who would take issue with me doing this, thinking I'm somehow stealing a piece of, or devaluing their culture.  I can assure you that that is not the intention here.  I am doing this solely out of admiration and enjoyment of this particular aesthetic and art form itself.

I currently plan on using this on many of my personal digital works, and may even have a stamper made of it for finishing watercolors or sketches.  In addition to that I am strongly considering using it as a primary element when I redo my website (www.truepinkas.com).
 

Potions, elixirs and salves!

Alchemical imagery is something that fascinates me.  I've even started a collection of objects for a future project.

Black and white colored pencil and graphite on toned paper,
Approximately 6 x 8 inches.

I really am enjoying playing around on toned sketch paper.  I've currently settled on using graphite for my darks and Prismacolor colored pencil for my white.  I have discarded the use of black colored pencil for the darkest darks because I was unable to get a smooth transition into the graphite.

I'm still evolving my workflow for these pictures.  I still typically do an outline of the silhouette of the basic shapes, but in the last one (snake and skull) I did the shading first and then went back in for the highlights.  The problem was that it yielded some grey mid-tones, which ideally the paper is responsible for.  For this one however after I did my outlines I went in and rendered the light values first and then came in and did the darks starting with the darkest and working my way toward the mid-tone.

I think in terms of value grouping, gradients and overall clarity of image, this one was more successful.  I primarily do these for studies and practice, but the idea of this being a finished medium has been brought up to me.  I'm still on the fence about it, but I can certainly understand the aesthetic appeal of this sort of look. 

'Yeah, Skulls are Okay.'

What would go well to decorate a lavender room?  How about a picture of a snake and a skull?

Black and white colored pencil and graphite on toned paper, 9 x 12 inches.

So when my family spent Christmas at my brother's house my niece got bumped from her room to make room for my family to spend the night.  She's a pre-teen, so that could have caused an issue, but she was very nice to us about it.  I decided I'd do a little piece to send to her as a 'thank you'.  This is a spliced paraphrasing of the conversation with her mother but it was something like this.

"What kind of animals does she like?"
"Snakes, wolves, and aligators.  Oh and like gory or creepy stuff."
"Okay, um, are like skulls okay?"
"Yeah, skulls are okay."

So there you have it.  Should look nice on the lavender walls!