Rhiannon's Mediocre Attempts at Art

[Rhiannon]

Ta-da! This is where I get to inflict my 'art' on all the poor people who accidentally stray in here. Won't that be fun? :D

Let's start off with one of my works; 'Beren sees Luthien', a birthday present for my best friend (who posts here once in a blue moon as Lomelinde).

[CelebrianTiwele]

its really good. I can't draw. I can do calligraphy! but that doesn't really count i guess....

[Ledreanne313]

Wonderful, I can draw trees, not like that! Great job!

Anne

[Rhiannon]

Thanks! I love calligraphy. I wish I was better at it.

[Bergile]

Hey, it's good. Kinda reminds me of a wood cutting thing for some reason.

[Rhiannon]

Thanks, Bergile! I like ink- here's another one;

Ladies and gollums, everyone's favorite saint...

Joan of Arc! (with background).

Yes, she is holding a Scottish claymore. Machelangelo-whats-his-face wasn't historically accurate, so you're not allowed to shoot me.

Anyway, this is incomplete, obviously; I'm not sure how to finish out the end. Make the whole bottom of the window dark? down to the bottom of the page, I mean- or finish off the window right where it is? Thoughts? (yeah, here's one- you're being totally incoherent, Rhian, best get it together).

[Rhiannon]

Oops. Ahem. HERE is everyone's favorite saint!

(it's very icky looking. My evil computer is so awful at re-sizing things)

[Rhiannon]

And here is Joan sans background so you can get a good look at her (stop that whimpering in the back! I can hear you!)

[Scatha]

Not bad at all, Rhiannon. You seem to do quite well in lineart. :)

[Rhiannon]

Thankee, Scatha- I like ink a lot (my pencil is absolutely horrible).

[FoolOfATook]

I like both pictures. It's probably just me, but does Joan look a little, well, old, to anyone else? Still, well done on both accounts. Remind me to post Felicia Heman's poem about Joan of Arc one of these days, Rhiannon. ;)

[Rhiannon]

Thankee, Fool! Joan doesn't look old to me- that is, not more than the 16 or 17 I meant her to be- but I am biased. I actually used a posed photo of my younger sister as a reference for it, and Rachel must have been 13 or 14 when it was taken.

And, by the way, would you post Felicia Heman's poem about Joan of Arc one of these days?

[Wonko The Sane]

I love it! :) The first pic you posted is the best, the one of Luthien. :)

What kind of ink do you use? I love ink but all my art supplies have been reappropriated by the evil mum since I moved out and I have to buy all new ones. :(

[Rhiannon]

What kind of ink...whatever pen does what I want it to. For the Luthien pic I used a couple of different ones- a rolling ball ink pen for most the outlines, and a fine tipped stationary pen for the trees, and the Joan I used the rolling ball again.

[Wonko The Sane]

You don't get special aritist's ink pens?

And hmm...by stationary pen what do you mean?

*Desperate for new supplies*

[Rhiannon]

Nope. Pens from around the house. Office Depot. And by stationary pen, I mean it has 'stationary pen' written on the side and is really good for letter writing ;)

[Wonko The Sane]

Gotcha. ;)

Hmm....I should try the office depot pens my dad has then. ;)

Hehe...oh wait..already have. I went around the entire apartment grabbing up his roller ball pens in various ink colors.
He was quite upset but I acted like I didn't know what was going on.
I suggested they may have fallen into some kind of vortex.
;)
Thanks for the advice!

[Rhiannon]

And here is what I did in art class today (almost over, art class is almost over!); my teacher, who never compliments anybody with anything stronger than 'Well, that looks pretty neat' suggested to me that I make my major art, or minor in it (first he asked what my major was, and I said I didn't have one because I was taking the class for concurrent credits because I was still in high school, and then he asked if I knew what it was going to be and I said English, because it has been English since I was six years old).

Anyway, I'm not exactly sure where this came from; the idea randomly appeared in my sketchbook when I was killing time (I do not legitimately sketch, just as I can't legitimately spell), and I decided to expand it for one of the mixed media drawings due in class- this is what came of it. I hope everyone interprets it differently, as I tried to make her/its expression very ambiguious (it morphed as I was doing it- in my sketchbook the figure was obviously younger and looked mischevious). Also, the skin tone scanned as more...well, fleshy than it is actually; it's really an almost-but-not-quite greenish yellow (I was going to make it green, but liked the yellow better). I drew it on a large newspring pad, so it has been cropped and downsized considerably.

The text cut off on the side is from 'The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock' by TS Eliot and reads thusly:
"I heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hari of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown."

The picture is untitled: Ink and crayon on newsprint.

Oh yes, and FoolOfATook, remember to post Felicia Heman's poem about Joan of Arc one of these day.

[FoolOfATook]

Just for the record- Prufrock is one of my all-time favorite poems. Great picture, Rhiannon.

as promised, the Hemans poem about Joan (http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/hemans/records/rheims.html)

[Rhiannon]

Somehow I knew it would be :) Thankee very much (and I am printing out Waste Land to read tonight)

That Joan poem is lovely.

[Rhiannon]

There, it worked! Very hard to get this pic sized right....It has been cropped heavily and is grainy now, but oh well. Life is tough.

This is Sleeping Beauty: Expanded- I took a picture I did months ago and added detail to fill up all the negative space, as per the orders of my art teacher. I am still making adjustments to it, but this is where it is at the moment.

[Rhiannon]

This is me experimenting again- with dots this time. As with Sleeping Beauty and Joan of Arc, a posed photo of my sister was used as a reference- if I don't have a reference my proportions are absolutely crazy- and when I took the photo I intended to use it was a bases for an Eowyn picture, but because I am cursed I can never make it look like her at all. Oh well.

[Rhiannon]

Getting back to Sleeping Beauty, here she is in her original form from several months ago-

[Rhiannon]

...and here she is now, but a great deal of added detail. At first I didn't like that window I put behind her at all, but it's grown on me. And my computer is evil, which is why it's so harsh looking- it doesn't like me to resize things, no it does not.

[Bergile]

I hafta say, i think the detailed one is better, it gives it more, i dunno, depth, or something like that.

[Wonko The Sane]

Do you still have the blank one?

I like the idea of more detail, but the window is so busy it sort of takes away from the main focus of Sleeping Beauty.

Maybe a simple sort of sunburst or sunrise pattern on the window? Because the plain white sort of suggests a glowing aspect about her which I like...the sun might suggest the same, which speaks of her beauty and brightness even in sleep.

:)

But it is gorgeous....I love the left half of the window...the curvy ground is pretty. :)

[Rhiannon]

No- I just added to the original blank one (trying to turn out all the pictures I needed for art) but I do have the original scanned, so I can just print it out and ink a new one. I like the sunburst idea...I didn't sketch the window before I went at it, so when I didn't like how it turned out I was trying to fix it, see :p

[Rhiannon]

Just finished today- part of my Christmas present to my friend Denzi. I designed this crest for her, and I've been embroidering it on what is going to be a pillow (the pillow will also have her name and title and maybe some other things in embroidered in black, and some sort of border, also black). The meanings on the shield are:

Crimson: boldness, impetuosity, and enthusiasm
Gold/Yellow: wealth, ability, or knowledge
Blue: truth, freedom, integrity

Parted per fess (divided horizontally): Cause and effect- the two parts are means to the same end.

Chevron (the upside down V): aid, assistance, and support

Distaff border (two thin lines- blue on the outside, white on the inside): This comes from Tamora Pierce's 'Protector of the Small' quartet, and denotes a 'lady knight'.

So anyway, here it is, largish so you can see it clearly.

[Rhiannon]

And here it is, at about its actual size.

[Dragon]

hmmm, the water one was my fave...and not just bc it was colored either, but they are ll much better then anything I could come up w/...bravo, rhi!:D :)

[Rhiannon]

Thanks D *huggles little sister*

[Wonko The Sane]

The Embroidery is excellent! I was into Cross-stich for a while...but never very good at embroidery.

[Rhiannon]

Thanks Wonks! I tried cross-stitch, and it nearly drove me mad. I couldn't do it to save my life. So we're even :)

[Wonko The Sane]

Even..yes...:)
*Evil smile*

I did a bit of embroidery once...I embroidered a pillow for my mum...it was a little pillow and it was mostly chain-stiches and easy things like that...but it had a sun, and some clouds, and some seagulls and some water on it. :)

[Rhiannon]

And now for something completely different....

I've always been fascinated with heraldry, and coming up with crests was part of the fun of coming up with pseudo-medieval imaginary countries (which were mostly matriarchial democratic monarchies- I was an idealistic empowered pre-teen girl). And recently, in a fit of randomness aided by The Complete Book of Heraldry by Stephen Slater, I have been designing coats of arms left and right; primarily for myself and my two oldest friends. Together we are The Three Sisters, or the Fates, and we devote an inordinate amount of time to being ridiculous and play-acting. Recently we decided the Fates needed a champion and a vassal. And we just happened to have our friend Quest handy. So we knighted him (twice- once with Tal as witness and just me doing the ceremony, and then again when the other Sisters could be present).

Really, all this does have something to do with the art in question. While knighing Quest the second time 'round, we of course had to bestow arms on him- that means we had to give him a shield. Shield had to have something on it. And hey, while we're at it, we don't have a shield either!

So before we could have a proper knighting I had to fetch out my heraldry research, go over what was reasonably accurate and what was not, and exercise my rights as Eldest Princess, general bossy person, and best graphic designer. What follows are the fruits of my labor.

This first on is the Shield of the Three Sisters, plain: On a field quarterly purpure, azure, vert, and gules, a falcon argent, a lioness sejant or, a panther crouchent argent, and a 8-point star or and argent.

The lines and dots are 'hatchments', which represent the heraldic colors- dots are gold, plain is white or silver, diagonal down to the left lines are purple, horizontal lines are blue, diagonal down to the right lines are green, and vertical lines are red.

[Rhiannon]

This is the shield of our vassal, the twice-knighted Sir Quest. On a field tierced vert, azure, and gules a lion passant reguardent argent on a heart gules.

That is, three vertical stripes of (left to right) green, blue, and red a white lion with on paw raised, looking over his shoulder, with a red heart on his chest.

[Rhiannon]

And here is a close up of my lion from the plain version of the Three Sisters' Shield; the golden lioness represents me, the gold and silver star represents the middle sister, and the silver panther represents the youngest. The silver falcon is the symbol for all three.

I am particularly proud of how my lion came out.

[Rhiannon]

And now, my design for our individual arms; a 'badge banner' with the quartered field and silver falcon, a scroll bearing our personal motto, and our arms in the 'lozenge', or diamond.

Women, those that had their own arms, did not put them on a shield (because a shield is 'manly'), or surmount it with a helm and mantling (depend on their marital status, they might have a blue ribbon over it). Instead they used the lozenge shape, which I rather like, and decided to use here.

The lozenge is currently blank because this is really a template; to keep them uniform, once I've drawn the shape I scan it, so that I can simply print it out and trace. So, this one shall be mine (that's my motto penciled in to the scroll), and I'll put a golden lioness on a blue field in the lozenge.

I played with the idea of putting a coronet and/or ribbons over the lozenge, but I decided I liked it best plain and simple. I also, when I decided to put a wave in the banner (too keep things from being too flat) decided on purpose not to try and put a wave in the silver falcon. It doesn't bug me, after all.

And my motto is (translated in to Latin for me by my friend Cadenza), Non vir animans sum.

Or, "No living man am I." :D

[Rhiannon]

And here is the lozenge again, properly outfitted with my lioness and my inked motto.

I've been experimenting with ways to color these- oil paint no good, decided not to bother with water colors, colored pencils unsatisfactory, but I did buy some gel pens today in the right colors to play with. And, if she has the free time, the wonderful Tal might color them in her oh-so-superior art programs </art program envy>, so watch her gallery and this one for colored heraldry.

[jejeje]

Um, i dont know if this is just me but there doesnt sseem to be any visible links to the pictures... :confused:

[Rhiannon]

No--with the new upgrade there's a limit to how many attachments you can have to your name, and when I was fiddling around with it trying to get it to work I ended up deleting everything. But if you want to see something, I can always put it back up.