I have been terribly negligent of this journal. What is worse, I have also neglected the journals of my friends. I am so sorry.

( Another slightly lengthy post after another slightly lengthy absence )

Charter for Compassion

Shared via AddThis

I'm so sorry for the scarcity of updates.  I've just been so busy; there has been little worth mentioning aside from simply getting on with the work. 

However, Myths and Legends of Russia is now published and available from the Folio Society.  I've begun uploading a few illustrations from that into its own folder in my dA gallery.  More will be added by and by.  If you are interested in seeing them, please by all means visit the link.  I think, henceforth, it would be easier for me to simply post a link to artworks which I've uploaded there, rather than trying to post the images themselves in too many places.  The exception of course would be the sneak previews that I share privately with friends here first, which will be uploaded directly into this journal's scrapbooks and galleries.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
A yellow rose.

( Read more... )

You may recall my entries with the binding design layers and the binding rough, plus the two advance illustrations I did for this project.

This book will be available in June (I hope the link works - it seems only Folio Society members can see it at the moment, as it isn't released yet.  If it doesn't show, I do apologise).  I finished the last of the illustrations for it back in December, a day before Christmas Eve.  I had scarcely time to lift my head from my desk, it seemed, never mind attempt anything else.  Christmas preparations were entirely forgone, and I had no money besides.  The holiday was spent catching up on sleep for the most part.

Then this new year began with fresh anxieties - chiefly about work, and tax returns, and other minor things which seem to take on a marvellous new magnitude once they enter my head.

Shortly before my birthday, I fell ill with flu.  Very real, bedridden, fever-gripped flu, complete with vomiting, etc.

Whilst recovering from it, I managed to catch myself a cold.

The ridiculous succession of illnesses meant that an inordinate length of time was lost in an attempt to simply get back to fair health.  The new project (about which I will write in another entry) suffered before it had had time to properly begin.   But I am digressing by way of a personal update. 

Back to Myths and Legends of Russia, however.  ( Image intensive cut )


Finally, to end this post, two further glimpses of the illustration I'm still working on.  These details are subject to further additions...

 

       

This has been in progress for far too long. 

A brief hello to let you know that I am still quite alive, before a more proper update at a later time.

Thank you so much for your recent kind messages.  I truly do appreciate them very much.  I'm very sorry I hadn't been keeping up with everyone's entries during the last three months.  If there have been very significant happenings which you feel I ought to know about, do please point me out to those entries, and I'll try to become informed.  :)  Greetings, too, to new friends.

For now, here are some 'sweeteners' (at least I hope they are).  I was able to get myself, at long last, a rather wonderful treasure in the form of a very good scanner a little while ago.  Henceforth, there'll be many more pictures (including a lot of old work) and probably fewer words from me, which may after all prove to be better for everyone upon the whole.  :) 

(Image intensive cut)

( 'So good night, unto you all' ) 

1.  I find my psoriasis has spread to my scalp.  There are now also a few small patches on my already acne-scarred face.  Since I neither drink alcohol nor smoke, I can only attribute its aggravation to stress (if indeed it is a true contributing factor).  I wonder if distress counts?  Does prolonged grief and unhappiness equate 'stress'?   Mine is a mild or possibly moderate condition, but it seems to have only started in the last few years and has been recurring since.  If it has spread, it is not improbable that it may continue to do so.  I've also become intrigued by the possibility of psoriatic arthritis, which may explain the recent, peculiar and hitherto unknown pain in my right knee.  It can happen at any age too, though as yet it is probably too early to have developed already.  Hmm. 

2.  I dreamt about my grandfather twice in recent days.  Last week, I dreamt I found him in tears at the loss of somebody, who does not exist in real life, but who was apparently of great importance to us in that dream.  I burst into tears too when he told me the news.  Of course, the moment I awoke, I found myself in some ridiculous anxiety about what the thing could mean.  Of late I have become excessively anxious about the health and well-being, and above all, the continued existence indeed, of the people dearest to me.  Given the absurd fragility of my emotional state in present times and the dreadfully unhappy state of the world, I have what might be irrational fears about unfortunate things threatening the lives of my loved ones.  After that dream, the person I was most worried about was my grandfather himself, who is quite well back in Chiang Mai.

Last night, I dreamt about him again.  This time he was perfectly happy - and laughing so heartily such as I have not heard him these many years.  And still, I was no less worried when I got up.   More so that I should have dreamt of him twice so closely together, when he does not in fact figure much in my daily waking thoughts.

3.  I put on so little weight as it is, but I can confess that I have not been eating as I ought, or as I have usually done (that is to say, copiously) during the last few months.  My hair at the moment is also the longest it has ever been.  My mother tells me I look even thinner with it.  But it would not surprise me to find that I actually have lost weight.  If even I appear to notice it, then it is probably true.  I also am rather inclined to suppose (hilarious though the idea is) that my stomach has so become accustomed to small and irregular portions, that I find myself feeling full sooner than I have done before.  It can't be helping things much.

4. Finally, something lighthearted  pinched from rhfay.

Your result for The What Middle Earth race do you belong to Test...

Wizard

Take The What Middle Earth race do you belong to Test at HelloQuiz

 

The weather has been so very warm these past few days here, it's curious that I should have unearthed this old, unfinished Christmas-themed project recently whilst rooting about for more watercolour paper.


Goodnight!

I was going to post the other of the two advance Myths and Legends of Russia illustrations for Folio, but I love this tale so much I thought I'd just post the whole of it too together with the illustration.

( The Wise Little Girl )( The tsar met her at the gate. )
Right on, sister.  LOL.

Please excuse the lack of comments from me of late.  I'm still panicking and still rapidly losing time.  Perseus and Andromeda has been put on hold whilst I tried to finish two other pieces which must be handed in tomorrow!   One of which I've just completed.

( The Fox and the Crane )
Must dash out to buy more paper.  Fancy running out when there is a deadline!  And why in Heaven's name must there be choir practice tonight (It's a new one I've just joined - only a temporary thing of several rehearsals and one performance, that's all; I just wish it didn't start til next week!)?

I find myself once again panicking  - about two deadlines this time. Argh.  My apologies if I haven't been leaving comments on friends' posts or replying to messages.

My recent entries have been too much full of gloom (well, I did warn some of you).  Of course, you always have the choice of ignoring these, since I almost always warn beforehand if it's going to be especially despondent.  Though I do wonder whether I oughtn't to dispense with all such emotive things and simply post pictures exclusively...

At all events, here's a glimpse of one of the things making me panic...



Oh, grief, look at the time...

I'm a little late in the day with this - but not too late yet.

It's Shakespeare's birthday today (23rd April). I thought that alone was worth a journal entry.

DUKE: And what's her history?
VIOLA: A blank, my lord. She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud,
Feed on her damask cheek: she pined in thought,
And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?

Twelfth Night, 2. 4

There are better quotations to be chosen, but this seems to be on the surface of my mind at the moment...

A perambulating and rather sorrowful post.  It's also rather long as it deals with two events last week.  Please feel free to skip straight to the (hopefully) mildly interesting illustrations if you'd much rather.


These pages are from an anthology of animal stories published by Kingfisher.  The extract I illustrated is from Dick king Smith's The Hodgeheg.  I expect it should be available soon, if not already.  I don't have my artist's copies of it yet.  These scans were made, as usual, by the ever reliable funkyfilly. Thank you so much.