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Melissa's Blog Welcome to Melissa's blog, where she'll journal about current WIPs, fairs and festivals, upcoming products, and anything else that comes to mind! | |
December 8, 2008 Happy Holidays! Hello hello everyone! I hope your Decembers have started out well and you're all having fun getting ready for the holidays. We just uploaded our new Lockets-- I'm so excited about these! I've always been fascinated by lockets, so I was really excited to design a necklace combining lockets, keys (another one of my obsessions!), crystals, and of course, my paintings! Things have been so busy around here order-wise (which is good!) that I've hardly had a chance to do anything I planned to do this month, for the site and everything else. Every chance I get I'm working on finishing my newest paintings, which I absolutely can't wait to release. It took me a bit to get back into painting human anatomy after painting so many cats, but I've been having a great time designing my new fairies and angels. The one series of fairies, which I'll be releasing the first two paintings in soon, is actually based on specific Swarovski crystals, so the necklaces will match perfectly :) Well, that's all for now... I'm off to work on orders, then hopefully-- PAINT! Happy Holidays to everyone! I hope they're safe and fun :) Fairy Dust & Angel Feathers, Melissa | |
November 27, 2008 Happy Thanksgiving! Hi everyone! I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings full of love & laughter-- for my non-American friends, I hope you're having great weeks ;) This Thanksgiving was rather special for me; Tim and I had been a couple for 3 Thanksgivings, but had never spent one together. So, this Thanksgiving was not only our first spent together, but our first as husband & wife. We're both very close to our families, and my parents hosted a combined Thanksgiving for both families, which was amazing. Now only Tim and I are awake, so I figured I'd write a bit in my blog. The Art Show last weekend was really fun & I was happy to learn I sold about half my pieces in the Art Show, as well as a bunch in the Print Show. The only downside was I didn't get to meet my customers! So, if you purchased any prints of mine at OryCon, thank you-- and please feel free to drop me an email and say hi :) I've been working on updating the website with the new products I mentioned-- bookmarks, greeting cards & such, but it's slow-going since I have to hand code each page and add pictures of everything. But, progress is being made, and I will keep working on that! I'm hoping to have all these pages live by next week. I'm also working on finishing a lot of new angel & fairy paintings. I have a new Dark Faeries series I'll be releasing when the first two are completely done, which should be sometime in the next few weeks (depending on how much I get to paint!). I thought I would release some gothic angels next too, but my new white-winged angels may beat them out and get released first! I guess we'll just have to see... Fairy Dust & Angel Feathers, Melissa | |
November 9, 2008 Big Update on the Way! Wow, I didn't realize how long it had been since I posted on here-- October flew by, and I can't believe it's already the second week of November... I think my mind is trapped somewhere back around October 20 lol. I hope everyone had a fun Halloween! Part of the reason I've been so quiet & late with my monthly update is that I am unexpectedly doing not one, but TWO shows this month! November 11-15 is the Country Christmas Bazaar in Canby, Oregon; the following week, November 21-23, I'm in the Art Show at OryCon 30 in Portland, Oregon. I have been so busy getting holiday paintings & merchandise done that I haven't been able to update this site, but I'm working on uploading all the new products as I type, so the website should be all updated in the next day or two. Unbelievably, I have not one, or two, but THREE new paintings! They are all holiday kitty paintings-- with wings, of course. I'm also finishing up a winter fairy, a few angels, and a bunch of other paintings that should make it onto the site in the next few weeks as well. I have some new necklace styles, as well as the promised greeting cards & giftcards. I'm also consolidating some of the necklace pages to make things easier on you, with new discounts as well! Finally, to celebrate the holidays, I'm offering a discount on all my prints-- 5x7" prints will be $5.99 instead of $6.99, and 8x10" prints will be $10.99 instead of $12.99. And, if you buy my new holiday kitten set, you'll get two 8x10" prints for $20! I'll be putting these new prices up when I get the website updated, so be sure to check back and take advantage of these sale prices! I know with the holidays coming up we can all use sales :) That's about all I can think of for now... I put in about 80 hours of work this past week, prepping for the bazaar, so I'm still trying to recuperate and catch up on my sleep. I'm thrilled to spend tomorrow up in Washington with Kathi & Greg of Browser's Books!! Hopefully I'll be a little more coherent then... Fairy Dust & Angel Feathers, Melissa | |
October 12, 2008 A little note... ... just to say "hi" and briefly update you on what's going on here. Strider's here helping me! It's gotten really cold here the past few days, so the cats have been glued to me, using me as their own personal heater. The cold is bad since it makes me curl up in bed and not get anything done! Relatively speaking of course! Etsy is keeping me busier than ever, and I've been making enough cameo necklaces that I'm dreaming about them almost every night, no joke! I'm also working on a ton of new paintings in various stages of completion-- more than I've ever had in progress before. I used to start a painting and work on it obsessivly until I finished. This past year I've started working on several paintings at once, which is nice. I have a hugely diversified list right now; I actually have more than this, but among them are a winter fairy kitten (surprise surprise ;) ), another fairy kitten, a Christmas kitten, the winter fairy I started last year but never finished, a fallen angel, and another first for me-- a white winged angel!!! I'm experimenting with new color schemes and composition, so this group of paintings will hopefully shake things up a bit. I'm enjoying working on all of these paintings immensely, but the problem is... I worked on my Halloween painting in September, and I'm working on snowy paintings now, so by the time Halloween rolls around, I'll be ready for spring! I'm also working on new products... greeting cards are finally here, as are giftcards. I also have several new cameo settings-- yes, they are my favorite product to make :) Several other products are in the works, and may or may not make it into my late October newsletter. I haven't quite figured out my release schedule for all these new paintings, but I'd like to have several of them done in time for November, since fall kinda fades into winter then. I will most likely be posting my new necklaces and such on Etsy before they go up here, so please stop by and visit me there! SpellboundWings.Etsy.com. Autumn Fairy Dust, Melissa | |
September 29, 2008 Website Updated! Hey folks! I hope your September ended well. I am in absolute shock that it's already October. Well, it will be in 40 minutes here ;) I've been watching The Nightmare Before Christmas over & over, so I'm REALLY in the mood for Halloween. And Christmas! I hope the website update made sense-- if you ever have any questions, no matter how small, please don't hesitate to send me an email. Plus then I get to procrastinate on what I'm supposed to be doing :) Website updates always take me 2 or 3 full days since I hand-code the updates myself, so it's a relief to have another one done. Now I can get my other sites updated, and then I get to paint! I'm applying to be part of the Art Show at OryCon 30 in Portland, Oregon-- I'd applied to the Dealer's Room, but it was already full. I'd love to be a part of the convention, so cross your fingers for me! I have a really exciting new painting that I'll have finished in time; it's one I thought of a few months ago but have been waiting to do. I'm really happy to be finally working on it! I think that's it for now... I have a lot to do before I get to sleep, so I'd better get started! Autumn Fairy Dust, Melissa | |
September 22, 2008 The season of Change continues! Hello hello! Hard to believe September is almost over!! I'm trying to finish up two paintings and some new products to send out a new monthly newsletter next week. With my new Etsy shop (SpellboundWings.etsy.com)added to the list of things I'm always working on, I'm finding that there's waaay to few hours in the day! I'm currently updating all my necklace pages, and I'm adding a new section to the site which will be announce in the October newsletter :) I thought I'd show you a peek of one of my WIPs... this one is not too far along, with the background, leaves, and pumpkin being just placeholders for now.  I hope you enjoyed that sneak peek! Autumn Fairy Dust, Melissa | |
September 15, 2008 Autumn; the season of Change! Hi all! Hope your September has been enchanted so far! Things are busy as ever here, but in a good way :) I feel very autumn-y today, so I may start another autumn painting just for fun! I wanted to point out some changes here at Spellbound Wings. You may notice that some purchasing menus have become drop-down menus instead of radio buttons; I'm switching the whole site over to drop-down menus, a few pages at a time :) I've also decided to continue expanding my line of necklaces, so you will see more designs up soon. And good news-- I've found some new suppliers so prices on the necklaces are going to be reduced!! I've also got a couple new products in the works, which will be going up right before I send out my next newsletter-- either the very end of September of the beginning of October. I can't wait! I've also just opened up a new shop on the popular marketplace site Etsy: you can visit me at SpellboundWings.etsy.com-- and the new necklace prices are in effect there! Etsy is like Ebay without the bidding-- it's got a wonderful user interface, and the added benefit of being able to post multiple pictures of each item. I'm attempting to have something similar on the new Flash version of this website! I'm sure you're wondering what I've been painting-- I do have several new angels in the works, as well as several new animal paintings, and a couple new characters that I haven't painted before. I should have at least two new paintings to release with the new products, so definitely keep an eye out! I had decided a few weeks ago to forgo any further shows this year and concentrate on painting instead. Well... that may not happen! It turns out there's a sci-fi/fantasy convention in Portland, Oregon (OryCon 30), so I'm applying to do that November 21-23. I'm also working with my mother-in-law on a fundraiser-- she's part of the rescue organization 4Paws, and fosters kittens every year. That's actually where we got our first cat from! They do pictures with Santa every year, so we're hoping to turn that into a fundraiser with my art, the two weekends before Christmas. The director of her organization also wants to sell my animal art year-round, so I'm very excited to help raise money for them-- 50% of the profits will always go to 4Paws. I think that's it for now... that's a lot more updates than I thought! I need to get back to work-- this weekend we're going to a pirate festival (yay!!!) in Portland, and then up to Seattle the next weekend to visit Kathi and Cindy, who I met at Faerieworlds. So I need to chain myself to my computer until then! Autumn Fairy Dust, Melissa | |
September, 2008 Update Complete! Whew! Talk about a massive update. I've been working on it for three days now, so it feels great to finally have it done. Now I can start painting! ... well, after I do everything else I've been neglecting, of course! Unfortunately, wedding thank you's won't write themselves :) Chores & thank you's will probably occupy my Sunday and maybe Monday, but I still may get a chance to start a new painting. What will that be, you ask? I've been debating what I want to paint next, since I have about ten must-paints right now. Tim put his vote in for one that we actually came up with together, and since I am really excited about it, I capitulated. So, you should be seeing another fallen angel in a few weeks... you will also be seeing a new website design at some point. Once I get it in my head I want to re-design it, it bother me until I do. However, I really want to add some Flash into the new site, so it may be a bit, seeing as how I've never used it before! I hope you enjoy all the new products and updates... I have some more exciting products to add next month, so make sure to sign up for my newsletter if you'd like to be notified once I add them-- groups.yahoo.com/group/SpellboundWings/! Thanks for reading, Melissa | |
September, 2008 Quick Note Just a quick note to let you know I haven't disappeared! The cats and I have been sick for a few days so I'm catching up with everything as quickly as possible. I have six embellished prints ready to be posted on the website, and several very exciting necklace designs that are almost ready to go. I was hoping to post all of this when I released A Purrfect Autumn, but obviously that didn't happen :) I hope to post the embellished prints tomorrow, and the necklaces the day after. I will send out a newsletter when all of these awesome new products have been posted. Thank you for your patience! I think you'll agree that the new products are worth the wait ;) After I work on these new products, I need to update several online galleries, and I'm in the process of opening up a shop on the popular site Etsy. So there's lots of behind-the-scenes activity right now at Spellbound Wings! I've also happily decided to extend my Master's degree one more semester, which means instead of hiding in the library and writing every day for the next two months, I should have time to work on new paintings and products. I'm in a kitten painting mood right now, but I have a Halloween-ish painting (or two!) that I'd like to do, as well as my big, special winter painting. Which may become the header for the new website design I plan to release this winter at some point... Until Next Time, Melissa | |
August 31, 2008 "A Purrfect Autumn" Sorry for the delay in posting! I went to bed so late and had so much trouble sleeping that I've been like a zombie today. Without further ado, I give you "A Purrfect Autumn"!  I have several really exciting new products that I'll be adding to the website, along with the Purrfect Autumn merchandise, so keep an eye out for those later today and tomorrow! If you'd like to be notified when I've posted them, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter at groups.yahoo.com/group/SpellboundWings :) Thanks for reading; I hope you found the WIP process interesting! | |
August 30, 2008 Finished! ... it's done! Yay! I can't wait to print it out and hang it on the wall, it will definitely keep me in a magical fall mood. Haha it's still titleless... I want to bounce some titles off of my husband tomorrow morning, so I'll title it when I add all of the new merchandise. Which I can't wait to do! So, I'm going to be a tease and post one more WIP shot below, then post the final one tomorrow when I update the site. Is that mean or what? :)  Here I finished the leaves, which turned out to be rather fun to do once I figured out where the shading should go. I had to make them sparklie :) I also started adding more highlights and shadows on the kitten. Well it's 3 am where I am so I'm off to bed... when I wake up tomorrow I will post the finished piece with all the merchandise, and of course, some detail shots! | |
August 29, 2008 Fall Kitty WIP5 Well it's not done, but it's close! I could stay up and work more, but since it's 2 am, I think I'll just pick it up tomorrow :)  So in this shot I'd worked on the tree branch; I love using the Impressionist brush in Painter for tree bark.  I decided it looked funny just showing the end of the tree branch, so I added the edge of the tree trunk. Both the branch and trunk still need their edges refined!  I can't remember what sparked me to do it, but I added a new layer in Photoshop and filled it with a bright orange color. I played around with the layer's style, and found that "soft light" at a 45% opacity gave the background a more vivid, autumn-y look. This is why I love painting digitally so much-- you don't run the risk of ruining the painting each time you want to experiement! I also started trying to paint the front leaves. I haven't painted many leaves before!  Here I fixed the front leaves until they looked more realistic, then painted the leaf under the kitten's head. That's my favorite one! The leaves, like the kitten, aren't perfectly realistic; I think my style is definitely more semi-realism. Well, that's it for tonight! Tomorrow I need to paint the floating leaves, fix the tree & branch edges, and highlight/shadow the kitten's fur one more time. And fix the big sparkles! I'm happy that I'll be done tomorrow night, which means it took me 9 days to paint this kitten. Animal paintings are still hard work, but compared to my angel and fairy paintings, they're relatively quick. If this was an angel/fairy painting, I'd still have two or three weeks of continuous painting left! And now I'm off to feed the model for this painting, as he's decided I've done enough on the computer and is now walking all over my lap lol. | |
August 28, 2008 Fall Kitty WIP4 Lots of updates as promised tonight! Depending on how it goes, the painting could be finished tomorrow night. I'm thinking about calling it "Autumn Catnap," but we'll see :) Off to the pics!  So after I found the kitten look I wanted, I continued to refine it, and started to add some of the decorations I wanted in the background.  I continued to play with the background, and added more highlights to the kitten's face.  More highlights and refinement of the face; I also changed the size of the body and moved it closer to his face.  This is where it got fun! I'm still unsure what I want in the background. I originally thought the light cream colored background would make the black kitty stand out; but I felt it just looked blah. I decided to try red around the edges, which I ended up darkening until it was as you see right here. It's darker than I wanted, but I feel like it actually makes the kitten stand out the most. I also added some sparkly wings (well one wing, I need to add the other one!) and sparkles, which need to be highlighted. And the leaves need to be painted! So we'll see if I really get it done tomorrow... cross your fingers! | |
August 27, 2008 Fall Kitty WIP3 Sorry for the delay between postings! I had been taking pics and was prepared to post every day, when I inevitably ran into my biggest problem: anatomy issues. I decided that the kitten wasn't looking young or cute enough, so I've spent the past few days adjusting the face and body. The first two pics below are from before I changed the anatomy; the third one is where I'm at now. What a difference!  Here I added eyes and scribbled in some pink fuzz for the inside of the ears.  I smoothed the ear fuzz the same way I'd been doing the fur. There's nothing too wrong with the kitten per se; I just looked at it and decided it didn't match the picture in my head closely enough.  ... and here's the new little kitten. The fur now needs more work, as do the closed eyes, but I'm generally happy with how it's coming along now. I'll also make the wing smaller than I originally drew it since the kitten's much smaller! I didn't take that many progress shots when I changed the kitten to make it younger, since it went through about four incarnations before I was satisfied. Hopefully I'll have a lot more progress shots to post tomorrow :) | |
August 22, 2008 Fall Kitty WIP2 Here's an update on the kitty's progress! I've put the latest WIP pics below, starting with the least finished. When the painting is finished, I'll combine all the WIP pics in one tutorial and post it on DA.  First, I took one of my hair brushes  , and picking a very dark brown at about 82% opacity, scribbed in a base layer of fur. Ugly, isn't it? Lol.
I was also playing around with a white star on the forehead to match his paw, but since I want this to be a portrait of Strider, I decided not to keep it. Next I layed down some basic highlights and shadows using the hair brush. Basic highlights are a light yellow-gold color, and while you can't see them this far away, the base shadows are a deep purple. When I first began painting I used black where I saw black and white for highlights, but the colors are much richer and more accurate if you use other colors for both, especially complimentary colors.  Here, as you can see, I've started blending the highlights and shadows with the rest of the fur. There are many ways to simulate fur; here I'm using the hair brush smudge tool, at 80% strength, and brushing it back and forth to mix the colors and give it a hairlike texture. Right now I think he looks like a cross between a bat and a pig!  Here he is with the highlights and shadows pretty much blended. At the end of the painting I'll add some brighter highlights and deeper shadows, but for now his fur is in good shape. Onto his eyes and face, to hopefully make him look more like a kitty! | |
August 21, 2008 Fall Kitty WIP Hi all! I hope you're having a good August. I'm back from my wedding and mini-honeymoon, which I promise to blog about once we've gotten pictures. Since things have been crazy, I haven't picked up my paintbrush in over a month, which has made me a little crazy! So, today I sat down and started a painting that will hopefully go well and quickly, so I can start on the complex Halloween-ish painting I have planned for an October 1 release. I thought it would be fun to show you the different stages my animal paintings go through; not a tutorial as much as a glimpse at my painting process. However, if you have any questions, please feel free to email me at the address on my Contact page, and I'll do my best to answer any of your questions! So this painting doesn't have a title yet, but it will be a black kitten with fairy wings on a tree branch. There will be fall leaves and sparklies when it's done, but here's a rough sketch of the basic composition:  I don't always use reference photos, but this time I found the perfect pose in one of my first pics of our cat Strider, who we adopted a year ago. He's actually a kitten in this picture, though he's so big already it's hard to tell! I made the kitten in my sketch a little smaller and fluffier, since I'm going for a young kitten. Here's the pic of Strider (originally facing the other way but I flipped it horizontally):  Stay tuned for more WIP pictures as the painting progresses! | |
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August 5 2008 Faerieworlds! Where to begin? Faerieworlds was crazy! Tim had to work all day Thursday, so we drove down to Eugene Friday morning. We drove right past the turnoff for Secret House Winery, where Faerieworlds was! The winery was off the beaten path on a long, dusty road. That is definitely one of the things I'll remember most about Faerieworlds-- the dust that seemed to be everywhere! So we found our booth spot and began setting up. I got so lucky and had the neatest vendor next to me! His name was John Nielson and he was selling the book he just wrote and self-published, called "Toe Jam and The Toenail Fairies." I bet you haven't heard of those fairies before! John was awesome and remained unflappable, even when he came back and found the wind had flipped his tent over and was practically on top of another tent! We all wish we'd gotten pictures, since the sight really was indescribable. Anyway, setting up was really tough because the wind was super strong and was knocking everything down-- even my huge, solid 11 x 14" frames. Tim went out to get sheets to hang on the backside of the tent, which mostly fixed the problem. Thank goodness we were facing away from the wind! Since we were towards the back of the venue, people didn't start meandering back there until late afternoon. The atmosphere was incredible-- bands played almost non-stop for the three days, there were fairies and angels everywhere, and the food from the food vendors smelled sooo good. I was privileged to be visited by a lot of awesome customers! My new friends Lisa and Jesse (and Sasha!) visited me every day, and had me sign a lot of prints :) I had so much fun visiting with them! I was also excited to discover that one of my customers, Autumn Rose (isn't that the best name?!), is actually a fellow DeviantArt member. I also enjoyed hanging out with the two artists manning The Fairy Court booth-- Nedda and Jacqueline. It was really neat to finally see their art in person! I also met a lot of other great artists, like Christi Brown and Carol Phillips. It's hard working your booth and not having enough time to spend looking at all the amazing art there! I also got to meet Amy Brown! Since her artwork was what I bought at that fair two years ago, which inspired me to try painting, meeting her had a lot of meaning for me. I bought several of her prints, including her fairy piece "Hope," which she signed for me. I had the best time talking to the two wonderful ladies who were running her booth-- Cindee and Kathi. Cindee runs an Ebay store for special Amy Brown items, and it turns out that's where Tim got my "Dusk" Amy Brown print last Christmas!! Cindee also does an amazing job creating porcelain doll costumes, and is working on making them for people as well. Kathi's an art representative and has a bookstore in Washington-- so of course Tim and I are now dying to make a trip up there to visit her soon! They were both so great to talk to, I'm very glad I got to meet them :) Hmm, what else? I know I'm forgetting a lot! I'm sure I'll remember once I've posted the blog. Overall Faerieworlds was incredible, and I'm really looking forward to vending there next year. | |
