WIP - fae creature by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

Just an hour with the tablet. This morning's restoration efforts don't count as today's 30-in-30 painting; this is unfinished but at least it's something new for today. I could probably finish it with another hour but David & I are both heavy with colds so we've opted for an early night.

Inspired by a rather pretty Cerberus Project EL I saw a little while ago on DA.

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1291174.html"; you may comment either there or here.

The Magic of Dance by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

This painting caused me so much stress last night. I got it completely finished and was doing the final save and conversion from a raster file to PNG for resizing in GIMP when MyPaint crashed - taking both ORA and PNG files with it and corrupting them as it did so. (The fact the final file is 12MB was, I think, the main cause for this in retrospect - Dell 10" netbooks have many advantages, but with a max RAM of 2GB they're really not a high-power graphics machine.) All I managed to salvage was an early save file with the first 15 minutes of sketching.

Losing over an hour's worth of work and being unable to post the day's painting due to a software glitch was incredibly infuriating and I swore quite a lot. It was pushing midnight so far too late to start faffing around and attempting to recover something workable - or to come up with something in time. I'd completed the day's painting; I just had no evidence or picture to show for it.

Today I was able to find a temp save file elsewhere in the Linux file structure whilst looking for something else - and with a bit of work I was able to recover almost the whole painting barring a couple of background layers and the top layer of highlights. So I was able to restore and finish the painting again and this time save it safely and upload it. The final painting is, I think, well worth the effort to recover it but it's been very much an excercise in frustration.

The answer is going to be a decent desktop with plenty of RAM, but right now that's not something I can afford (unless I start getting far more commissions or actually start selling prints). So I'm just going to have to be more cautious when saving and take back-ups far more frequently.

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1291006.html"; you may comment either there or here.

Red Kite by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

I did get this fijished and uploaded yesterday; I just didn't get around to posting it. Anyway, the painting for day 23 of my "30-in-30" challenge was this red eagle. I don't hve the same affinity for painting birds as I do for painting mammals; the beak in particular gave me a lot of rouble. It's highlighted another area I need to work more on.

4 hours' speed-painting on Wacom Graphire graphic tablet.

On a related note, I'm amused by how many people refer to their "faithful old Intuous tablet" - the Intuous line superceded the Graphire line, but my tablet is still going strong. :-)

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1290751.html"; you may comment either there or here.

Ocelot by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1290263.html"; you may comment either there or here.

Caracal Cub by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

Opted for "quick 'n' cute" today - a 2-hour speed-painting of a caracal cub.

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1290107.html"; you may comment either there or here.

Unfinished piece - close-up by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

Today's been rather busy so I didn't get a chance to start on today's painting until gone 10pm, so you get a close-up of the most complete part. I'll be going back and finishing it after the 30 in 30 project is finished.

IN other news (seems to be a lot of that lately) I applied for a job today. £30K PA with TfL, essentially doing my old LUL job at Earl's Court only for London Bus information. Having been out of work for over 6 years, it's all a bit nervewracking....

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1289738.html"; you may comment either there or here.

Pink Rose by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

An hour with the graphics tablet. This one is available as a print on deviantART - and also on coasters and mugs. An ideal housewarming gift for someone perhaps...? ;-)


And there's unexpected brilliant news concerning Frances. This time last night I was sadly resigned to having to say goodbye to her this evening, but to the surprise of everyone she has made an amazing recovery. The anti-emetic jab she had stopped the vomiting, and this morning she actually managed half a sachet of sensitivity-control wet food. She had the other half at lunchtime, and improved so much on the IV fluids that at the point this evening when I thought I'd be saying goodbye to her, instead I was bringing her home!

She's not completely out of the woods yet; we don't know what will happen when the anti-emetic wears off. She could start vomiting again; we don't know. We still don't know what caused it in the first place either; it could have been a delayed reaction to the thyroid pills, or any one of a hundred different things that can go wroung with a 15-year-old cat that's been starving on the streets for who knows how long.

But the main thing is that right now, she's home and safe and alive and as well as can be expected, given her age and condition.

I think Bast must have been smiling on us today. A happy Beltane for us indeed. :-)

Many thanks to everyone who kept their fingers crossed, prayed, and offered good wishes. And Frances says thank you too!

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1289231.html"; you may comment either there or here.

Pinkie-Cav by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

cavalorn is a brony. I've threatened on more than on occasion to paint him as Pinkie-Pie; today I made good on that threat.

Apparently he's tickled pink by his portrait. *ahem*

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1288761.html"; you may comment either there or here.

Tiger In Repose by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

It's another tiger. And now I'm exactly at the halfway point for "30 in 30"!

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1288450.html"; you may comment either there or here.

Lion by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

I think I'm getting quicker. Another speed-paint job - this time only 1½ hours.

Tomorrow I'll be halfway through my "30 in 30" project, and thus far despite migraines, an asthma attack and the most gods-awful indigestion I've ever had (seriously - we're talking "unable to move, barely able to breathe" levels of pain, and this from someone with a stupidly-high pain threshold who doesn't notice fractured fingers & toes until they turn black and purple a day later), I haven't missed a single day and have managed to come up with at least something every day, and only failed to finish a painting on one of those days. It's definitely a challenge, but one that thus far I've met pretty well I think. And nearly all these works are available as prints on the deviantART print shop.

So. Anyone want to offer me any paid work and commission me to do a portrait of themselves, partner(s), children, pets?

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1288333.html"; you may comment either there or here.

David by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

Very quick (about 30 minutes) speed-painting portrait of reddragdiva.

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1288085.html"; you may comment either there or here.

Thais of Athens - incomplete by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

Sadly Monday's painting didn't get finished due to a migraine attack. It still counts for the "30 in 30" project however, as the aim is to do a new painting every day - even if it's not finished. I'll go back and finish this one off at a later date.


Hephaestion at Hydaspes by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

Despite the tail-end of said migraine, I still managed to dash off this speed-painting in about 1½ hours - Jared Leto as Hephaestion in Oliver Stone's "Alexander" again, this time at the Battle of Hydaspes. I've had a couple of people say they thought it was a photo at first; I've been getting that a lot with my digital paintings. :-)

Just over a third of the way through the project, and thus far despite migraines I've still managed to paint something every day, which is a win I think thus far.

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1287764.html"; you may comment either there or here.

Myrddin by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

This one only just squeaked in on time; today's painting is just a quick 1-hour sketch of Myrddin, my Dreaming Shiwoo boy. Still, the aim of "30 in 30" is to paint something every day, even if it's only a quick sketch - so here's today's effort.

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1287463.html"; you may comment either there or here.

Beauty Is In the Eyes by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

An extra bonus painting - this one only took 1½ hours. My friend Amy has the most gorgeous eyes, so I painted this to cheer her up when I saw she'd been having a shitty day. It seemed to go down well. :-)

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1287346.html"; you may comment either there or here.

Raymon Shah by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

As per a request - Raymon Shah, from Voices Of Masada. :-)

This one took a bit longer - about 3 hours this time, as I was having fun and games with his lopsided almost-smirk, and there were some interesting things going on with the lighting in the original photo I used as reference. Overall I think I'm OK with it though, and the subject himself seemed to like it.

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1287115.html"; you may comment either there or here.

Vipera berus by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

Also known as the Common Adder - the only venomous snake native to the UK. You'd have to really go out of your way to get bitten by one though, unless you're set on emulating the late Steve Irwin. Don't worry if you do get bitten though - there hasn't been an adder-bite fatality in the UK or nearly 30 years. It'll hurt like buggery though, so you're better off admiring from a distance and leaving them in peace - assuming you can find one; they're very secretive and will hear you coming long before you can see them.

1 hour with the graphics tablet in MyPaint with editing and finishing in GIMP.

If you have a suggestion or a request or something you'd like me to paint as part of my 30-in-30 project, feel free to comment!

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1286857.html"; you may comment either there or here.

Melanie Antoinette by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

The author of "Secret Diary of a Princess", "Blood Sisters" and "Befre the STorm" as she might appear in one of her own novels. ;-)

2½ hours with Wacom graphics tablet in MyPaint with final editing done in GIMP. I was going deliberately for a pastels feel with this one.

Be warned - this is all part of my "30 paintings in 30 days" project, and there's no telling who I'll pick next for my subject matter! It's entirely down to whim....

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1286636.html"; you may comment either there or here.

DeathBoy by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

Gee, I wonder who this could be....


1 hour speed-painting in Mypaint with Wacom graphics tablet, part of my "30 paintings in 30 days" project.

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1286297.html"; you may comment either there or here.

The Artist's Eye by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

Guess who?

1 hour with Wacom graphics tablet in MyPaint.

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1285904.html"; you may comment either there or here.

Amur Leopard by *ArkadyRose on deviantART

2 hours with the Wacom in MyPaint.

Originally posted at "http://arkady.dreamwidth.org/1285870.html"; you may comment either there or here.