(entry title from L’Engle’s Instruments(2))
Text reads, “I will hold beauty as a shield against despair” by Elsie Robinson.

Ink and watercolor on Moleskine sketchbook paper (watercolor pencil for the initial sketch). Okay, apparently the water doesn’t like overly-watery brushes, and apparently I mixed my watercolor too opaque, but I still like the lines. Though I sort […]

by Mia on 12:22 am, September 14, 2007 in visuals none spoke

I’m so unused to practicing art; I’m only learning about practice and exercises and serious study now. It sounds horrible, but it’s true. When I was a child things came so naturally to me I took the artistic process for granted and never gave my drawings or paintings much thought — I just sat down […]

by Mia on 1:24 am, September 10, 2007 in visuals (1) spoke

I’m so tempted to do this just in ink but will have to color it to stay within the “series.” Just sketches for now, but will transfer to watercolor paper sometime soon. (Or should I just ink and color in the Moleskine…?)

She’s an Istenil — a very short-lived race whose culture is a strange mix […]

by Mia on 7:01 pm, September 4, 2007 in projects, visuals (8) spoke

First stanza of Kashmiri Song by Laurence Hope.

by Mia on 12:25 am, August 28, 2007 in visuals (2) spoke

A very very late birthday gift for Karen.
I did all this in one go, which probably explains the skew of the first two baselines. Le sigh. But it was fun, and it was lovely to see the ink soaking into the paper; I like the changes in gradation, which you will never get with felt-tipped […]

by Mia on 12:18 am, August 27, 2007 in visuals (3) spoke

Re-doing this. Water-soluble oil pastel and ink on watercolor paper.

Developing letterforms for the Edith Tiempo site. Ink on paper; will use vector tracing over the scanned version.

Coloring The Seller of Lamps with pastel pencils on sketchpad paper.

Finished work. To be scanned and cleaned up for printing (posters and prints). Ink on Moleskine Sketch paper.

by Mia on 11:50 pm, July 6, 2007 in projects, visuals none spoke

Two hours, Adobe Photoshop, Century Gothic and Centaur. Poster/tarp for the Libro.ph launch this June 30.

I re-did this poster five… times. The first few times I kept trying to do it via calligraphy — I had this really nice exercise in typography and lines — but the letters didn’t scan well. I’ll try something similar […]

by Mia on 12:40 am, June 29, 2007 in visuals none spoke

While thinking about Caprice and Jubil at a bazaar an image burned itself into my brain: a woman, simply dressed, selling very ornate and outlandish lamps. It was a very vivid image: her quietness and tranquility against a background of fantastic patterns and shapes. After some thought I realized that the woman was blind. And […]

by Mia on 9:26 pm, April 12, 2007 in visuals (7) spoke

And the sky is her mantle.
Was doodling at a coffee shop a while back and came up with a very simple lineart I decided to ink and… pattern-ize. I’ve done something similar before — Hikarunai — and it was fun, so I tried to see if I could do it again. Filling in space with […]

by Mia on 12:20 am, March 23, 2007 in visuals (11) spoke

I finally decided to update lLnet — years after the last update — and the first order of business, of course, was to create new images for it. As I’m experimenting more with outright “painting” (via brushes) than image composition (via source images), I didn’t use any image sources for this one.
The Latin quote is […]

by Mia on 2:28 am, March 2, 2007 in visuals none spoke