Update on life, A to Z and other things.

Hello everyone!

I finished this piece during May, and never

got around to sharing it here;

so I figured now would be as good a time as any.

I haven't posted since May 1st apparently... May and June have been... oh my heavens, where to even start??

We've had just a lot going on- in addition to the water main repairs we've now discovered we have to do some very expensive electrical repairs.  Yay.  Those have been overwhelming enough on their own.  I don't know how these past 2 months have flown by.

Last week on the 15th I finally felt like everything was more or less sorted; and we could start moving forward.  So I began to establish my art schedule for the rest of the summer and get things in place so that I could be productive. 

Then last Wednesday happened; it doesn't feel like it was only a week ago.  My Father in Law had a sudden heart attack. The doctors were barely able to stabilize him- but were not able to wake him up. The short version of the story is after a lot of ups and downs and tears, my father in law passed away this past Saturday evening.  My poor husband and his brothers and sisters and of course their mother are absolutely heartbroken.  I've been doing whatever I can to help and support them as they deal with this.  The funeral is this Friday.  One of my Uncles-in-law set up a go fund me to help my Mother-in-Law with funeral costs and anything else she needs as she picks up the pieces of her life. It's linked on my facebook page if anyone would like to donate a few dollars. 

All of this has delayed me from getting much work done. Which is understandable I suppose; but I figured since I know there are a few people who check back here I should probably update. 

Next week I'm going to attempt to get into a better schedule.  I have a convention in Salt Lake City Utah that I'll have a booth at this September.  I only have 70 days to get ready for it.  There has been SO much that has delayed me from working on it this year.  I'm hoping that after the funeral life can go back to a slightly more normal pace.

Art updates:

(I don't intend to be insensitive sharing this AFTER talking about my Father in Law's death; as broken up as I ham about that; unfortunately life still moves forward and deadlines still exist.)

A to Z Steampunk Gods- this project is still on my list of things to finish, because of the amount of other things I'll be working on I'm planning on getting all of the sketches done and then picking my top 5 to finish as paintings for the September Con.  I still plan to finish it all out and do some sort of book- but that probably won't happen until Spring 2021.

Accomplished Women Project (I do need a better title for this one) has been in limbo for about a year now.  I plan on going over the art that I have done for it and adding a few more women (since the majority I've done are from STEM and Law, I want to add entrepreneurs, artists and others as well)  The collection will be with about 40 women total with their stories.  I'm going to be getting that together and the kick-starter for the book and coloring book SHOULD be July 15th, assuming I can get everything to a good point this next week and a half.  My goal is to have a few of these books/coloring books at the FanX booth in September; but we'll see- there are so many variables here.

Untitled D&D Project- I have more accomplished on this then I have shared on Social Media.  For those of you who do not know I'm working on both semi-modular terrain as well as large scale 3D models that you could use with any table top RPG system.  If you want to see some of the progress you can visit my instagram that I've set up specifically to share D&D and RPG type art.  (@that_dm_chick) for the booth my plan is to have 2 'dungeons'.  One with a Castle theme and one with a Forest theme. I also intend to have at least one of my large models (probably the Tavern) on display at the convention. 

That's the update.

Alicia

if you want to follow my art on facebook or instagram:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aliciaillustration/

Instagram: @aliciahawksart

Z is for Zeus (of course)

This is as far as I'm getting on this one today.  This project has been fun- and I am going back through the ones I got behind on and getting sketches done for them.  I liked this enough that I'm absolutely planning on finishing them all up.  I might even put them together in a little book or something.  I don't know on that part, we'll see.

Here's Zeus- wish I could've spent more time on him today- he was probably the strongest idea that I had of any of them, and the reason I jumped into this project, but you get the idea of where I'm going with it.

Thanks for those of you who have supported me! I have been looking at your blogs even though I've not been commenting. 

Y is for Ye Ddraig Goch

Ye Ddraig Goch is a red dragon from celtic mythology.  So for this one I looked at the dragon version of celtic knots and at steampunk type dragons.  Once again if I had time I would push this MUCH farther... and make it feel more like steampunk.  I like this project enough that after I spend the first week in May catching up I'm actually going to go through each one and finish it up.  :D

X is for Xanthus... the horse

I could not find a god that started with X.  SO here is Achilles's horse :D I feel like I could've steam-punked this farther... but honestly horses are SUPER hard to draw and then to make them mechanical... I could do this justice if I had 8 hours to work on it, but as it worked out I only had 1... This like many others will be revisited and finished- someday.

Alicia

W is for Washerwoman... of DOOM

I'm back! These past 2 weeks have been SO frustrating.  First the iPad glitching out... and then... last week happened.  The short of it is... our water main and our furnace have both broken.. basically 2 very expensive things to repair/replace... anyway- been dealing with ALL of that.  Maybe next year I'll actually be able to do the AtoZ Challenge without something coming up lol.

ANYWAY...
This is a Celtic Witch... or evil goddess...  her name is Bean Nighe- and she's super creepy.  (Scottish Gaelic omen of death, basically the Scottish version of the Banshee)  Had a hard time making this one truely steampunk- but Vampires are often in steampunk fiction, so I went with that. 

Thanks for coming by! I hope I can get caught up this week.  Hopefully by the AtoZ review at the very least.

Alicia

Delayed posts

This week has been... irritating... basically there have been a lack of posts due to technical difficulties.  I'm so apprecitative of everyone who has supported this project so far! Your comments have been so kind!!

The long version of events is that my iPad Pro started bugging out- not surprising it is a first generation iPad Pro.  So I've been doing a TON of trouble shooting, combined with that the nibs on my apple pencil are old and need to be replaced.  Let me tell you- these are super cheap, but since they are not considered 'essential' I won't get a new one for probably another month. 

Ah- you say- why don't you just draw with pencil and paper?  And yes my dear friend, I ABSOLUTELY can do that... but I have a lot of non- AtoZ Challenge art that I must do digitally... so I had to prioritize fixing my iPad over getting drawings out.

I did get it to a semblance of working- I can at least draw again.  I wish I could afford to just replace it with a new model, but life is the way it is- maybe in a year I can.  We'll see.

SO Monday I'll be posting again- and I'll be doing my best to catch up on the ones I've missed.

Thank you SO much for stopping by! Enjoy the earlier posts if you are new :D

~Alicia

K is for Kore goddess of spring

My project is ‘steampunk-ish’ versions of gods and goddesses.  At the very least I’m having fun attempting to pull both pantheons and steampunk together into one place.  Not sure how successful each one is, but definitely fun :)

I’ve been enjoying this project so much, I hope that I have time to finish all of these sketches and get them to the point where they are finished paintings.