Feature Friday – Darkling Woods

This week I’m featuring a member of both FEST and FAE—Cat of Darkling Woods!

I’m a big fan of anything fairy tale.  I still get really excited when the princesses are out at Disney World. (But not that Jafar guy.  He’s kind of a jerk.  Trust me.)

What I love about Cat’s watercolors is the airy, ethereal quality they have.  Looking over her shop is like seeing a cloud of feathers that, upon closer inspection, each reward you with a gorgeous glimpse into her fantasy realm.  She takes her medium and, with her distinctive style, makes it her own.

This the piece that really caught my eye this week:

A bit of background information about me:  I hate Snow White.  With a passion.  I like a good damsel in distress as much as any girl, but something about Snow White brings out the bra –burning feminist in me.  Then there is the Disney incarnation of her, which I find just nails-on-chalkboard annoying.  I’ll have a bulleted presentation on the subject one of these days.

So for me to be absolutely in LOVE with a Snow White drawing is exceptionally unusual.  Cat’s just that good.

Check out her blog.  Then follow her on Twitter.  You have your instructions :)

Project Roll Call

I'm going to try and make a habit of a once-a-week update on everything I'm working on. I'm one of those people that tends to multi-task and juggle my projects. Sometimes I lose track of what I'm doing, or get 'stuck' on something. Then I rediscover them later and its clear to me how to finish. In school, I always wrote the closing paragraphs to my papers first, and went backwards from there. I finish what I start (usually)--I just take the scenic route.

This is a pattern from Crochet Today for a circles rug. I'm using green, grey, and white (for the small circles) because I like the sea foam/oceany feel of these colors, and think it would look nice in the guestroom. That, and those happen to be the colors of the awful scratchy squeaky yarn I've been trying to get rid of for months. If I empty out my stash box, that just means I get to fill it up with more yarn, right? Right?

What do this jacket and this cat have in common? Both are black, both are furry...and both are much too large. (At least only one of them gives me attitude.) I'm bad about checking my gauges before I start a crochet project, and have tended to stitch looser as the years go by. Combine that with substantial weight loss, and I have a coat that I'm swimming in. All that is left is to add the collar and finish the edges. And figure out either how to either slim it down or who I can give it to without insulting them.

Maybe I should add "Cat Diet" to my project list too.

Rough sketches for my next two surf/mermaid paintings. I got some new pencils lately, and am looking forward to having some new colors in my palette.

More rough sketches--these for my current stained glass commission. Once I get a layout I like, I'll scan it into GlassEye (digital stained glass drawing program) and complete the drawing in detail. Grid paper works well, since measurements and details in stained glass must be exact. The scene will be an Idaho mountain stream. The request for a split level water scene will be a challenge, though.

Good thing I like challenges.