Laura Mellin
LightNews LightNews
banner
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
Laura Mellin
@lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
2.9K followers 2.4K following 12K posts
Disabled, AuDHD, feral artist, pan/cis, 55, married, she/her. LGBTQIA2S+ is my fam, art shares are my jam. New art every day for 2025.
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/attacklaurel?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaZwLN4Ap8-rIbGYfgi3ksJfRFxtDp8L62cQFqX
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
Laura Mellin @lauramellinatelier.bsky.social · Mar 12
I unpinned my previous top post, b/c now I want to feature my fave pieces from my #sketchaday 2025 self-imposed challenge! I’m Laura, this is my art account, and this thread will be pinned to become my about me piece. I do illustration and cartoons, often riffing on a joke for multiple drawings.
A marker, ink, paint pen and paper collage drawing of my OC, Bela Lugosquid, a common squid, pale pink-grey with red and grey spots, facing left slightly, asleep. They are smiling (yes, I know, that’s not where their mouths are), and are wearing a pair of fake fangs, a black cloak with a red lining, white bow tie and vest, white shirt, and a red ribbon with a spiny Black Sea urchin attached to the ribbon by holding onto a gold ring. Basically, dressed like Bella Lugosi’s famous outfit* in Dracula (1931). Their tentacles and arms are drifting gently, with an arm on the right touching the edge of the cloak. Dream bubbles coming from their head feature an image of Bella Lugosi as Dracula from the movie poster (image sourced from IMDb.com). Bela Lugosquid is non-binary. They are fascinated by vampire squid, but too shy to actually talk to any actual vampire squid (and afraid of negative reactions). They are a very happy squid. They have dreams of stardom. I don’t know about the sea urchin; they usually don’t go that deep. A marker, ink, and paint pen drawing in my sketchbook. In the upper left hand corner, a white box with shadow lines has the hand-written text: “white potatoes are tuber-essentialist douchebags:” (yes, I’m going hard on this one! Pushing the boundaries!*). The main drawing is of an orange-pink yam (or sweet potato) in three-quarter profile, standing on root feet, with their sprout arms up in the air, leaning slightly forward, protesting (or yelling) at three white potatoes (who, ironically, are brown, because they haven’t been peeled) in a row on the right, in three-quarter profile, one in front, the second slightly behind that one, and lastly, a potato going off the edge of the paper (they’re half-visible). They have little beady eyes, and root feet and hands, with little potatoes growing on them (I love the little potato feet!). The lead potato is asking: “Are you a sweet potato or a yam?”, and the second one is saying: “…you can’t be both.”. The sweet potato (or yam) is protesting: “Why are you so hung up on labels?! I yam what I yam! …or NOT.”. The wall is pale blue-grey, the floor is medium grey, and there are shadows underneath all the tubers. In a small white box in the bottom right corner, the top of a white potato is visible, showing their black dot eyes and angry eyebrows. They are saying:” This is potato erasure!!”. *Or, y’know, doing the absolute minimum by acknowledging that trans people are people, and TERFs/“gender essentialists” are complete C-words. “Dryad of the Vines”: An ink line drawing of a female-appearing figure wrapped in vines, which are supporting them as they sleep. Their face is mostly hidden by their left arm (on the right), which is raised, with vines loosely wrapped around it. Their legs are bent up in a seated position, and their fingers and toes (six on each appendage) stretch out into vines. Their hair is made of vines, and drapes down behind them, and over their torso. Some of the vines have leaves and flowers along them, curling around in spirals and loops. They are nude, but have no visible gendered body parts, just the curves of their body giving an overall female appearance. A marker, ink, and paint pen drawing of a toy mechanical mouse, facing left. The mouse is grey metal, with brass screws, and a brass key in the middle of its back. It is sitting upright on segmented articulated legs and feet (and toes) that are joined to the body with a round dome with brass screws. The head has large round eyes and ears edged with brass screws, with red lights in the center. The front legs and paws are also articulated/segmented, and are curled around to the nose, like the mouse is eating. The tail is long and articulated/segmented, bending as it reaches the ground, and goes to the left, behind the body. Background is blank. It’s a little toy mouse made of metal, with a key to wind it up. It’s cute, but I am not mechanically inclined, so I have no idea how it would actually move.
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
#sketchaday #artsky #blueskyart #bskyart #art #pattern #leaves

I didn’t manage my time well today; this took longer than I intended, and I wanted to garden.

Visual asmr?
A marker and paint pen drawing of a repeating pattern of leaves, tip angled right, outlined in gold. The veins and edges of the leaves are bright red, the leaf between veins is red and green in alternating lines. This looks simple, but was surprisingly time-consuming! They make me think of monstera leaves, though they are not any specific leaf.
November 29, 2025 at 1:34 AM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
Lovely Thanksgiving art share from @cryptidcorvids.bsky.social! 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜
cryptidcorvids.bsky.social ☀️Kiri☀️ @cryptidcorvids.bsky.social · 2d
🦃🥧HAPPY THANKSGIVING🥧🦃

In celebration of Thanksgiving I wanted to make a starter pack filled with the artists we are thankful for!!!

Started the pack off with some people I am thankful for ;v;

To join:
🍂 Share some of your art!
🍂 Who are you thankful for
🍂 Spread the love🧡

go.bsky.app/QdQ9syV
November 28, 2025 at 2:45 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
#sketchaday #artsky #blueskyart #bskyart #art #rat #rats #thanksgiving #food

A happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the U.S. who celebrates, while acknowledging this is a day of mourning for Indigenous Americans. 💜💜💜
A marker, ink, and paint pen drawing of two rats drawn in the style of Japanese artist Yoshitoshi, sitting on a red carpet, eating a turkey, with sides of seaweed salad and dumplings. The left side mouse is sitting back on one paw, while holding a partially eaten turkey leg in the other. The sides are in blue bowls behind them. The right side rat is sitting up, holding carving tools (a two-pronged fork and a carving knife) in their front paws. The right mouse is a slightly darker brown than the left one. Both mice have black eyes, both are smiling. Below and to the right, fancy gold lettering says “Happy Thanksgiving!”. Background is green-black.
November 27, 2025 at 5:07 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
#thanksgivingUS #cooking #roasting

I’m glad I’m just doing sides; we’re having a late lunch/early dinner (linner!) @ 3pm, so I’m roasting duck fat potatoes, today, hoping to time it so they’re still crispy.

(W/ A-g, I can eat birds, fish, and humans.
Mmmm, human. /Homer Simpson)
November 27, 2025 at 2:28 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
#sketchaday #artsky #blueskyart #bskyart #art #rat #ghostrat #love

I’m desperately trying not to eat the bread dressing I made (it has roasted apples & onions in it), so Bob made me lunch.

Ghost Rat loves other Ghost Rat. Do I use a lot of purple & orange? Yes, yes I do.
A marker, ink, and paint pen drawing in the style of Japanese artist Yoshitoshi, of an orange ghost rat reaching up, smiling, tangling their whiskers with another ghost rat who is floating above them. Only the head and tail of the floating ghost rat are visible, and they are purple. Their tail is curled in a heart shape over the orange ghost rat’s right ear. They both have glowing eyes. Inspiration: 19th century Japanese print artist Yoshitoshi, from his “Thirty-six ghosts”.
November 26, 2025 at 8:07 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
#sketchaday #artsky #blueskyart #bskyart #art #rats #ratghost

We’re getting ready for a shared T’giving dinner w/friends, and so I’m going to be offline except for sketch most of this week (I’m doing 2 pies, gf dressing, roast taters, & gf gravy).

Ghost Rat.
Inspiration: Yoshitoshi.
A marker, ink, and paint pen drawing of a ghost rat drawn in the style of Japanese print artist Yoshitoshi. The rat is pale purple, with glowing eyes, curled claws and tail, floating on a background of almost black purple-blue. This was inspired by the tale of the priest turned into a giant rat in Yoshitoshi’s “Thirty-Six Ghosts”. I hope my rat is more friendly.
November 25, 2025 at 11:00 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
Congratulations to @catfishpond.bsky.social on 1K followers! 🥳💜💜💜💜💜🥳
(TY, @alex-the-ahsum.bsky.social & @lddarts.bsky.social for tagging a new to me artist!) 💜💜💜💜💜
catfishpond.bsky.social 🐱🐟 Spider King Plushie in PINNED @catfishpond.bsky.social · 4d
I wanna celebrate reaching my first ever 1k followers on social media with an ART SHARE!! ✨

💖Share your favourite artworks
💖Like/Comment/Repost others
💖Like and Share for visibility
🚫 NO AI

#artshare #art
November 25, 2025 at 3:42 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
Omg, the umbrella!!! Check out @cryo16.bsky.social, y’all! 😍😍😍😍💜💜💜💜💜💜
cryo16.bsky.social CryooArts🥀 @cryo16.bsky.social · 4d
Congrats for your 1k!
I'll add to the chain
I'm Cryo and I draw eerie stuff🖤
November 25, 2025 at 3:19 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
This piece by @ainh.bsky.social is a masterclass in detail, lighting, and colour! 😍😍😍😍 #artgoals
ainh.bsky.social AInh.bsky.social @ainh.bsky.social · 4d
Congratulations on 1k and thank you for sharing🤍
November 25, 2025 at 3:08 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
#sketchaday #artsky #blueskyarat #bskyart #art #hares #flowers #amaranth

This will be the last of my flower hares for a bit. This is Joseph’s Coat amaranth, from a 1613 botanical text. Pretty, but phew! This was hard! 🙂💜
A marker, ink, and paint pen drawing of a hare up on their hindquarters, grooming their shoulder. The hare is decorated with leaves from a variety of amaranth called Joseph’s Coat; each leaf starts purple at the base, then fades into yellow, then green at the tips. The hare’s nose and tail are balls of amaranth seeds. (Amaranth is an ancient grain used by the Aztecs, among others.) The hare has their back to the viewer, with their head turned towards the viewer from the left side. Their ears are single amaranth leaves. Hare reference: 19thC public domain prints. Flower reference: The Besler Florilegium, 1613.
November 25, 2025 at 12:42 AM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
#embroidery #myotherhobby #embroideredjackets #museumoflondon

Apropos of nothing, I was reading my copy of The Besler Florilegium (1613), & thought a painting of laburnum looks kind of like the motifs on the embroidered jacket from the Museum of London. *sigh* Need to completely rebuild my website.
An ink drawing of the monochrome embroidered jacket (1600-1620; exact date unknown) at the Museum of London (I think it is in the V&A’s costume archive now), showing the cascading flower motif repeated all over the jacket. Embroidery thread is silk, jacket is linen. The jacket is drawn as if worn, with the front pulled closed, an high neckline, and the arms out in front (figure is facing 2/3 left), to show the embroidery design. Digital text underneath reads: Museum of London embroidered jacket, 1600-1620, drawing by Laura Mellin. A colour photograph of plate 8 from the Besler Florilegium, 1613, showing two kinds of laburnum flowers. Left is Alpine laburnum, with long bracts of small yellow flowers, seed pods, and green leaves. Right is Laburnum (false ebony), which has larger yellow flower bracts, and no seed pods. The false ebony laburnum has a resemblance to the embroidered bracts on the Museum of London jacket. An ink drawing by me of the individual motifs repeated on the Museum of London embroidered jacket. They are somewhat abstract, but the top of the false ebony laburnum in the Besler Florilegium (plate 8) shows how the upper part of the branch matches both the leaf and the drooping bracts in the embroidery. So, instead of a vine, as I suggested on my very old (and in need of rebuilding) website, these could be construed as false ebony laburnum, since the Florilegium and the jacket are from roughly the same date. It’s just a theory. A colour photograph closeup of plate 8 in The Besler Florilegium (1613), showing the top of the false ebony laburnum, which shows the crossing stems, leaves, and drooping flower bracts that may have inspired the Museum of London embroidered jacket.
November 24, 2025 at 3:05 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
Congratulations on 400 followers, @sasoartsisb.bsky.social! 🥳💜💜💜💜💜🥳 Thank you for the themed share! I love monsters, Cryptids, and weird! 😁💜
sasoartsisb.bsky.social 👁 Sa So 👁 Commissions: Open @sasoartsisb.bsky.social · 5d
👁 400 FOLLOWERS ART SHARE👁
Greetings, and thanks for following and appreciating what I created!

👁 Post your monster art or anything weird
💚 Like, share and comment on other's art
🚫 No A*I "art"
🚫 No N $f ₩
👻 Have fun!
November 23, 2025 at 11:50 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
TYSM for the silent #artshare, @meltingcore.bsky.social! 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜
meltingcore.bsky.social meltingcore @ Apokolips Ω @meltingcore.bsky.social · 5d
Time for a silent #artshare! 🤫

Ω Share your art silently!
Ω Like/repost this!
Ω Tag your friends!
Ω Support each other!

I'll tag... @double-4-designer.bsky.social @quinini.bsky.social @aerifiretruck.bsky.social @jazzytyfighter.bsky.social 🛸
A traditional manga drawing that was scanned and had the colors brightened. It depicts a girl in side profile with long black hair, horns, a red eye, and black dress. Her arm is abstractly turning into squiggly shapes that flow throughout the canvas. The background is bright red. A digital manga drawing of a silver skinned woman in a deep purple dress. She has long flowing dark grey hair and silver horns. She has red eyes and lava flows from the front of her dress without harming her. The background is orange with lava streams and a reflection of the woman. A digital manga drawing of a dark skinned woman surfing. Her hair is lavender and her eyes are dark green. She wears a short black surfing bodysuit. The sun is setting and pink clouds are in the sky. Stars are just coming out. A digital manga drawing of a woman in deep space. Her eyes are ice blue and she has short black/blue hair. Tears flow from her eyes and turn into globules due to the lack of gravity. The space behind her is purple, pink, and blue; stars are everywhere and light flows in spirals.
November 23, 2025 at 11:19 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
@pinkleader.bsky.social, the first one! 😃🤣💜💜💜
November 23, 2025 at 10:56 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
Aw, damn, @angrychango.bsky.social, these are amazing!🤩😍😍😍😍💜💜💜💜💜
November 23, 2025 at 10:37 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
#sketchaday #artsky #blueskyart #bskyart #art #sawwhetowl #littleowl #panowl #pansexualpride

The Pan owl is a Virginia relative of the saw-whet owl, but has no interest in camouflage. Nocturnal, tends to be found in hollow trees, roadsides, and nightclubs. 🤨🧐
A marker, ink, and paint pen drawing of an owl in Pan Pride colours (magenta pink, yellow, cyan blue). The owl is sitting on a branch, eyes with black round pupils in yellow irises staring at the viewer. Their ear tufts are extremely long and curly, and their body is brightly coloured, with a pink face, yellow crown of the head, yellow and blue ear feathers, a pink, yellow, and blue front, and blue wing and tail feathers. Their feet are pink, with gold claws. Background is dark blue-grey, with metallic blue and gold dots like stars, or nightclub lights. Inspiration: Anton Seder. References: Virginia Dept. of Wildlife, saw-whet owl.
November 23, 2025 at 9:05 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
*cries in joy* read the comments, I made a difference in someone’s life! 🥹💜💜💜💜
A marker, ink, and paint pen drawing with digital finishing. A pink Axolotl (asch-o-lotch; it’s Nahuatl, not Greek!) with big red gills, swimming underwater (the water is several shades of teal, from light above the axolotl to dark ground on the left ), with big eyes and a huge smile, oriented head right, tail left, looking at the viewer. Text above the tail says “Be your true self, and always, always…”, then underneath, says “BE STRANGE AND MAGICAL AND CHANGE THE WORLD.”.
November 23, 2025 at 5:30 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
Congratulations on 500 followers, @umbra-ludus.bsky.social! 🥳💜💜💜💜💜💜🥳🥳🥳 TYSM for the #artshare!
umbra-ludus.bsky.social Umbra Ludus: Creative Mercenary Originator of Electronic Imagery @umbra-ludus.bsky.social · 6d
500+ followers #Artshare

- Introduce yourself
- Show your art
- Mark NSFW
- Interact
- Share
- Tag people (friends and whatnot)
- Follow if you like
- Be Excellent to Each Other

Thank you for the love and support to all those involved. I dig our community!

#artmoot
November 23, 2025 at 3:59 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
In the mood for beautiful dark art? Check out @chrisnazgul.bsky.social! 😍😍😍😍💜💜💜💜💜
chrisnazgul.bsky.social Chris Illustration 🌙 Comms Open @chrisnazgul.bsky.social · 6d
thanks for the tag and congratz !
November 23, 2025 at 3:29 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
#fortunesfromcookies #fortunecookie #contradiction #artlife

It’s not often you find the contradiction of being an artist summed up in your fortune cookies. I need these pens to express myself! 🤣🤣😭

(We got these together, I swear! 😁)
A colour photograph of two fortunes from fortune cookies, laid on the restaurant table, one above the other. The upper fortune says “Do not spend money you do not have”. The lower fortune says “Nurture your creative talents to express yourself fully”. “…but I NEED these 300 markers in 100 slightly different shades of green to express myself fully!!!”
November 23, 2025 at 3:08 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
#sketchaday #artsky #blueskyart #bskyart #art #opossum #c’mon #we’reonanadventure

Fred’s second cousin is more into adventures in trees than Broadway. You probably shouldn’t trust them with your wallet.
A marker, ink, and paint pen drawing of a North American opossum climbing a tree, with text saying “What are you waiting for? C’mon!”. The tree is brown, and only the trunk is visible, on the right of the image. The opossum is clinging to the left side of the trunk, tail wrapped around the lower trunk, oriented upward, facing the viewer. Their ears are black, their body beige, grey, and black, with a pink nose, toes, and tail. They are Fred the opossum’s more adventurous cousin. They look like they are smiling, and you probably shouldn’t trust them. Reference: Javin Photography/Getty Images, an opossum in a tree. Background is blank paper. (Next to the artist’s signature, it says “Happy Birthday, Pinkleader!” She knows.)
November 23, 2025 at 12:45 AM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
#AIdoesntmakepplartists #everydayImdrawing #learningart #artisalifetimeofcreativity #theprocessisthepoint #markerart #month1tomonth11 #sketchaday2025

I’m not gatekeeping art. AI is stolen art, turned into slop, and you’re not an artist. Pick up a pen; start creating!

Jan-Nov 2025: A🧵
Snails:
A marker and ink cartoon of a woman on a plane in business class, with shoulder length hair and unfortunate bangs, wearing a stretchy top/light sweater, and leggings, sitting with one leg curled up, her feet in those little sock slippers they give you at the start of the flight, her right arm is raised to get the flight attendant’s attention, her left arm is resting on the armrest, with the window on that side. There are six snails around her; on the right side of the drawing, two snails are sitting on her left arm, staring out of the window at the clouds and sky, making “ooh!” Faces with their mouths puckered. On top of her seat, a snail is moving towards the aisle. On the left, on her lunch tray, there are three snails: one is on her plate, one is in her salad bowl, eating her salad (that’s not a euphemism), both of them looking at her, and the third is in her wineglass, trying to get out, but too drunk to do so. The woman has a speech bubble, saying: “Um… I ordered the chicken?”. Colours: mostly simple line drawing, with the seat in blue-greys, and the snails in brown-grey, with shading. A marker, ink, and paint pen (with digital speech bubbles) cartoon of two brown garden snails with their bodies pushed together, brown shells facing each other in profile, like bookends. They both have their eyestalks extended over their backs (the one on the left looking left, the one on the right looking right, with their shells pointed in the opposite direction), and they look very nervous. The snail on the left has their tail curled up, and their pupils are pinpoints; they have their mouth closed, their speech bubble is just “*whimper*”. The snail on the right has large pupils, and is saying “uh-oh!”. The Snail Collector is an urban legend in the snail community! On a quiet night, you can hear the growling; a speech bobble from off right says “GRRRRRR!! *snarfle*”! A marker, ink, and paint pen drawing of a snail reclining in a martini glass. Their eyes have green irises and black pupils, their eyestalks are pointing in different directions. The snail is lying in an inch of green-tinted clear liquid in the glass, with four pimento-stuffed olives, two underneath the snail, two on a toothpick. The snail has their mouth open, and is speaking with a smile. Text is black on white above the glass and background. Imagine the snail speaking in a very silly French accent that gets more American towards the end: “Chéri, I buy you a drink? Moi, a GARNISH?! NON!! I’m from the French restaurant next door! Yeah, I work there… hey, bartender, I’m getting dry here! Merci!”. The glass is on an off-white/cream coloured tablecloth, the background is dark purple-grey. Text next to the stem of the martini glass says “POTTED SNAIL”. A marker, ink, and paint pen cartoon of four sleeping snails, and one snail on the right holding a bell rope clenched between his teeth, a rope that is attached to a large bell hanging over the sleeping snails. The snail with the rope is Phil. Phil is thinking “REVENGE!!”. The snails are asleep on cushions, the closest one has a purple sleep mask, and is holding a plush snail curled up in their tail. There is a folded paper sign by their head that says “do not disturb until 11am.”. In the background, the sun is rising. Top left, a gold outlined sign says “The Mysterious Mystery Of The Very Loud Bell That Woke Everyone Up, heh, heh, heh: a Novel by Phil the Snail”. Bottom right, an inset drawing of Phil’s eyes glaring says “Phil never forgives.” Phil thought long and hard about the revenge he would wreak on the snails who had mocked him when he had a blind date, drank too much wine, and got a hangover. Unfortunately, he thought about it so long, all the other snails had completely forgotten about the whole thing. Phil doesn’t care. (How is that bell loop hanging up there? Who knows the ways of snails.)
November 22, 2025 at 2:00 PM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
Congratulations to @annevandenbroekart.bsky.social for 500 followers! 🥳💜💜💜💜🥳 And an animal-themed share, so if you love drawing animals, real or imagined, feel free to join, there’s some amazing art! 💜💜💜💜
annevandenbroekart.bsky.social Anne van den Broek Art @annevandenbroekart.bsky.social · 8d
Thanks so much to my 500 followers!
Let's celebrate this with something I have never done before... An artshare!
🦜 Birds & animals
✨ Fantasy
🎨 Any medium but no AI
#artshare
November 22, 2025 at 1:17 AM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
#sketchaday #artsky #blueskyart #bskyart #art #toads #frogs #amphibians

And then, there are those days when you’re drawing a toad, but somehow it turns into an alien. It’s cool. Toadally cool. *ahem*
A marker, ink, and paint pen drawing of a very squat purple toad alien. It wasn’t meant to be an alien, but something happened, and this was the result. The metallic purple paint highlights seemed logical after that, as did the red metallic eyes with yellow irises and sideways black pupils in the toad’s very large eyes. The smile was intentional. This is a very happy purple alien toad. Above the toad’s back is written “toadally confident in my weird”, with a gold star at each end, and surrounded by red metallic dots. Reference: 19th century botanical toad prints, but it’s kind of moot at this point.
November 22, 2025 at 12:26 AM
lauramellinatelier.bsky.social
RP with how *you* draw women!

I draw animals, mostly. There’s a reason for that. 🤭
The last one is women *and* men b/c: animals. I draw animals.
A marker, ink, and paint pen drawing of a brown skinned, dark haired human type mermaid, with a purple scaled tail, looking left, with her back to the viewer, sitting on a dark rock in a stylized blue sea, with a wreath of poppies around her shoulders and back, and poppies fixed by her ear, and loose in her hair, which is flowing in the wind behind her. Her tail has round scales in shades of purple, with small fins at her hips, and flukes curled around to the right behind her. The sea is dark blue in front, lighter blue in the back, and the sky is pale yellow, like the sky at dawn. She looks thoughtful or sad. A marker, ink, and paint pen drawing of a woman from the shoulders up, blindfolded, with a skeleton in a black robe behind her. The skeleton’s fingers are wrapped around the purple blindfold. Death is not meant to be threatening, more like they are leading the woman towards a surprise. Her face is not scared. Her chestnut hair is draped softly around her shoulders, and Death’s fingers are gently twined in her hair. I don’t fear death, but I don’t wish for it, though I did once, and this is the subject of this piece. The background is golden yellow and orange. A partially colored ink, marker, and digital colour (on the black vulture) of me, in 3/4 profile, on the left side of the image, facing right (this portrait makes me taller than I am; I’m 5’3”). I am wearing a yellow and black 14thC cote (long dress, fitted through the arms and waist, laces up the front, with a white under-shift, very flattering on every body type!), my right arm down at my side, my left arm and hand cradling a fluffy black vulture chick.* I have red curly hair and very non-14thC bangs. An adult black vulture with their wings half-open is standing beside and behind me on the right. A large shield shape behind my upper body shows my SCA heraldry in pencil and ink, which is an eagle displayed, with wings raised, inverted, facing left, black background with a plain border, and three estoiles (six-pointed curly stars) on the eagle’s wings and chest. The black is shaded with pencil, and the white parts are yellow. The adult black vulture has their wings in the same position. *Black vultures are federally protected under the Migratory Bird Act, and it is illegal to interfere with their nests, or handle the chicks/adults. Don’t pick up a baby black vulture; they WILL vomit on you, and the smell is unearthly awful. An acrylic painting on paper of a 15th century tournament, with a tournament viewing stand behind, and people gathered around the fence enclosing the tournament. The knight fighting on the left is the recipient, and his pose is almost exactly like the one in the photo I worked from, arm scarf flying, and all. The knight he is fighting has an incredibly intricate helmet that required seven photographs and two days of crying to figure out. I am standing at the fence on the far left, in my heraldic cote, a friend is behind me, and I am arm in arm with my husband, Bob (the one with white hair and beard, that I made look a bit like Kenny Rodgers, sorry!). One of our neighbors is standing next to Bob, then other friends are on the other side. In the viewing stand is the recipient’s wife, stroking one of their cats, left of center. Other friends, alive and dead, are around them, mostly women, except for the then-king, and the original head of their household. The lettering is Google Translate Latin, and in the center bottom, the recipient’s heraldry, done with full crest, and the symbol of the award, a white belt. I am really proud of this one. Even the lettering is shaded in darker blue underneath, to make it pop. People were sad they were not included! Success! His wife loved it so much, she made fine art poster prints for everyone included in the picture. :)
November 21, 2025 at 11:37 PM