.: The Light After :.
A hummingbird found by a friend. Thank you to Maquenda / @artofmaquenda for inspiring me to honor and preserve this small life in photos.
Artists are free to use these for reference. If you make something based on/inspired by these, I’d love to see but it’s not required!
“The road was straight, long and uneventful and with the morning energy waning from our group, each person fell to their own private thoughts.
I wondered if the stars would be as magnificent over the Kalahari, whether I might glimpse a brown hyena, and that I couldn’t wait to peel my socks off and have them laundered.
It was appropriate then that when we least expected it, when our exuberance for this magical place was somewhat dulled by exhaustion, that it should remind us that wonder stalks around the corner.
Lelobu, our new vehicle, slowed with a lurch and B-man whispered, “Leopard”.
And there he was, trotting on the roadside ahead, not 40 feet away. My heart clenched in disbelief as he swerved and dove into the swaddle of ochre painted brush. Our vehicle pulled up beside him and I became acutely aware of the awkward prattling din of our vehicle’s engine.
A fierce effulgent gaze that rivaled the brilliance of the sun commanded us to the fall of awe.
And then he was gone.” –Excerpt from “Dry Season Only”
Dedicated to my husband, Lorien, and to Hawa, The Leopard Sun.
There are so many more words I could use in this description to talk about this piece, what it means to me and how it came to be but I feel I’d just be regurgitating passages of the book.
If you are interested, there are still some limited number of books available through the artists that I was blessed enough to share this journey with. This is an extremely limited run and unlikely that it will be published again due to prohibitive costs. But if you would like to have one of your own and share in our story and support it’s creators, you may purchase a copy from myself or one of the other incredible artists that went.
You can buy one of my copies from: My Store
Or Laura Garabedian’s shop at:
https://www.etsy.com/shop/LauraGarabedian
Or Foxfeather’s shop at:
.: Defiant :.
One more in the leaf lion series. I decided to ascribe an emotion to each lion image to sort of unify them as a series but give each one a unique emotional message. The first, lion in profile, represents hope, the second (front view) represents fear/doubt and the third, this one, represents defiance. I chose to portray the lion in front of a solar eclipse. I identify lions closely with the sun and here the sun is depicted as eclipsed while the lion still stands defiant before it. I am excited to announce that this sketch will eventually receive a watercolor treatment by the incredibly talented Laura Garabedian ! I can’t wait to see what she does with this!
.: Nebulous :.
Another Kickstarter pledge sketch, this one for the inspiring Kimi. Kimi has supported my work a number of times and this time I was very pleased to have a chance to speak with her a little more. I’d like to believe most artists appreciate the people who support their work and realize without those people, who share and celebrate our visions of the world, we would have little cause to continue creating. Art is a process of sharing our intangible selves, a reflection of who we are at our deepest core and without others to see this, the act of creation, in my humble opinion would be a void expression. Thank you Kimi for reminding me why I create and for supporting that aspect of me that I can only ever quantify in art.
