Tag: illustration

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Artist’s Diary: Anneli Berglund

Happy Saturday. Believe it or not, it’s been almost 9 years since I started this blog and this is my first Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Of course, I’m going to bend the rules by introducing Swedish fine artist and graphic designer, Anneli Berglund. In this post, she talks about her soon-to-be released Wabi Sabi Noir generative art project. I hope you enjoy her work as much as I do. She is truly stylish.

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Hello, I’m Anneli, here to tell you about my day. This morning I got up, put on some coffee, and sent the children to school. Then I went to watch a tutorial made by Goblin on YouTube, about how to deploy a generative collection on LaunchMyNft, an NFT platform I am using for my most recent art project.

Before that, I had self-destructed the same collection’s profile page on Foundation. Now, I’m setting up everything on this new platform. So, uhm, follow me on Instagram?

After gathering the information I needed from the tutorial, it was time to press “self-destruct” on Foundation.

In a storm of energy two days ago, I put up a brand new collection of art there. But after exchanging a couple of emails with Foundation Support, I realized I didn’t have a service to help randomize my design elements.

So I had to press the self destruct-button. It happened pretty fast. At first, I felt a little scared. Then, it felt like a cool James Bond movie moment. In truth, I regretted having to spend transaction fees on something I had to burn only two days later.

And now it’s afternoon. The kids will be home in an hour, but I have very little food in the fridge. So I’m thinking egg sandwiches should be fine? I’m still staring at my screen, waiting to add my new artwork to the Ethereum blockchain.

But I see that the transaction fees have gone through the roof. It’s going to cost $90 to mint the collection. That is too much. I’m low on ETH and need every bit of it to push out my work, especially because there’s no real guarantee it will sell.

My reach on all social media is crap right now because I refuse to play by the Algorithm Rules. It’s not a provocative choice; this is how I’m wired. I’m a busy woman, a full time artist and full time mother, and I will not post everyday nonsense to appease current technology. It’s built by greedy humans anyway, if you ask me.

Lately I’ve been looking at a decentralized social media app. I was told I’d get a spot on that app but, it’s still in beta.

Looking at my screen again, and the transaction fees are now between $63 and $68. It was down to $25 just a few days ago. Maybe I chose a bad time to do this, but I don’t have much time to sit in front of a screen later today. I really want to launch this collection on March 23 because the date will be 2023/3/23.

See what I did there?

The date itself is not special. I saw a bunch of 23s somewhere and decided March 23 was a good date. I work intuitively, much like when I decided to deconstruct my earlier ink works and put them back together again as unique characters. I call my characters “inklings.” And I have called the collection Wabi Sabi Noir. I guess a lot of what I do seems impulsive, but it’s working for me.

Ah! It’s getting late, and I have to wash my hair. Maybe the transaction fees will go down by the time I’ve finished? Fingers crossed.

Sending ….

God! Twitter removed all the spacing. What a horrible block of text – ha ha ha ha. I am literally heading into the shower now. See you around!

Follow Anneli Berglund on Twitter
Categories
art technology

Brilliant 3D artists to follow on Twitter

Greetings everyone, and thank you for viewing this gallery of artwork from my 3D, VR and AR artist colleagues. I was very happy with the response to this call for submissions, and I hope to make this a regular feature here on Saint Joan Creative Studio.

Want to make friends on Twitter? This is the best group of artists to be around. Be kind enough to share this post, as well as the artwork, on your favourite social media platforms. And, if you are on Twitter, engage with the posts so that your followers will see and appreciate them, too.

Zenshy, or Zen, as we call him, is one of the most popular artists in the NFT community because he has a great personality, a charming voice and is always there to support fellow artists. He is the first member of my “Special Voice Club” for Twitter Spaces, and if you hear him, you will understand why. He helped spread the word about this gallery showcase and I thank him very much for doing so. WAGMI.

As you view this gallery of artwork, remember that the #NFTCommunity on Twitter is one of the most close-knit and supportive groups around. If you want to see this in action, follow them and watch your timeline. They are professional artists who work together to offer each other practical advice and encouragement.

Bhushan Vishwas is the 23-year-old co-founder at CodemireGames, a game studio he runs full-time. He has been creating NFTs for more than 6 months. After the latest update, WordPress deleted my logo image, and if it were not for Bhushan, I would not have noticed that.

Something he always tells us is, “Stop saying thank you, we are family.” And because of that, I now have no words to express my gratitude to him for his warm support. A double feature for you, Bhushan, because you are amazing.

Magda Górska is a collage artist from Warsaw, Poland. The only tool she uses in her artistic work is a mobile phone. Apart from producing 3D art, she creates minimalist paintings. Her most recent collection is called, “A pillar of strength” and it is inspired by the power of the mind. I am awestruck by her minimalist, monochromatic style whenever it appears in my timeline.

Elnaz Mansouri is a Canadian 3D artist and photographer based in Reykjavik, Iceland. As you know, I am biased towards all things Icelandic, so when she introduced herself in a space I was cohosting, I quickly “captured” her. I had to duel with an astrophotographer to claim her as my own, and I am happy I won in the end. Elnaz is also a drone pilot. She sells non fungible tokens of her artwork on the exclusive invite-only platform, Foundation.

Aqmal was the first to respond to my call for submissions, and I want to thank them for that. They are a digital illustrator from Tangerang, Indonesia, and their non fungible tokens are featured on the tezos platform Hic et Nunc. If you feel adventurous, connect a tezos wallet (from your Google account, you have a Kukai Wallet) and buy something from their collection.

Beer is a 3D artist from Thailand. He makes music in various genres. His project goal is to complete 100 songs within this year. Please view his media folder on Twitter to see his artwork.

GIMME WORK loves skeletons and biblical references, so I knew we would get along. In the Last Supper Skeleton, he gives a twist to an old favourite. Great imagination, awesome work.

NRN (artwork featured at the topmost section of this tweet) is an artist whose work you love to crave. Enigmatic, elusive, and mysterious. The definition of a muse. Follow them on Twitter for more fabulous art.

Antony Joseph is an automotive enthusiast and die cast model hobbyist. His sleek style and mysterious presentation make him seem otherworldly, and not “just another human being”. He was kind enough to share some of his 3D artwork with us. He has been an artist for 8 years and is now exploring his way into NFTs. He looks forward to connecting with you, so please visit his profile and make friends.

What is exciting about Subin K is that he is a self-taught CGI artist and game developer who works with augmented and virtual reality programs. He resides in Kozhikode, India, and works very hard to perfect his craft. He is only 21 years old, which means he has plenty of time to captivate a global audience.

Architect, author, computational designer and music enthusiast. His work is so vivid and detailed, it is hard to tell that it is all made up. I am happy to feature his work, especially because he supported me as I was trying to reach 3000 followers. After that, we hung out in a space together. Thank you for everything, Arjun.

Say hello to Cat, sculpture artist from Thailand who creates 3D concept art, visual art, and character art. They will be creating non fungible tokens of their 3D artwork for the time being.

Hitendra is a self-taught 3D artist from India who makes high poly 3D cars in the Blender app. He regularly showcases samples of his work on Twitter. Above, you can see him sharing his work in the thread of a well-known collector of NFTs. We all have to showcase our work, and eventually, after much practice, we will become experts at it.

Meet Mint from Thailand. Their NFT concept is “Bring your childhood to heal yourself”. They promise that this “Tale of Tail” collection will make you a smile and relax from your hard days. This presentation is accompanied by a sketch of the animated work. As you can see, it takes a lot of work to get to the final presentation.

And finally, say hello to Luchong, a Nigerian artist who draws all of her 3D faces on her phone. Here, she is showcasing artwork from his collection “Thea”. It is a collection that portrays the diverse beauty of dark-skinned African women in a unique style. It goes without saying that talent goes beyond boundaries, and I believe that we are all richer for the diversity that exists in our world.

Thank you for viewing this gallery. I hope that you enjoyed this presentation. Please give these artists your support by sharing this blog post to your socials. See you at the next showcase.

Categories
about me art creative writing fiction opinion

North to South

Illustration by Poelosophy

Indonesian artist, Poelosophy, created some concept art for my novel. There is an exhibit in Dublin, ‘North to South’, which features aboriginal art from Northern Europe and South America. The exhibit is the setting for a scene entitled ‘Big Daddy Pharma’.

Thank you for leaving encouraging words for me when I wrote about the impossible task of getting promotional work done. I’m still processing ideas and will be working on them as I go. Feeling like giving up is part of the journey. But I was amused at suggestions that I should actually toss my project. Hold on a second. I haven’t tried everything yet.

North to South – illustration by Poelosophy

And I am quite sure that if someone were to lend me their celebrity friends and let me slobber all over them in the club, my novel would get downloaded really fast. A Russian woman who pretended to be a German heiress, and stole millions, has deals with Netflix and Shonda Rhimes. Other people, who look different, would be rotting, anonymously, in jail. So let’s be realistic about what’s going on out here.

In the past, I would have been totally destroyed by “delete your book” remarks. But Fifty Shades fan fiction 365 Days was optioned by Netflix. The film skyrocketed to first place last weekend. It tells the story of a gangster who kidnaps a woman, ties her up, and assaults her for an entire year so she will fall in love with him. Even the people who said they hated it, watched it to the end, and uploaded reviews to their YouTube channels. In other words, the release was a success.

If that film is out there, it means two things. One, thinking in terms of ‘good writing’ or ‘bad writing’ is unhelpful. Two, the universe now needs to be balanced, so I will be publishing my novel.

Perceived quality is not a metric that can be influenced by hand-wringing. Instead of telling people what they should/shouldn’t like, I should focus on finding (a) people who will read anything, (b) people who like everything they read, (c) people who like to read full-length novels on mobile devices and (d) people who collect ebooks.

The search continues …

Have a great week ahead.

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about me art opinion writing

Cara de la Reina

The mural "Cara de la Reina" is featured in my novel, The Quarter Percent. This graffiti style illustration was created for me by Emanuel Malu at Saita Studio.
The mural “Cara de la Reina” is featured in my novel, The Quarter Percent. This graffiti style illustration was created for me by Emanuel Malu at Saita Studio.

As I have discussed before, my amazing book promotion campaign fell flat because everyone I approached wanted me to be a popular author before agreeing to help me promote my book. Gah!

Over the weekend, I decided to beta test the promotion of a promotional copy of my novel, The Quarter Percent. After receiving a copy formatted for Kindle from the book designer, I wanted to see how a free PDF copy would be received by an influencer who has a large audience of avid e-book readers. This person’s audience only wants fiction books that are FREE or which cost $0.99. Perfect for a beta test? Or so I thought.

After three days of discussions, I was floored when this influencer insisted, today, that the book be published to Amazon first. He also asked me, “But how will you benefit from people reading it?” I am confused. Isn’t the point of publishing a novel to have people read it?

In other words, his audience is not interested in books that are cheap or free. They want popular releases for free or at a super discount. Yet, the advice I have received is to give away promotional copies of my novel to generate buzz. That makes no sense, you say? Large film studios deal with this nonsense, too. That is why they leak promotional copies of new releases to torrent sites.

My confusion arises from the fact that official publication on Amazon defeats the purpose of beta testing the novel with readers in different locations, and watching how they respond to it. I need this information so I can know how and where to promote the story. What I don’t want is readers who are not the intended audience to write reviews on the Amazon page complaining that the novel has words and that the themes are ‘difficult’.

I used to joke that I am an alien from outer space. But I am beginning to believe that either I stepped into a wormhole and this is the underverse, or the inhabitants of this planet are insane.

Categories
about me creative writing opinion

Illustrations

Gala and Cordial of Vale – Illustrations by Victoria Seow

So after literally a week of gymnastics and writing while standing on my head, I’ve managed to format my fiction novel. And rework the timeline after finding out I have physically shredded five key scenes, which I wrote longhand. The novel is completely re-drafted. Edited, done. Not only that, I’ve managed to weave a coherent timeline for all of the scenes. On top of that, the conclusion is tight, the prologue is tight, and the epilogue is tight. I even have a brilliant idea for cover art.

Augustine Santa Clara- Illustration by Victoria Seow

But guess what? The geopolitics is mucked. The Monarchy of Vale (the fictional name of my country) has to be landlocked for the story to work. My protagonist is an absolute monarch of a fictional country that’s needing to negotiate with trade partners, also fictionalised.

My basis for designing the Continent was Europe, with different borders, same cities but different country names. But the m-effing European Union, in real life, it’s just sat there. It already has a trade bloc and negotiates on behalf of member states. While editing, I realise cannot use the word “Europe” or euro as currency. I could use a pound but then readers will be confused, thinking I’m talking about the UK. I am not.

I know I’m overthinking this. I know it’s fiction. But you know how certain types of people are. They immediately start fact checking your fiction. Do you guys remember Pandora? Pandora, my retelling of a doesn’t exist mythological creature entity person. Got Wikipediaded!!!

I know myself. I will trash that thing if someone bothers me.

I might have to situate this entire story on a completely different planet where the sentient beings are octopuses.

Special thanks to Victoria Seow / sunflowerfox for drawing these characters from my novel.

Categories
creative writing writing

I went and did a thing

Greetings, everyone. Since my amazing book promotion idea got twisted in the game, I had a few other ideas. One person who helped me is Australian illustrator, Jennifer Horn. She created these storyboards for some key scenes in my novel, which I am calling The Quarter Percent. I asked for rough sketches because I’m redrafting at the moment. Here are three of the key scenes.


Rue and Karl – Illustration by Jennifer Horn

Rue and Karl are now friends after their bitter divorce ten years earlier. Karl reminds Rue that he has custody of their frozen embryos from the divorce. They are about to be destroyed. Karl proposes that they start a family instead. Rue agrees, on condition that they ask three gestational carriers to carry the babies at the same time. She also decides to publicise the news of the surrogacy to stir up controversy, which will drum up business for her luxury yacht building company. That decision will backfire because…

Costmary and Karen – Illustration by Jennifer Horn

Costmary’s private dispute with her father, Cordial, has leaked to the press. Social media is Team Costmary. The public takes her sister, the thrice-divorced Rue, to task for promoting a ‘happy families’ image in light of her sister’s hardship. Costmary is having crisis talks with her publicist and friend, Karen. Earlier that day, Cordial had filed a vaguely worded writ against his subjects. Reading between the lines, journalists guessed correctly that the writ was meant for Costmary. To make matters worse, he served her with a €45 billion lawsuit. It represents the stock value of her vegan brand, Costmary’s Farm. Her father’s latest salvo has come as a shock.

Cordial and Marvin – Illustration by Jennifer Horn

Rue and Costmary’s father, Cordial, is distracted at the moment. Three weeks before the closing deadline of a multinational trade deal, he is having a video chat with the reclusive Marvin Stone, CEO of Marvin Stone Technologies, LLC. Marvin has launched a brand new, super exclusive insurance policy that only a quarter of the one percent can afford. Marvin invited twenty-three individuals to sign up for the policy. Cordial is angry because he was not on the list. But Marvin excluded him on purpose. It seems the strategy was effective.

+ – <

You can find Jennifer Horn on Instagram @Eskyjen and view her Facebook Art Page here. She has been kind, encouraging and a lovely person to collaborate with. As always, thank you for your support. Have a productive week ahead.

Categories
art

Minimal Lines

Minimal Lines - abstract charcoal lines in loops and stripes on smooth illustration board
Minimal Lines

Charcoal on illustration board (smooth – B4); processed

Keeping it simple. Not that my closets (nicknamed “Game of Throwns”) would agree, but I really am a minimalist at heart. The residue is from charcoal.

Have a great week ahead.

Categories
art

Chiara arts Afrika

Chiara Carlotta's Mural "Africa"
Africa from “World Wall Mural” by Netherlands based artist, Chiara Carlotta.

Special thanks go to the lovely Chiara Carlotta, who was kind enough to help me out with Iceland in early January. I’m happy to post this beautiful design work she’s done on her bedroom wall for you to enjoy. Please visit her blog to see her work in progress. x SB

Categories
art

Congolesa

Illustration by Nadia Monsengo, a Netherlands based graphic designer.
Please visit her blog at African Artista. Her work is stunning. Thank you, Nadia.

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art

Rational

rational

Rational. Abundance is the control of large portions. To maintain wealth, it is important to control portions, but to do that, we must first learn to control impulses. A quality education affords us rational thinking, which is the ability to recognise impulses and to suppress or harness these for greater gain. Discipline, order, reasoning and logic constrain us. But if we use these with wisdom, we will attain the only form of abundance that really matters. Freedom.