HappinessBot

Yippee! It’s nice to have a positive emotion to illustrate again. I think this AlphaBot is happy for me because I have a much-needed new computer, all speedy & uncrashy & made-to-order & everything! Thank you, James!!

Prepare for the Invasion of the AlphaBots!

I promised you another alphabet project & it's almost here, yippee! I'll be a co-admin this time along with Christian Sager & Gabriel Reyes, & we'd love to have any of you join us!

Christian explains it all so well on the AlphaBots site, I'll just quote his wording here:


"Who doesn’t like drawing robots?!? Now’s the time to break out your tools and show us your best robots. For 26 weeks artists from all over the world will be contributing to the collaborative social media art project AlphaBots!

AlphaBots will be the fourth Alphabet Press project since beginning in 2011. These efforts previously included Animal Alphabet, AlphaBeasts and AlphaBooks. Participating is a great way to share your work and meet other artists. We even had our own table at the 2012 Small Press Expo, selling books, prints, postcards and original art from the project.

Every Monday you can submit unique robot art, whether it’s from fiction, reality or your own imagination. Everyone is welcome, from professional artists to beginners looking to share their creativity. We begin our A–Z journey by drawing robots that begin with “A” on Monday, February 4.

Visit the AlphaBots Tumblr for more information on how to participate and submit your robots!"

Photoshop robot with imagery from Scientific American Handy Book, 1918, & Dietzgen Catalog, 1938.

Bouncing Baby B

AlphaBooks may be over, but my obsession with letters & text is still hopping right along! This is the first in a series of five illustrated letters that will make its proper debut next Monday. If you have been visiting this blog since around this time in 2011 you can probably guess what it's for. ;-)

I took some extreme liberties with the "B" (not to mention marsupial anatomy) in order to illustrate the word "bursiform"-- meaning shaped like a pouch.

I'll likely make some further tweaks & will post the other four images next week, but until then, I hope those of you who will be celebrating Thanksgiving this Thursday have a delectable holiday. I'm thankful to all of you who come this way!

Acrylic on text (scanned from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary) on canvas, 6" x 6"

H is for Hakutaku

This is a belated entry for last week's AlphaBeasts!

Hakutaku is the Japanese name for a Chinese monster, Baí Zé, who supposedly dictated a legendary demonography. The original Chinese form of this creature was more lion-like, but in Japan it developed a more chimeric form, possessing nine eyes & six horns, a semi-human face & goat-like hooves. Further distorted by me. :-)

Acrylic on an ad scanned from a 1937 True Experiences magazine, ~5.5"x7.5"

I'm hoping to get back to my regular Oddments schedule now, but I am still running behind due to the dreadful computer crash, so please forgive me if I'm a tad erratic!

G is for Gashadokuro

This week's entry for AlphaBeasts!

If you go down to the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise... Gashadokuro, the giant skeleton! This huge & deadly creature likes to bite off human heads. Its appearance is heralded by a ringing in the ears. I think I've had some close encounters after performances by loud bands! ;-)

Acrylic on illustration scanned from Frank Leslie's Chatterbox, 1880-1881, ~6.5"x7.5" You may need to click the image to see the tiny human in the picture-- he was much more prominent to my eyes before the skeleton crept in, though luckily he still has his head.

Edit: Isaac asked to see the original illo before Oddification, so here it is! Click for a closer view, & I think you'll see what I mean about the human figure.

Also, I can finally now reveal that the "Mysterious" series was to illustrate A Word A Day for this week! As a word nerd, I dearly love that site, & I've been a subscriber for ages, so I was over the moon to be a part of it.

Speaking of over the moon, I just have to give a shout-out to another Curiosity: the one that's headed to Mars!!

F is for Futakuchi-onna

This week's entry for Alphabeasts! is Futakuchi-onna, the two-mouthed woman. A woman who has been starved,  often by a miserly husband, develops a second mouth in the back of her head, two snaky ropes of hair that reach out to grab whatever food is nearby, & a hugely voracious appetite, though no food passes through her normal lips.

Acrylic on ad scanned from a 1937 True Experiences magazine, ~5"x6"

Isn't it interesting how much ideals of beauty have changed since then? And how little advertising has? This magazine was full of weight-gain snake oil ads... exactly the same tone of shaming & quick-fix hope as in today's diet ads, only in the opposite direction!

This Island Earth

More tweaks & additions to the "Mysterious Series"... the first state of this one is here... not sure if there will be more.















{Edit: It can now be revealed that this piece was for a series of illustrated definitions/initials on the wonderful word-lover's website A Word A Day! This one illustrates the word "terrene."}

The original art & prints are available in my Etsy shop.

Days (& Days) of Wine & Roses

Yes, this is a piece I've posted before, but I really felt like it needed a little something more, so I added this garland of roses, which I hope will reinforce both the "pleasant fragrance" & "redolent of the past" elements of the definition.

Incidentally, this was redolent of my own past, since I seemed to get a great many overly-sweet, decorative, flowery jobs when I first started freelancing. Much as I love flowers, that rut got very boring very soon, so I did something of a rubber-burning U-turn away from rose-land, & I am painfully rusty with rose painting now! (As I'm afraid is obvious here.)

Not long ago I was contacted (via web) by one of those early clients who asked if I was the same Leah Palmer Preiss who used to do pretty things!  I had a good laugh over that one. I can wax nostalgic over many other things, but oh, I'm so glad I made that move.

Strong, Silent Type

I've had a devilish time painting this fellow, & I'm still not happy with him-- maybe because life is super-hectic at the moment & it's even harder than usual for me to channel yogi-like balance & quiet mind...

Easy there, steady now, Leah!

I'll probably give him a few more tweaks before I release him into the wild, but for now, I think I'll go do a little yoga myself. Though maybe not this exact pose... ;-)

Acrylic on text on canvas, 6"x6"

If you're curious about my process you can see a very early state of this piece here.

E is for Enenra

This week's entry for AlphaBeasts!

Enenra is a smoke-monster, normally found hanging around bonfires, but today emerging from a pack of pipe tobaccy. Can you believe this ad, from a 1939 True Detective!? Nothing like a whiff of good tobacco smoke to cure what ails you!

p.s. Yes, I live in Raleigh, NC, tobacco country. But my grandfather smoked a pipe until the day he could no longer breathe. He died of emphysema. So did my grandmother, who only inhaled his (nonstop) second-hand smoke.  I am not a tobacco advocate!

Yogi, Barely

Apologies... this is the least finished oddment yet! Just way too much going on... but I will try to update it with further process over the weekend.

Acrylic on text, ~6"x6"

Occupy The Cat(bird) Seat?

Dear friends, I don't want to dangle an unattainable goal before you, as this fat cat is doing, so I must clarify that there isn't an obvious unifying theme or secret message to this mysterious mini-series. The only thing the images really have in common is what inspired them & where they will be going when they're done. And honestly, that would be pretty hard to guess! The backgrounds do provide a (very slight) clue...

Acrylic on text on canvas, 6"x6"

Also a belated but heartfelt THANKS to Noah, Tatman & the gang @ skulladay for featuring The Girl with the Oddment Tattoo on 1 November! I just now found out it was up there. Yay!

D is for Daidara-bocchi

This week's entry for AlphaBeasts!

This fearsome yet playful giant was apparently very fond of messing about with mountains, hence the setting for this portrait, taken from Redway's Natural Elementary Geography, 1897.

I must say, as fond as I am of old textbooks, their blithe stereotyping & patronizing tone often make me squirm. I wonder what Daidara-bocchi would think of the excerpt here....

Acrylic on found illustration, ~4½"x5½". By the way, the big old scratch where D-b's fingernail lands was on the original-- I suspect the engraver's plate had been damaged.

Emergent Earthlings

Late again, & still unfinished, but since Isaac was asking for process shots I don't feel quite so bad about it! I'll post finishes on Saturday if I can get all my deadline work done tomorrow. %}

Acrylic on text on canvas, 6"x6"

Third in the mysterious series... all will be revealed anon!

C is for Chōchinobake

I was so tickled to discover this monster, clearly related to Jack-o'-Lantern, just in time for the Halloween edition of AlphaBeasts!


Acrylic on found illustration, ~4½"x5½"


The illo in the background is from one of my favorite Fleam Finds, The Museum of Science & Art, 1855. I couldn't bear to tear that one up, so I scanned  & printed it to paint over. If you click to enlarge & look very closely, maybe you can see the flying bat-skulls on the wall. I didn't even notice those until I started painting-- kinda spooky! Happy Halloween, everybody!

Inkspotting

As mentioned in the previous post, I have an irrational fondness for dip pens. No matter how much I use & enjoy technology, I still can't live without a good scritchy nib. If that makes me a dinosaur, so be it! And I also leave a handy trail of ink spots behind so future paleontologists can track my every move. (Although Google & Homeland Security will probably save them the effort.)

Apologies for the lateness of the post-- I have so much going on right now I was afraid it wouldn't happen at all, but I made it at the quasi-proverbial 11th-ish hour. (Though it still needs tweaking.)

This is the second piece in the mysterious series. Acrylic on text on canvas, 6"x6"

Let me tell you, it was tricky to paint calligraphy at this size!! Ironically, I had to use a fine brush rather than a pen.

A is for Amikiri

Today is a red-letter, red-monster day: the beginning of a new alphabet project, AlphaBeasts!

Successor to Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet, this one is hosted by Andrew Neal & will center on mythical creatures. I think it may be even more fun than the last! I'm hoping to do all 26 letters, & looking forward to discovering many new oddities along the way.


My first AlphaBeast is the Amikiri, or Net Cutter, from Toriyama Sekien's Gazu Hyakki Yakō. I'd never heard of this curious creature with its very specific form of mischief before. I certainly hope it leaves my curtains & fishnets alone!

While this is AlphaBeast No.1, it is also Her Odd Materials No.13. Hmm, sounds like something from mystic numerology.... Acrylic on a cutting from a Larkin Catalog, c.1940, ~5"X6", found at the Fleam of course.

By the way, if you'd like to see my entries for the last series, Animal Alphabet, you'll find most of them on my sketch/process blog, Curious Art Lab. I was late to the party though, so you won't find all 26 letters there, alas!

Zoophyte

An undersea slacker of sorts, this curiotype need not stir from his seat to hunt for dinner. Rather, he lures passing prey with mesmerizing undulations of his graceful faux-fronds, then "welcomes little fishes in with gently smiling jaws."

To be honest, "zoophyte" was already becoming obsolete as a term of scientific classification when the background text was published in 1906, but I ask you, how could I resist ending the alphabet with a botano-beastie?

Photoshop with text from Chambers's Encyclopaedia, 1906.

Yttriferous

Okay, so Y is another tricky science letter. (See W.) I was almost stumped for a visual until I read that yttrium is a key ingredient in the formula for some synthetic garnets. That was the inspiration for this curiotype. You probably need to click on the image to see the face.

Photoshop with text from The Practical Standard Dictionary.

I wish I really had a bottle that looks like this. I have a bunch of wonderful old chemistry glass thanks to my dad, but I've always coveted really strange stuff like alchemical ware & Klein bottles. (Topology was one of my earliest science/math obsessions... right after malaria mosquitoes. Both due to random museum-visit epiphanies.)

Hey, this is Oddment number 50! And the curiotype alphabet is almost done. I'm a bit surprised I've made it this far. Raise a glass (of some non-yttriferous liquid) to the Oddments!

Xerophilous

I'm quite fond of cacti, but I wouldn't want this prickly curiotype as a pet-- imagine how it would feel to have him brush up against your legs!

Photoshop with text from Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, 1949