The Drawing

Good morning!!

So I have this book series that I am absolutely obsessed with. Its called 'Tales of Goldstone Wood' by Anne Elisabeth Stengl. You can read more about the series here at Goodreads, it has all the books that are out so far for you to browse and learn more about!

Anyways! The author Anne Elisabeth has a blog of her own dedicated to the books.  I follow it religiously like the adoring fan girl I am, and what I love the most about it are the little activities she hosts for the fans. There has been a Fan Fiction contest, a Music contest, and.... wait for it... A FAN ART CONTEST!!! Also these are annual things! So if you don't win this year, try again next year!!

But I digress

The Fan Art contest is what I'm all about! I entered last year and sadly did not win, but the experience was exhilarating! Just seeing my art on a website and being able to GOOGLE MYSELF AND SEE MY PIECE COME UP!!! Also! The other followers of the blog comment like crazy on all the beautiful art pieces, saying how amazing they are, how detailed, and how they make them feel, and its personal too! A lot of them write a little encouraging comment for each piece! It's so incredible just being apart of the contest, winning doesn't even seem like a big deal!

But I digress.... once again

I did a big giant drawing for it this year! I wanted it to be different enough from most submissions so it stands out to all the voters. It was a long and hard process but super fun!! Right now I will walk you through my step by step process of creating my Goldstone Wood fan art piece.




So I started out with a sketch of the whole thing. This itself actually took me a while as  I had to decide what I wanted to go where, and how, and what should be here, and well you get the point. I am the type of artist that doesn't like to do a whole lot of crazy planning before actually starting the piece, I believe you just need to go for it and trust your artist instincts.

After the sketch I needed to decide sort of a plan of action of what to fill in first. I started with Halisa, The Sword of Etanun (obviously that sword in the middle sticking out of the rock.) When I finished that I was feeling pretty good so I decided to do the Fallen Child of the Moon (the unicorn) and Bard Eanrin of Rudiobus (The cat with no eyes) as well. 

With those things finished I decided to do all of the animals and creatures first before working on anything else in the sketch. Getting myself on a schedule of sorts so not to get overwhelmed. We have The Wolf Lord in the top left corner, The Dragon under him, The Wood Thrush flying above The Dragon (if you know the stories you will understand the significance of that), and Beana the Nanny Goat right above Bard Eanrin. 

The creatures were DONE! it was time to finish the rock Halisa was in and the Grave stone with the lantern sitting on top of it. 

Now the flowers!! Starflowers and Roses are significant in the Goldstone Wood series. I finished all the starflowers first and then moved on to the roses. This was probably the most tedious because of all the details in the leaves and petals 

ALMOST DONE!! I could just taste the finished product!! With all the flowers finally drawn it was time to do the stone lettering along with filling in any white spots!! Here you see I have the words 'Stone' and 'Wood' completed leaving 'Gold' to be done the next day. 

The day finally came!!! I finished 'Gold' and stood back breathing heavily. My graphite covered hands shaking with excitement. The giant 18x24in drawing was finally done after a long few weeks!! Once I was through taking about A MILLION pictures I submitted it to the contest. 

WHAT A JOURNEY THAT WAS!!!! I have never done a drawing like that before, but I must say, I will definitely want to do it again!! It may not seem like it from my blog posts but I am very picky about what I do fan art for, and Goldstone Wood trumps all!! Best books in the world! And now I feel that much more close to it having my drawn this. 

Check out the contest here to see my drawing a long with many other talented artist's pieces! If you are a fan of the series please follow the steps written on the site to vote for me!! :D 

Thank you so much for reading through my crazy fan girl artist journey!! I hope you have a blessed week filled with lovely Spring freshness!! 

With love:

Beth

A Shannara Necklace

Well hello! I am back!

Sorry about that delay, things got super busy super fast, but hey, at least we have a third post now!!

Another one of my favorite things to do is to make jewelry. Sometimes I make pieces that I came up with myself, other times I receive inspirations from fellow jewelry makers. But what I love the most is making "Fan Jewelry" as I like to call it.
 
I read a lot of books, and I watch a lot of television shows. At times I see or read about a piece of Jewelry a character wears, maybe its a really important piece or maybe its just something they wear, but BOOM! I am inspired!!

This is what happened while I was watching 'The Shannara Chronicles" A new series on MTv.  I fell in love with the show instantly! The sceneries, the costumes, the actors, the story line, and obviously the jewelry ;)
One piece of Jewelry stuck out to me the most and that was the necklace on one of the main characters; Will, see the picture below.

Wil Ohmsford: The Shannara Chronicles

Take notice of his necklace! They make no references to it what so ever during the show, its just a necklace that he wears all the time. I absolutely loved the look of it, so I thought I would make myself my own rendition of it! 

So here it is:

Will Ohmsford's necklace hand made by Beth

 The materials I used include: clay, thick leather fabric, and a twig I found outside. To give the clay and the twig a nice glossy finish I simply painted it with clear nail polish. 

I have to say I am very pleased wit how it turned out. Its not exactly like his necklace but it bares  enough resemblance to be recognized, and I didn't want it to be an exact replica anyways! Thats so boring! 

This necklace was probably one of the most difficult to make, but it was worth it! 

I hope you have enjoyed my "Fan Jewelry" making adventure! 

Cheers!! 

With love 

Beth 

The Instrument of Nerdom

Alright!! We have come to our second post! I thank those of you who have gathered enough interest from my first post to join me for a second!

  So  I just received the most exciting package in the mail yesterday from wish.com! Some of you may have heard of that website before, it is truly a heavenly place (and also quite a dangerous one for shopping addicts like me).
   You may think a site like this would just have clothing and jewelry items, but oh there is so much more to be found on Wish!
        I, for example, found a legit, and playable, Ocarina!
 BEST DAY EVER!! I couldn't believe that I would actually be able to own one! And for a reasonable price too!! AND IT EVEN HAS THE TRIFORCE ON IT!!!
   
     For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Zelda video games you probably have no clue what I'm talking about, but it is seriously the most amazing thing ever! If you are a musical person you would definitely enjoy this because it is an ACTUAL instrument, it kind of sounds like a flute when you play it.
   
    Right after I opened the package I tried to play my new Ocarina, it was a little tricky to figure out but luckily it came with some instruction on how to hold it properly AND it came with some simple songs to play!
   I learned 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' and 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' pretty quickly! I know super easy songs but it just feels so much more awesome when playing them on an Ocarina!

Sadly the song book that came with my new friend did not have any Zelda songs in it, but not to worry! I looked up Ocarina songs online and I was able to find some fingering sheets for songs like 'Saria's Song' ,'Lon Lon Ranch', 'Song of Time', and get this.... I found 'Phantom of The Opera' for the Ocarina as well!!
  So I have a ton of practicing to do if I am going to get really good at my Ocarina playing so I can frolic around the woods wearing a Link outfit while blowing a few tunes!
  The Ocarina isn't too hard to play but it does take some practice, your fingers get sore and cramped, and you need to put your mouth on the mouth piece a certain way for it to sound right. But if an instrumentally challenged person like me (I mainly just sing, I consider my vocal Chords my instrument) can figure it out, you can too!!

If you are interested in buying an Ocarina of your very own you can look one up here where I got mine!
And if you are looking for some Zelda songs to play you can find some here!

And here she is! What a beauty. I have yet to find a name for her, but she will have one soon!!

The Ocarina of Time

A heart felt hello and welcome to all who have begun my blogging adventure with me!
This will be an exciting  endeavor to say the least!

   To start out I will tell you a little more about myself;
My name is Beth, I am a young and spirited artist who dabbles in many other things as well.
I am a jewelry maker, a writer, a vocalist, a huge book addict, a nerd, an actress, and a crafter.
My mind is an ocean of all things creative and artsy! It gets a little chaotic in there! But boy is it fun to be me!!
  My blog will include many of my thoughts and encouragements to you lovely readers, my art work, music that I love, books that I read, maybe some of my nerdy obsessions, the jewelry I make, a few crazy ideas here and there. All very entertaining I'm sure. I hope you all will enjoy yourselves!

Feel free to shoot me a comment, tell me a story, show me something creative, I would love to see it/read it!!

So I will leave you with a BIG THANK YOU for giving me a read and I do hope you will stick around for some effervescent blog posts to come!

Also, below I posted some art work of mine, to give you a little taste of what to look forward to ;)

Lots of Love
Beth

Sea Dreams

Gnomeish Dawdling 

Eye Cry