pretty

My first commission, they wanted a pretty plain pink sunset picture.

pretty happy with how this one turned out

Here we go again! Yesterday's one hour produced this lovely darling :) We don't have enough fanart with ShadowSearphimon! I just adore the design of this Digimon. Considering this was my first ever try to draw him, I'm pretty happy with the result ^-^ though there are certainly some things to be improved. Please enjoy anyway! - Crypto

This is La'Kiesha Slade as Shay Dixon in the show Skam Austin :) As you can see by the dates, I left this untouched for more than 6 months, so it felt pretty good to finally wrap it up the other day!

I was feeling pretty depressed and a friend of mine told me to draw her something..."Poison Ivy actually."

was reading the Atlas Obscura and learned about poison gardens? Pretty interesting! Catherine de Medici was known to have one!

Just a doodle of some pretty aviator glasses and rose petals.

This page includes a sketch I made pulled over on the road near Pontiac, IL, a shield I stamped using a stamp I carved (pretty crude , but still works!), and some stickers I had made of sketches of other things in the area.

Ballpoint pen doodlebomb, she's so pretty, so I just had to make her even more exotic ;)

Wrecks can get pretty heavy somedays.

Pretty much what it says on the tin!

Kingart mixed media gel sticks

Pretty much this!

I generally make marks on something every day, but I'm really TRYING to do it purposefully in one single journal at a time. I also have super ADHD, which means I pretty much never go up to my actual studio and usually only use what's out on my desk, because out-of-sight-out-of-mind.

I generally make marks on something every day, but I'm really TRYING to do it purposefully in one single journal at a time. I also have super ADHD, which means I pretty much never go up to my actual studio and usually only use what's out on my desk, because out-of-sight-out-of-mind.

I generally make marks on something every day, but I'm really TRYING to do it purposefully in one single journal at a time. I also have super ADHD, which means I pretty much never go up to my actual studio and usually only use what's out on my desk, because out-of-sight-out-of-mind.

Pretty much what it says.

Wow, almost forgot I had this one. I was digging Joni Mitchell well before a lot of my friends "got" her musicianship. Obviously this was more or less copped from "Hejira" - an album that I pretty much wore out. It ain't really that good but what the hell....its aged as well as she has.

I was pretty much done with this Jane, but she hadn't told me what she was saying yet. Then my 18 year old daughter came in, and nervously said "Mom...I did a thing..." She proceeded to show me her freshly tattooed fingers. Suddenly, Jane spoke...

Apparently she’s pulling a word from thin air. That’s pretty cool, in my opinion

I went to sleep while going over various self-defense scenarios, and when I woke up this outfit in my head. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I'm sure there's some deep, dark, involved backstory behind that tatoo

A pretty girl frog drinking Boba

This is just a little thing I colored, the lineart is NOT mine. I asked my friend what colors I should do for certain things and I think it came together pretty well. The shading is also done by me. I forgot to watermark this one ^^'

Wanted to try some other lighting environments! This painting was referenced from a piece by Samdoesarts on YouTube, you should check out his channel, pretty cool.

Was practicing with my watercolor pencils. They're pretty good the more I get used to them ^^

Title: Heart and Soul Medium: illustration pens on sketch book paper Style: surreal Category: illustration Created: Dec-Jan 2024-2024 Artist: Stephen J. Vattimo Heart and Soul This is preliminary drawing for a painting I am about to begin. The concept for this illustration started as a design for a pumpkin carving contest. I feel the message of the design is so important for people to hear, I decided to make it into a painting. The original design, done in pen and ink. The design only shows the two doors of the entrance to a fortress. It was designed for a live pumpkin carving event in mind. At this type of event, the carver must create their piece of art live on site with spectators watching and asking questions, and there is a time limit. The evolution of the design? I added a wall on each side of the entrance, with matching pillars. Explaining the design of the pillars The triangle top: the triune God. Representing three persons of God: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The cross shape opening in the pillars: The cross is the only path to God, to have the debt of sin satisfied. To reconcile humankind back to himself. To be released from being a slave to the Devil. To be a new creation empowered by God Spirit. Explaining the design of the entrance way(gate) The top of the entrance is in the shape of a heart, represents the seat of human passion, ambition, and allegiance. The cultic three petal flower is used to represent God in three persons united. The symbol inside the flower: God’s ministry toward humankind. Crown: Highest authority Cross: God’s loving salvation and restoration plan. The dove: Spiritualty made alive, fellowship with God, empowerment to weather the storm of life, and equip for service to God. Change in the design of the door. In the original design, one door had roses carved on it. The pattern took up the whole door. The other door had a grape vine carved on it. The pattern took up the whole door. I modified the emblem on the doors by making them smaller and simplified, so I could place them inside heart shapes, so the new images would more clearly communicate what they are meant to represent. I also added color to the emblems(color pencil) to make them clear of what they are, because of their size and the ink medium ,they were hard to interpret. Understanding the symbol of the two doors. The door with the rose inside the heart emblem represents a heart whose passions, ambitiousness, allegiance are focused on the cares, worries, and abstaining riches of the world. Only giving God lip service. I chose the rose to represent the heart of spiritual allegiance to the world, because roses are pretty, but you can’t eat them to nourish your body. They also have thorns that can cause injury to the body. So, the parallel point is, just as flower fade and turn to dust, so will the person who chases the thing of the world and has no time for God. For life is very short, we know not which will be our last breath on this side of eternity. But if a person leaves this earth without excepting the gift God offered them which is salvation from penalty of sin and given enteral life through the work that was done on the cross by God’s son. Then that soul will appear before Jesus, and just as they did not know him in their life on earth, He will tell them he knows them not. Into the lake of fire, they will spend eternity. The door with the grape vine in the heart emblem represents a heart whose passions, ambitiousness, allegiance are for God. To know Him intimately, to obey His teachings, to serve his will. I chose the grapevine to represent the heart of spiritual allegiance to God, because grapes are nourishing to the body. Jesus also used a grape vine in one of his parables. He paralleled the spiritual relationship he had with his disciples and the grapevine. He told them just as branches of a vine must depend on the base of the vine to live and bare fruit, so they must abide him to have abundant life. Abiding in Christ is not a religious act. It is outside of religion. It is an intimate relationship. Example: you can belong to a fan club of Paul McCartney and know a lot of things you have heard about him, but he doesn’t even know you exist. Where, if Paul is your father, and you have a good parent to child relationship, then you know him intimately. So, abiding in God, we commune with him through read his word and living by its teachings. It is spending time in prayer. Sharing our hearts with God and spending time listing to him. Trusting in him as our provider and giving thanks for his provision. Living our lives, with the purpose of pleasing him with the work of our hand and loving our neighbors in the workplace as well as in the community. Just as a healthy grapevine continues to grow and produce much fruit. Having an imitate relationship with God should be more and more evident in the way we live our lives. So, when the angel of death pays you an unexpected visit, he escorts you to Jesus’s throne, you know for certain he going to welcome you with loving arms and said welcome home my faithful servant. Now to which door I chose for my life? It’s the one that is open. This bible verse one of a couple that inspired me to design this illustration. 1 Corinthians 3:12-13 King James Version 12 Now if any man builds upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble. 13 Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. This verse is not referring to the rebellious people who have rejected God, this is referring to people who are children of God, who failed to serve God faithful. Written by Stephen J. Vattimo. 3 Jan 2024 .

After a year of drawing pretty much nothing due to artblock/burnout that came after a few years of battling my mind to be able to draw, this drawing marked me finally being able to return to art this November 2023 with a fresh mindset of less perfectionisim and more focus on my own enjoyment of the process. I had a limited timespan to work on this, a gift for my grandmother's 80th birthday, as I only began the process the day before I needed to email it across. Compared to the months it has typically taken me to finish anything in more recent years, this presented an extra motivation to abandon "perfect" in favour of "good enough". It's not as detailed as some of my prior works, but given the limited timespan and that I'm out of practice I am nonetheless happy with the result. As usual, I combined a graphite and ink drawing with digital colour+shading.

I take a lot of Genesis as an allegory for birth and maturation, both individually and collectively. The Garden of Eden could easily be interpreted as the womb, and we are all cast out of it at some point. Genesis 2:24 says "This is why a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife, and they become one flesh." Though people use this passage to refer to the tradition of marriage, I think that it speaks to something much, much deeper than that. Literally, when two people copulate, they create a child that is of one flesh. They do not "become one flesh" because they engage in a ritual institution and are now "to be viewed as comprising a single identity," but they literally become one flesh because their genetic compositions are joined into a new being (Mark 10:8 and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”). That being said, I read somewhere once that babies born in every part of the world make phonetic sounds from pretty much every language in the world. It is only after a period of time that they start to key in on certain sounds that the people around them are making, and it is only after that that children key in enough to start developing more advanced language skills (typically). However, in this original state, there is a freedom. There are no assumptions. There is an innocence in that state. There is a lack of judgement. There comes a point at which babies/young children begin to mimic and to incorporate what they are experiencing from the creatures around them into themselves. To small creatures with an undeveloped sense of self or reality, the caregivers around them may as well be gods, at least from their perspective. They will learn from these gods around them and will begin to embody their cultural beliefs, their language, their idiosyncrasies, and their perceptions, often on a deeply unconscious level. Adults contribute to that quite thoroughly and somewhat consciously. (Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness..") (Genesis 11:7 7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech.) In our own way as individuals, we are each a Tower of Babel, and at some point, for each of us, that Tower fell. Barriers to communication of so many kinds were created for and/or by us. Perhaps we still spend time constructing new barriers and thinking up new ways to distance ourselves from the rest of our kind. I chose to use the phrase "materialism" to express how children engender these attributes of caregivers and others alike. However, this can easily be exchanged for a phrase like "socialism," or "corporate capitalism," or nearly any other thing that you can probably think of. Children are like sponges. They soak up even more than we realize. Most widespread religions in the world have some form of renunciation belief or ritual wherein an individual must 'cast off' the old self and put on the new. This is because, regardless of where or when a child is born in the world, the perspectives of the people around them raising them will likely leave much to be desired. It is necessary for beings to continue to learn, and this often entails a serious consideration of what was instilled into them at an earlier time. It is quintessential that we question and evaluate these things since the state of the world will have changed by the time that we reach maturation. The ideas that people gave us may apply to a world that is already different. The story of the Tower of Babel may refer to a state that earlier humans lived in, perhaps on a shared continent, in which the manners in which they communicated were similar. Then, at some point, perhaps these same peoples went off on their travels and developed new languages. In a funny way, we seem to do that as individuals. At some point, we strike out on our own, even if only a little. Though we may differ on surface level behaviors and in the symbols that we use to describe the human experience, human beings are more or less fundamentally the same. We let our differences create so, so, so many barriers between ourselves and other beings. Just think of all of the harm that things like xenophobia, racism, intolerance, and a lack of an ability to communicate verbally with one another have done to our species. Even beyond that, just think of how easily we dismiss the inner lives and inner experiences of creatures different than ourselves simply because they do not communicate verbally with us in our preferred tongue. Research is overwhelmingly in support of other beings communicating with others of their kind, whether we as individuals acknowledge it or not.. Some of us are just really into denial about it. We could achieve remarkably wonderful things, if only we would learn to recognize the similarities of our experiences. (Matthew 19:6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”)