(HB pencil on 130mm x 120mm paper) With pandemic lockdowns happening all the time, it's created something of a Victorian feel to Christmas, so it was no surprise that I drew this for the Christmas cards I do at this time of year, along with a very odd version of a round-robin message attached to it. You can read it here: https://www.skavart.co.uk/2020/12/merry-christmas-2020-round-robin.html
(HB pencil on a 138mm x 88mm postcard) It's more than just a strange laughing cat wearing a monocle. The full description of it is here, on my main art blog: https://www.skavart.co.uk/2020/08/the-laughing-monocled-cat.html ...Although you might regret reading it!
(2B pencil on an A7 page) This is one of eight images I used in a small booklet I made about "The Little Black Book" and the contacts and comments people would write in such address books. This one is of a pirate. Others include a superhero, an alien, a witch, an angel, and a cat. The full set can be seen here on my art blog: https://www.skavart.co.uk/2020/06/the-little-black-book-vidi-vici-veni.html
Merch featuring the gorgeous sketches of Shari Blaukopf now available at https://studio56boutique.com/collections/poppies-today-design-by-shari-blaukopf
I had some family at my house this week and my niece kept wanting to play my ukulele, only she called it "kookulele". It made me laugh every time and in the morning before they got up I sketched this real quick to remind me of it.
Julia Ota, a Korean girl who was brought back to Japan during the Imjin Wars (1592-1598). She was adopted by one of the Japanese commanders, Konishi Yukinaga, and was baptized as a Christian in 1596. She eventually became a lady-in-waiting to Tokugawa Ieyasu, but was later exiled to Izu Islands for refusing to recant her faith. Wherever she went, she became admired for her charity and evangelism, and she was revered as divinity on the islands up after her death up to the 20th century.
Water heals and purifies. It also kills and destroys.
Few symbols encompass both the life-giving and death-dealing properties of water as the sacrament of baptism, which represents both the passing of the old self and their rebirth as a new creature (Romans 6:3-11).
Here, the image of death & rebirth is also reinforced by a dragonfly motif; the dragonfly spends the first years of its life in the deep waters as a nymph, and is completely transformed into a new being as it rises to the surface.
Unlike butterflies, a dragonfly undergoes several molting processes after its emergence, showing that, while the creature is already made new, it is not yet perfected, and must grow in its new identity through what is called progressive sanctification.
The work's title refers to the Christian daimyo, Konishi Yukinaga, whose baptismal name is Augustine, and is the primary subject of this image.
Hello! My name is Eternal Phoenix, I hope you enjoy my first full drawing of the year that I made a while back.I have much to learn, but that won’t stop me from moving forward in this path
From left to right (countries and their names):
Belarus- Alena Sokolova
Czech Republic-Iveta Cerna
Hungary-Maida Valko
Ukraine- Olena Karpenko
Poland- Albinka Debski
Markers and Pens
-Sailor Shikiori Dual Tip Brush Pens
-Micron Pens
-Copic Markers
-Posca Markers
-Staedtler Double Ended Permanent Pens
-Faber Castell Pitt Artist Pens
-Gelly Roll Pens
-Uni Ball Signo Pens
-Marvy Artist Double Sided Permanent Pens
-Mark’s Tous Le Jours Ballpoint Pen
etc…
Colored Pencils
-Caran d’ache luminance
-Holbein Artist colored pencils
-Tombow Irojiten
-Derwent Lightfast
-Faber Castell Polychromos
-Caran d’ache Pablo
Etc…
Additionally I used Supracolor watercolor pencils, Staedtler Mars Lumograph EE Pencil, and various types of Zebra Pens.
The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is the smallest and least common of the UK's three species of woodpecker. It is most often found in the tops of trees where it creeps along branches in search of insects. Found in England, but rare in the north. Absent from Scotland and Ireland. Its 'drumming' is much quieter and less vigorous than that of the Great Spotted Woodpecker; its presence is often only given away by this or their call.
The lesser spotted woodpecker is small in size, being not much bigger than a house sparrow. Males are black and white, with a red crown cap, and females are plain black and white. They both have a distinctive white ladder marking down their black back.
**Did you know?**
There are now believed to be less than 3,000 pairs breeding annually in the UK compared to nearly 45,000 greater spotted woodpeckers.
