Nicole Cadet Fantasy Art

nixjim13 @ 2008-07-21T16:36:00

2008-07-21T06:37:23Z

I love this... all images of women from paintings from the past millenium that morph from one to the next.

Inspiration...

2008-07-12T04:26:38Z

Some inspiration...

http://www.enchanteddoll.com/
I don't like ball jointed dolls particularly. I have nothing against them, I can appreciate the work that goes into them, I just find them a little creepy. That aside, even if you don't like dolls, I stumbled across this website of hand created dolls that are just amazing. They are hand modelled/ fired/ painted/ costumed - go to http://www.enchanteddoll.com/dollinfo/process/process.html to see her process. A lot of the costumes are Russian or oriental inspired, and there is just something very interesting about them. Her snow white piece is rather disturbing, but the thought that the prince effectively goes up to a dead girl and kisses her is rather creepy when you think about it.

http://www.enchanteddoll.com/galleries/concubine/concubine.html is another example of a beautiful doll

http://www.brainsfairies.co.uk
This one is a sculptural site with the most interesting little characters.

Interesting digital art walkthrough
http://www.danphyillaier.com/Process/MeetingProcess/MeetingProcess.html

http://www.meomi.com/

You have to visit, just to see all the characters animate, play music and say stuff!

http://www.carrienewcomer.com
Musician's site - rather an interesting sound. Very acoustic, and kind of hard to categorise. Reminds me a little of Vienna Teng...

http://www.vladimirkush.com
Those pictures where the sailing ship becomes the clouds on the horizon, the apple which cut in half becomes a butterfly... those paintings were done by this guy! Most of the interesting paintings are under 'editions'

http://www.amysol.com/blog/
Beautiful monocratic girls with a hint of asian influence. Subtle, simple, but lovely paintings.

I'm still alive

2008-06-21T03:45:38Z

I'm still alive, I just haven't been online much. Actually I haven't been home much!

Great Northern War (medieval event) was awesome! Apart from having been sick up until Friday that week and missing the fight by torch light :(, I managed to drag myself to Samford and swan around in my medieval clothes for several days. There was jousting, sword fighting, flaming trebuchets, wars, archery, crossdressing knights, a fighters auction, a chess tournament (using live fighters), arts and sciences, and a whole host of other things. I also got bogged when my Tom Tom took me to the wrong place, got rained on several times, lost and then found my kirtle belt (thanks Lillith!) and generally had a great time. I am almost finished updating the design for the River Haven website (not going to be brilliant, but it shall be a bit tidier and easier to manage), and now have the horrible job of trying to get everything updated.

Here's some photos (and the Nicole of River Haven is not me - I'm not in any of the photos) I'll look at putting up some of my own in a while.
http://www.sca.org.au/st_florians/gallery.php?&event=Great+Northern+War&year=2008

The following weekend I went down the coast to see the final performance of Zingara at Jupiters Casino. It was a stage show with dance, music, illusions and stunts - was pretty cool (was my birthday present). Also went shopping and had lunch at the beach.

Oh, and add to all the stuff I'm doing at the SCA .... I've started belly dancing.

I have emails from several weeks ago that I need to answer, my house needs cleaning, I have cooked one proper meal in about the last three weeks (thank goodness for tinned soup, and Frozen dinners!), and despite taking several days off at work to get rid of flex hours (most of which I was sick or sleeping), I'm back up around two days being owed (which is better than being in flex debt). This weekend is the first weekend home not doing anything in about 6 weeks it seems. I'm all for having a life, but I'm looking forward to some quiet time :)

wildlife - I've got them!

2008-06-01T02:01:07Z

I have a gecko on my desk. Not a statue, not a picture, a real gecko, and it's alive ... was wondering for a moment as he hadn't moved for about 10 minutes o_O He's sitting next to my wacom and is about one inch long. I shall name him Fred :) He motors around my house quite happily at the moment and eats a lot of the bugs so I'm quite happy to co-habit.

Oh, and we have snakes in the letterboxes at the moment. Scared the crap out of the neighbour when he went to get out his mail. I haven't seen one in a few years (not since my poor departed puss cat brought me one wrapped around her head!), but then again I have ants and geckos. Getting mail is kind of like the Crocodile Hunter experience... you gingerly open the mailbox and wait for the swarm to attack, or the kamikaze geckos to fall from the mail. It can be quite an experience, especially when you get bitten half a dozen time by the bloody little black ants that cause your hand to throb for about an hour. I sprayed the bastards a while ago... I hope the geckos weren't around, but I can live with collateraldamage if it saves me from being bitten again.

The Bush-stone Curlew (Screaming Woman bird - yes, they sound like someone being murdered) are still around, though quieter than normal. They were 'singing' a few nights ago, but there's something comforting in knowing they are still around. I almost ran over one a month or two ago ... it was cheerfully running down the middle of the road around midnight - they're night predators only coming out after dark. They kind of look rather gawky ... all knobbly knees and big yellow eyes. http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/surveys/BushStone-curlewCommunitySurvey.htm has a sound clip which is a bit higher pitched than my local friends.

Creative diversity

2008-05-18T01:13:51Z

From Part Time Painter

On being creatively diverse...

The last few months have been fairly quiet on the art front. I haven't disappeared completely, but the painting has definitely been on the back burner as I work 9-15hour days in the day job. But despite of a lack of interest in painting (i.e. I'm not painting every spare minute), I've discovered some new creative outlets that are helping to re-invigorate my love of art.

Each week I trundle off to my SCA - Society for Creative Anachronism meetings (a medieval recreation group) , where we learn about life in the past. We explore how people lived during the medieval to 1600 AD time period, learning about weaponry and fighting, clothing, arts, sciences, history and a host of related skills. One of the skills I have been learning is clothes making (we don't do costuming - we make clothes). Now I am a little domestically challenged - probably more from laziness than any real lack of co-ordination, but medieval tailoring can be as simple or as complex as you make it.

So what can you learn from costume/ garb/ clothes making and how does this help the art?

You have a greater understanding of costumes so when you go to paint or sketch a costume, because you know how it is constructed, you can work out how it's going to sit, look and feel. It also makes you obsess over historical paintings, looking at seams, linings and blackwork!
You increase your dexterity. Hand-sewing and embroidery require precision, repetition and patience.
You learn about patterns and motifs - not just costume patterns, but embroidery patterns, fabric patterns, printing blocks, culture and time period specific motifs, colour symbology and a great range of visual references that you can incorporate into your art
Costumes can be used for reference shoots (maybe you can claim them as business expenses)
Hand sewing/ embroidery/ knitting can be very soothing tasks (when you're not having to unpick!) So you have an added bonus of relaxation
Sewing groups can give you social opportunities. It's fun to sit with a group of ladies (and men on occasion) and chat about anything and everything while being creative
You get exposed to some magnificent artwork as you go trawling through reference sites on particular time periods and clothing pieces
You learn about natural dyes and pigments that can also be used for painting
it's still using your creative muscles
it gives you a sense of accomplishment wearing something you've created

Essentially what I am trying to say is when your time is scarce and you just don't feel like picking up a paintbrush, there are many other creative outlets that you can explore. There's no need to feel guilty because you aren't painting, rather you should be exploring as many different creative outlets as you can. Not only can it give your creativity a boost, it can also be a chance to make new friends, relax and recharge the batteries.

speedpaint - Industrial

2008-05-04T10:48:59Z

Photoshop, half an hour... looks much better at the smaller size :P Playing around with textured brushes

Digging the sci-fi vibe... need to paint more sci fi!

House for the homeless campaign

2008-05-01T10:11:11Z

Copy and paste from someone on the Brisneyland LJ group :)

Today 1st May 2008, Realestate.com.au and Mission Australia launched
their House for the Homeless campaign.

Realestate.com.au will donate $1 for every person who visits
www.housesforthehomeless.com.au up to a total of $100,000.

Contributions will go towards a number of Mission Australia's services,
within Australia which provide 24-hour, support base for the cities
homeless population.

Just log on to www.housesforthehomeless.com.au enter the number you see in the box and press the ‘click now’ button. Easy.

Air ACEO

2008-04-29T07:13:20Z

Not ignoring people, just having majorly busy life at the moment! Work again tonight, probably only until midnight (as opposed to 3AM)... At home having dinner and a shower at the moment. Sneaky peaky at what I've been working on... ACEO card to be put up for sale on ETSY at some stage

tired... so very tired

2008-04-22T06:36:57Z

I'm so tired... worked from 7:30am til 4pm (been trying to get away since 3:30) I'm going back into work at 6:30pm to supervise a code release. I'm hoping for a really smooth release with no dramas and a rather anticlimactic result. Shall be there probably til about 11pm. I decided to come home for a few hours so I could shower, eat a decent meal, and get away from the phones and emails! OMG, I need the silence :P

The 'Wheel of Doom' and other fun things

2008-04-20T08:20:40Z

I think I want more four day weeks :P I had Friday off because I had some flex hours I needed to use. I did absolutely nothing that I had planned, instead, I slept in, answered some emails (damn, just remembered one I needed to do!), then bummed around until the guy mum had organised to put in an automatic garage door came. I loves it :) No more getting out in the rain! Yay!

Anyways, so Friday was a complete write off. Saturday was a long day. I had a medieval event which involved eating great food (we had a medieval picnic - everyone had parcels of food - pies, pieces of fruit, cheese, fresh bikkies), watching my friends fight in the rapier tourney, watching the 'wheel of doom' tourney (heavy fighters randomly had weapons chosen by spinning a wheel ... lots of fun with spear and two handed axe vs Great shield and really small short swords). I got sun burnt though... we got rained on in the morning, I froze half the day, and blinded by the sunshine in the arvo - need to make a hood or something decent for my head that will actually stay on without giving me a headache!

Sunday we had a working bee... much rooting around in boxes and cupboards (earning us official 'bitching rights' - because we've dug through the SCA hall's crap, we can now complain when people put things away incorrectly or things are broken and manky. I think some stuff had been there since the hall's creation, even got to through away bottle of stuff with a used by date of 1999... seriously icky! But I managed to get some help with the newcomers event that I'm running in July. So there will be a heavies tournament, a rapier tournament, archery games (including like a popup shooting hall), and what ever other crazy things I can think of! Someone suggested bobbing for apples, but that would be too cold in the middle of winter. I'm also taking over the Webminster duties so that I can tidy up the barony's website :) Should be fun!

But I have been working on some medieval 'stuff'... my blackworking for the collars/ sleeves of my 16th century chemise :)

nixjim13 @ 2008-04-15T17:29:00

2008-04-15T07:24:50Z

Today is not a day for typing out important stuff :(

weclome = welcome
forgotted = forgotten
imformation = information

*sigh* thank goodness for spell check!

And this is cute :P
Safe bedside table - for great peace of mind and occasional overnight beatings :)
http://www.ohgizmo.com/2007/08/23/safe-bedside-table-great-for-peace-of-mind-and-occasional-overnight-beatings/

Part time painter - Recycling in the art studio

2008-04-12T01:29:26Z

Copied from my Part Time Painter blog...

Recycling in the art studio - mistakes in watercolours

You've sketched out a watercolour painting, you've slaved over it for a while, and then your cat/ child/ dog/ {insert unpredictable being} had brushed by and made a mess all over it. What to do? What to do? (Well what to do that doesn't involve strangling said being!)... here's some ideas so that you don't just throw away that painting.

1. Lift the colour
Using a damp tissues, cotton bud, or water loaded paint brush, gently apply clean water to the paint to be removed and blot off with a clean tissue or cloth. Some colours like Veridian green or Pthalo blue have high staining ratings and will never come clean.

Look up the watercolour's maker site for details about light fast and staining qualities.

2. Incorporate the mistake into the painting.
Some mistakes can't really be masked, like a fluorescent pink mark across a regency lady's white chemise. But many times you'll find that with some creative thinking, that black streak in the sky could be a bird, or that red spot in the grass becomes a ladybug. Put the painting aside if you can't think of anything at the time, you may be surprised that the 'mistake' isn't as big as you think it is when you come back.

3. Fix the problem with another art medium
Change media and turn it into an acrylic painting. Try ink, charcoals, coloured pencils
Kinuko Craft is an amazing artist who paints oils over watercolours - see here techniques here The Art of Kinuko Y. Craft

4. Prime over the top of the piece of paper and use as a ground for another painting/ drawing
No reason to throw away good paper! Use if for experimentation! The Sentinel is acrylics on watercolour paper.

5. Cut it up and use it for a collage or assemblage piece.

6. Flip the paper over and paint on the back (this will depend on how buckled the paper is and how heavy you are with the washes.)

7. Scan the painting and fix it digitally.
Ok you're not going to have the original, but it may be the beginning of a beautiful new painting. My piece Contemplation was rescued after I made a number of errors in the watercolours. I've now started working digitally in a way that allows me to use scraps of sketches as the basis for paintings like Teal

8. Cut out unpainted sections and use them for small artworks such as ACEO cards or OSWA paintings. ACEO's are 2.5" x 3.5", while OSWA normally are around 4 x 6".

nixjim13 @ 2008-04-12T10:39:00

2008-04-12T00:40:44Z

What a dunce. Now I remember what I was supposed to do last night. I was supposed to go to my medieval dance class... how did I forget that?

nixjim13 @ 2008-03-29T11:08:00

2008-03-29T01:10:18Z

How to avoid bringing more work home! Separating the day job from your work at home.
http://parttimepainter.blogspot.com/2008/03/separating-day-job-from-art-job.html

lunchtime meetings suck

2008-03-26T07:43:07Z

Fracking work people! What's the deal with making meetings start at 1pm? Hello? Lunchtime? I will be sooo glad when we go back to non daylight saving time (then we only have to worry about Perth being 2 ours behind us)

So much for my holiday over Easter. I got back to work today and it feels like I never left *sigh* Answer emails for an hour, then training for 4 hours, eat lunch while organising more meetings and trying to hunt people down, two more meetings, a dozen more phone calls, and finally a chance to speak to my staff that I haven't seen since last Wednesday.

Life is never dull!

Easter

2008-03-23T02:05:06Z

Just a quick note to let people know I'm still alive... I'm just on holidays with my family over Easter so I shall be answering things when I get back to proper internet access (and not gadding off aournd the country side :P )

Hope the Easter bunny has been benevolent in your households!

Blue Dragon Sidhe

2008-03-09T11:21:22Z

Another elf boy. The dragon around his arm is from Greek myth (I think this is the one from Jason & The Argonauts - dragons don't always have wings).

Painter & Photoshop

nixjim13 @ 2008-03-09T10:03:00

2008-03-09T00:06:22Z

Part time painter - Organisation tips - todo lists

2008-03-02T03:12:56Z

I forgot.... new post about organisation tricks - the to-do lists this week - what are the benefits of a to-do list, how do you implement them, do they work, and are there any secrets to using them effectively. A really long post since I've been practising a range of strategies the last few weeks.

http://parttimepainter.blogspot.com/2008/03/organisation-1-todo-lists-and-part-time.html

Update at NicoleCadet.com - Copied from my newsletter

2008-03-01T00:16:04Z

Hi all!

Well it's been some time since I've updated my site, but I have still been painting. I'm trialing a new HTML newsletter format so please let me know if things have gone awry!

New Art

http://nicolecadet.com/DarkBrand.php

Dark Brand: A cover commission for Robert C Fountain's Dark Brand: Book 1 of the Forge of Atuma. The book is available from http://www.lulu.com/content/941988 and is a fantasy novel set in a dark, Industrial Revolution world where beasts, sorcerers, shamans, warriors and rogues all walk side by side. I will hopefully be releasing prints of the cover.

http://nicolecadet.com/Eir.php

Eir was a Norse goddess of healing (Viking). She's sometimes attributed to the Valkyries, as well as being a hand maiden of Freya. A common herb used for healing by the Vikings was Angelica. Reference used - the lovely Ida Mary Walker

http://nicolecadet.com/Eriu.php

Ériu is the namesake of Ireland, one of the Tuatha Dé Danann (Irish gods). Currently standard prints have been released, however I will be releasing Large prints soon.

http://nicolecadet.com/Chaenee.php

Chae'nee is another character in Gary Allen's series. She is an assassin who has been possessed by demonic forces. Prints available on request.

http://nicolecadet.com/GypsyLightsSketch.php

A sketch for a painting featuring a gypsy seated in the forest. Prints available on request.

If you want a print and that hasn't been released, just reply to this newsletter.

Deviant art painting - prints available from http://nixjim13.deviantart.com/art/Dragon-Sidhe-73913100

Also check out my Deviant art account as there are a few unreleased paintings in there: http://nixjim13.deviantart.com/

Zazzle Store

I've opened a store at http://www.zazzle.com/nicolecadet - at the moment there's only a few designs, but I'm hoping to add more in the future. Currently there are t-shirts, cards, magnets and stickers with designs from the 'Cats knows best' series and some fairy paintings.

Etsy Store

I'm in the process of working up some smaller format pieces to release through Etsy (such as ACEO cards and OSWA paintings). I'm also looking at some limited edition prints of a few of my ACEO cards that have been sold in the past. Due to changes in Ebay policies I probably won't be selling through EBay for a while. Etsy is different to Ebay in that it doesn't have an Auction function, but it has all the other features of feedback ratings.

Portrait Adoption

I'm finally a member! If you're on the lookout for a character commission, but don't want to go through the commission process, you may be able to pick up a suitable character portrait here. The pricing may be cheaper in some instances, but that's because I'll be painting characters I want to paint (without any structure/ restriction/ direction). There may be some aspects that can be customised, however they will be fairly minimal. You can also submit descriptions that a number of artists may choose to work on (no guarantee that I'll be one of the artists doing the work). Then you can choose from the selection.

Go to Portrait Adoptions for more information [Please note I haven't got anything available there yet! I'm working on it!]

Commission Status

Closed until mid March 2008.

Part Time Painter Blogs

How do I start the new year? By starting a new blog of course! What do I hope to achieve with this blog? Inspiration, creativity, diversity, world peace... um, yeah. The truth? I want to be a testimonial (maybe more a mark on the page) that you can work full time, and still carry on artistic endeavours professionally, and with some modicum of success.

You see, I'm an artist. A part time artist. Some weeks a very, very part time painter. I'm also a software developer, working full time for a government agency (.NET for all you geeks out there). I've been straddling the two careers for several years now, sometimes successfully, other times not.

So with this in mind, I intend on focusing on

* productivity - balancing time, life and art
* creativity - how you keep your 'muse' in check
* being a microbusiness - will I have a life and keep my sanity?
* being an online artist - galleries, products, marketing oh my!
* reducing stress - yes, having multiple hats can be stressful!
* reviews of books, products, websites, tips & tricks related to art and creativity
* any other related tid bits

Part Time Painter RSS Feed

Until the next update

Keep smiling :)

Nicole

http://www.nicolecadet.com

Friends list cleanup

2008-02-20T00:50:03Z

I did a friends clean up the other day - basically removing people that could see my friends posts but I couldn't see theirs. No offence, but I feel a little uncomfortable with people being able to access my friends only posts (which are quite often general rambles or are not meant for the public in general) when I can't see theirs. I have no problem with people reading public posts - that's why they are public! And I intend on making the majority of my posts public anyway (including some of the WIP posts).

I'm probably going to be cleaning up my f-lists further to make it more artist only as friends with everyone else being able to see my public posts (except for the few people who are friends/ or I read their journals). I simply don't have time to read, let alone comment on friends posts and I feel uncomfortable having to moderate some of my thoughts. I thought I'd just give people the heads up if you suddenly find yourself off my 'friends' list. It's not meant to be personal, it's just the list has grown beyond what I can handle.

In all honesty it will only probably be maybe a dozen names... but I thought this was the polite way to do things!

part time painter - online criticism - snarks, trolls, fauns, and critics

2008-02-18T07:07:22Z

Image from Penny Arcade t-shirt ... sums up my thoughts on how some people treat the internet :)

New blog on how to recognise the different types of critique - snarks, trolls, fauns, and critics. (Everything is personal opinion so take with a grain of salt).

http://parttimepainter.blogspot.com/2008/02/online-critisism-trolls-fauns-snarks.html

part time painter - The style guide

2008-02-17T09:06:41Z

New post! This one's about Style!

http://parttimepainter.blogspot.com/2008/02/style-guide-how-do-i-get-one.html

part time painter - good/bad artists copy, great artists steal

2008-02-12T07:18:11Z

The first in a series of posts on ‘shortcuts’ - This one is about ‘taking inspiration from other artists’.
P.S. This isn't about ripping off other artists either - that's what bad artists do! It's about learning tips and techniques from other artists and growing as an artist through copying, analysing and acknowledging resources...

Read more here:
http://parttimepainter.blogspot.com/2008/02/artist-shortcut-1-copying-great-artists.html

Am still yet to do my monthly website update... but I've officially been given my promotion on work... starts in a month's time (8 months and 4 days after I applied for the job :D )

Be on the lookout for some ideas on art journals, relaxation techniques for boosting creativity and general well being including meditation and acupuncture, and some more organisational tips :)

stolen quiz

2008-02-07T07:17:18Z

Um, yeah, evil much?

Which Battlestar Galactica Character Are You?

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