May's Riso Print, Bug Fairy, Shipping today! + Cat Cafe in Brooklyn, Pop Up in LA! (Patreon)

Hello wonderful patrons!

Bug Fairy, part of a new little series of seasonal fairy prints, is now headed out to Patrons who paid on May 1st! Packages are ready to go in the mail so you should be finally receiving May's prints next week for Domestic tiers and very soon for International tiers!

This print was so fun to draw but also pretty tricky to figure out! The values were really giving me a pretty tough time, but after four tries I finally figured it out! Before I jump into the Riso breakdown, here are some nice close ups of this sweet little buggy fairy~~

Concept Sketches

I first drew this fairy as a bunch of quick crazy squiggles, trying to find a general pose and shape for this fairy. I knew I wanted her pose to embody the feeling of Springtime but didn't want to copy the yawning pose like I'd made in my Spring Dragon piece. I settled on a kind of interactive but passive pose where she might be having a little conversation with a bug on the flower, or just looking hopefully up into another fried egg flower. 

Rough Sketch

Then I narrowed it down to the one below!

I wasn't sure I wanted this piece to be entirely about bugs but I knew I definitely wanted to include them in such a flower heavy image. The winter version name, Chestnut Fairy, came from adding little chestnut shapes around the foliage so I wasn't sure the title should come from the bugs, but rather from the fried egg Matilija poppy. I wasn't convinced the poppies felt 'spring' enough, especially because these flowers are native to basically only Southern California and Mexico and are very specific to my experience of Spring here. I knew I wanted it to be more universal! 

When I added the more active arms I knew I wanted the fairy to be interacting with the bugs, and then I felt like I had more solid footing to head into the final sketch with 'Bug Fairy' in mind! My process usually involves a lot of sketching to actually find the subject matter, rather than dreaming up the piece in it's entirety beforehand. Sometimes it takes me a little longer to find my way to the final, it's a little meandering, but I'm generally much happier with my piece in the long run when I make work this way. 

Final Sketch

I like to work on a grey canvas these days because it helps my eyes when I'm working for long periods (blue light glasses also help)! When I'm done with the sketch (in procreate this time) I'll change the background to white so I can send it to photoshop and work on top of it in blue line art if I need! Here's what the final sketch ended up looking like. I always mourn not being able to have this kind of sketchy energy in my final piece so I'm always looking for ways to keep that fun movement and looseness with my mark making and line art. Sometimes that's also adding those little 'pollen' pieces and tiny stars to help keep the energy flowing around the composition. 

And below is the final close up of the Bug Fairy singing or telling their little story to a bug, who is most definitely listening intently to them! Full breakdown of the digital coloring steps are at the bottom and attached to this post.

And final line! The borders ended up being a combination of pink and yellow, not only to match the Chestnut Fairy but also because the blue just felt a little too heavy next to such dark line art in the vines with bug borders. 

Struggles with Value for Riso:

When I first printed the image I immediately realized I hadn't given the Matilija Poppies anything to make their bright eggy white values pop. It made for a very washed out print and I was like huh...why is this so boring?? I really hated it! then realized the reason why I love these flowers is because they stand out so well in front of their giant stalks of green stems and leaves! So I immediately went back to the drawing board and added in some giant leaves behind the poppies to make them stand out. It took me a few tries to get the values in the leaves right though since I was working backwards in black and white, rather than from my color rough. 

I also could not figure out what soft greens I wanted for the border so that went through a few iterations too. These steps are made by burning a master on the yellow, printing a few yellows, then switching to pink and burning the pink master, and then printing the pink on top of the yellows that are already made and then doing this whole process for the blue as well. Basically, it can be time consuming, but I think it's worth it to get a piece I'm satisfied with. 

I also started with a more textured/detailed yolk centers but then changed them on the last iteration because I realized the poppies weren't standing out like I'd hoped and the textured center was a little too complicated. I looked at the top most poppy and realized they should all be that simplified/stylized center so I changed them all, which took a while since I had to go through every value layer to find the pieces I needed to erase to make the centers simpler.

Here are the Riso steps I made all together, this is also attached below!:

I always make myself little notes after I print each piece, you can read them in the upper left-hand corners!

Here's the breakdown (attached too!) and more close ups!

Each print will be arriving with the monthly Patreon card, below!

This month's $35 tiers get everything I made in May! So that's an 'I love Riso' sticker I'm just going to have at conventions/pop ups IRL because...idk I don't want Riso to flag my shop haha. They'll also be getting 

Next month's $35 tiers so far are getting the eggy demon print and the jet set radio print- and we'll see what else I can whip out this month! If you'd be interested in jumping on the $35 tier you can switch now and you'll be charged on July 1st and receive July's prints (which so far I'm trying to make a ton for Anime Expo and SDCC)!

Cat Cafe & Pop Up People Events

This saturday (tomorrow!) I'll be at Kombu in Silverlake for a pop up! It's called Makers Market at Sunset Junction and I'll be there selling prints and accepting local pick up orders from 11-4pm. It's free to attend, open air, family & pet friendly and all are welcome!

And next saturday, June 24th, I'll be in New York for Cat Cafe! This is a show I've curated with Diana from the shop and gallery From Here to Sunday with several friends and we're all making cat pieces for it!! Just like my Bug Cafe show last year but this time with tons of buds ^_^ More details here! 

I'll also be accepting local pick up for Brooklyn this time! Come to the show and I'll give you your print package and reimburse you for shipping! Order before Monday at 4pm PST and I'll be able to pack your packages in my checked bag. 

WOW that was a lot, thanks for reading!! <3 -nat