Hobbit Day

HAPPY HOBBIT DAY EVERYONE!!! :)

I'm watching The Hobbit tonight and I came out with this fun sketch.

I used bronze, gold, and silver sharpie with black pen, unfortunately the different colors don't come across in the picture. The font is in Bilbo's style of handwriting.

The sword represents the symbol in both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit that connects Bilbo and Frodo. The hobbit door is encircled with a gold ring. ;)

The illustrations reflect the beginning, climax, and end of both of their journeys (The Shire with Gandalf, Sauron/Smaug with a mountain of some kind, the Grey Havens).

It might not be legible in the picture, but I write "Home is behind... The world ahead."

And now a picture of Thorin. :) despite the fact it isn't his birthday, I have to say something about him. <3

Life Drenched Stars- a poem

Pondering Rain

Every Friday or Thursday, depending on my the happenings in my fascinating world, I will try to share a piece of my writing with an illustration. Anything from a poem, short short story, or just ramblings.
 

Life Drenched Stars 

Let us bide our time
in empty windows
in shafts of time 

Let us watch for love
in all its glory
before it fades away 

Let us gaze upon ice
and falling stars
In hollowly stained skies 

Let us dream of them
with moonlight in their skin
and Life drenched upon their faces

This was inspired by a talk with a friend and influenced a bit by The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. A beautiful book. The illustration was created from a drawing of mine from over a year ago.

Méav Ní MhaolchathaFormer singer from the Irish group Celtic Woman

Pixlr- Online Photo Editor

I've discovered a delightful photo editing program. For free, online. They offer apps for your phone also but I have yet to try those. If they're as fun as the online programs then I'd love to have them.

The photo editor, Pixlr, has 3 different editors: Advanced, Efficient, and Playful. I chose to go with Playful tonight.

Advanced offers you the chance to start from a blank canvas, choose your dimensions, etc. while Efficient has the option of creating a collage with the ability to change all of the sizes of the pictures to your exact specifications.

Playful allows you to add effects and borders from a vast variety of choices. Vintage, classic, city, snazzy, girly, faded, etc. You can spend hours just clicking through all of them and mixing styles because all of them look good. :)

Link- http://pixlr.com/

Two Steps From Hell was my inspirational music. Heavy and dramatic.

First Experiment- a drawing of mine. This is drawn from the cover of "The Children of Hurin" by JRR Tolkien, illustrated by Alan Lee. I do not own this character, or the illustration. I drew this for my pleasure and out of my admiration for all things Tolkien.

Before

                                         after1

after2

I love the mix of textures and color in "After1" though the spiderweb in the corner almost spoils the "cool/fantasy" effect.

In "After2" I get the feeling he's looking into a fire, or is about to enter something fierce and terrifying like a war. Considering this particular characters story, that might be the most accurate message.

Second Experiment- Next I took a piece from my photography stash, the flower was already blue and the background was solid black from previous edits. I decided to take it a step further. I really really like this one.

This was all for fun, because I love to mess around with creations even after I've scratched and shaded and erased them to almost perfection.

Wishing you all the best,

~Bright

"smoky blue"

9/11 Statistics



copic markers, gel pen

9/11 Statistics
The piece I bring today is in memory of 9/11.

It’s a compilation of a few of the vast statistics and a diagram of sorts for the 4 flights.

I put the information I used into a semblance of order below, these are very limited, but I hope they convey something of the tragedy of “the worst day.”

I connected each flight to its destination. The red words on the curving lines are words I saw repeatedly when I read a transcript from “Voices Inside the Tower.” I had the last letters falling off to allude to those who jumped.

All statistics are garnered from here (check it out for a far more wholesome list):
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/18/usa.terrorism

Facts:
Year the World Trade Center was built: 1970
Daily visitors on an average day before 9/11: 140,000
Number of companies housed: 430

Distance from which burning towers were visible: 20 miles

Flights:
American Airlines Flight 11: 92 dead (Crashed into the North Tower)
United Airlines Flight 175: 65 dead (Crashed into the South Tower)
American Airlines Flight 77: 64 dead (Crashed into the Pentagon)
United Airlines Flight 93: 45 dead (Crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania)

9/11:
Number killed in attack and aircraft that crashed into them: 2,823
Number killed in the Pentagon: 123

Aftershock:
Number of children left orphans after 9/11: 1,300
Number of bodies found intact: 291
Number of days workers searched for body parts: 230
Number of victims identified: 1,102
Number of people still classified as missing: 105

Underground fires that still burned after 9/11: 69

Survivors of Ground Zero: 0

Thinking

Today my mind is consumed with these things...

Believe me I'm just as curious as you.