The Year of the Tiger!

Happy Lunar New Year! The New Year in the lunar calendar started on February 14th, and this year is the Year of the Tiger! To commemorate, I drew this tiger in black and red-orange ink yesterday! I had some fun with the contour-y, swirly, maybe a little mokume gane looking orange ink pattern. The black ink is waterproof Black Magic that was applied with a brush, and the orange ink was drawn on using my 0.50 Rapidograph drafting pen.

The lunar new year is celebrated in many Asian countries, and there are many shared traditions as well as ones unique to each country. The calendar is based on the Lunar (or Chinese) Zodiac. Similar to the Western zodiac, the Chinese zodiac has 12 different attributes, but each sign is given to a year, a month and an hour of the day, thereby creating the possibility of three different signs that lend attributes to a person's persona, based on when they were born. For instance, if you were born yesterday, February 15th, 2010, at 5 in the morning, you were born in the year of the Tiger, the month of the Tiger (your inner animal), and the hour of the Tiger (your secret animal). However, if you were born on, say, July 11, 1967, at 5:53 pm EDT (to use a completely arbitrary example, having nothing whatever to do with the day I was born...) you were born in the year of the Goat, in the month of the Goat (inner animal) and the hour of the Monkey (secret animal). The animal representing the year of your birth is the persona you portray to others, your external appearance. I'm not sure if I understand the meanings of the inner vs. the secret animal, except that the secret animal is the most personal, since it represents the relationship of the sun to you at the hour of your birth. Each of the animals also has an attribute of one of the five elements: Wood, Earth, Water, Metal, and Fire. These elements each contribute to the personality of the animal in some way.

The Year of the Tiger drawing measures about 8" square, and is available for sale in my Etsy Shop for a rather economical price.

Happy New Year all! Welcome to the Year of the Tiger!

5:52 Salacia

5:52 Salacia
Originally uploaded by jvdarcy

Salacia was the bride of Neptune, the Roman God of the Sea. The story goes that when Neptune was pursuing her, she was so intimidated by his greatness that she fled and hid in the Atlantic. Neptune sent a dolphin out to bring her back, and because the dolphin was able to charm her into marrying the God, Neptune gave the dolphin a place of honor amongst the stars, the constellation Delphinus.

This is my piece for Week 5 of 52 Weeks of Creations! I was a week behind, so I just decided to call this one my contribution for this week instead of last week. She started out as simply a study in ink textures and was really fun to create! The only un-fun thing was changing the ink in the pen (my 00 Rapidograph, see rant below) from blue to green, then remembering to wash it all out when I was finished so the ink wouldn't dry that way. I have some really interesting photos of what happens when you let the ink dry in the mixing cup...

Salacia measures 6" x 8" and was rendered in pen and ink and brushed liquid ink.