Customs

Here's a small collection of customer orders I've created this past year. I've made a TON of custom spell candles but I didn't photograph all of them. I love making special one of a kind items for people, I hope to do more this year!

Luck Magic
A page trade I did with Danni over at The Whimsical Cottage. These are the ones I sent her, Ganesha and Cernunnos.
A spirit necklace.
Leather Aegishjalmur.
Some custom candles.
An owl doll.
Luck Amulet and some Red Hot Luck Oil for a customer.
The Rabbit Moon Tarot Bag. Tawny colored rabbit fur, pale pink muslin hand dyed with hibiscus flowers, and lined in gray felt. Accent in brass, quartz crystal, and vintage shell and vintage brass stamped leaves, as well as an eye milagros. To keep my Art Nouveau Tarot Deck in.
Another custom Tarot Bag for a friend.
Some more beautiful candles and a custom Atropa Belladonna wooden needle case.

The Gods Speak

Mockingbird skull and limb bone, Squirrel Jaw and limb bones

How do your deities call to you? For me it's a gnawing I get on the fringes of my brain. A buzzing of my mind. A need to travel deep within nature. A sudden idea for a creation, I always will sketch the idea to return to it later. They come to me in dreams, subtly or strongly. I will be drawn to their aspects and satisfy them with an offering or a gift. It isn't always a deity that speaks. It can be local spirits of nature, the thunder, the rain. Sometimes I receive an influx of gifts, mostly in the form of animals that have passed on, sometimes in a local wild crafting find.

I live near the Rappahannock River in Virginia. I enjoy watching her ebbs and flows, droughts and floods, and every year she claims more lives. At least 5 people die every summer while swimming in her cool waters. As an animist I believe everything contains a soul; rivers, trees, mountains, even the tiniest of seeds and the strongest of storms. Why is my river angry? Or is she? I wish I knew.

This weekend I will be spending time in a cabin right on the Shenandoah River. Maybe I will paint, maybe I wont, I'll let the river dictate my activities. The relaxation will be welcome and I'll come back with stories and some wild harvested goodies.

Before I go, a couple of new specialty candles and prints arrived in the shop this week. I'd love to do another deity painting. Any suggestions?

Cernunnos Spell Candle

Graveyard Dirt Spell Candle

Rainbow Eye Print

Hecate Print

Hecate

Anyone remember the Hecate sketch I posted here? Well I felt her tugging at me to finish it so I've worked on it a little bit for the past few days and completed it. I'm such an advocate for watercolors, I love their flow and movement and translucency.

Hecate; Watercolor on cold press watercolor paper; 2010
My scanner isn't high enough quality to do this piece any justice, even my 12mpx camera doesn't quite get it, so I'll be taking it to get professionally scanned this week. Often personal pieces such as this turn into shop items so I will be offering prints so you can adorn your altar or home.

Step by step (or when I remembered to take pictures). You can see my process here but it's mostly wash after wash to tone up the colors and then detail work. I also struggled with wanting to ink an outline which is something I've drifted away from, finding more of a heartiness without it.

Hecate is my matron and the Goddess I communicate with most frequently. I try to do little things for her everyday even if I don't need her for a spell or ritual. I draw something related to her aspects, give her small gifts, or read a book about her or that has her as a heavy feature. We cannot ever expect spirits or deities to aid us outright without signs and offerings of our devotion. With the darkening of the Earth steadily and swiftly approaching the Fleeting One will feel most at home, and so will I.

I'd love to paint your favorite deity! I will take commissions of this size, 6"x12" (15.2x30.5cm) or smaller of your deity. Email me (anathemum(at)gmail(dot)com) if you are interested!

New Items at the Shop!

Summer Solstice Incense Blend

War Water to curse your enemies.

Sanctify Cleansing Kit for cleaning and purifying all your tools and your space.

Evil Eye Altar Box to protect your pretty items.

Ancestor Offering Box to hold gifts for your ancestral spirits.

Love and Sex Spell Kit to attract great love and even better romance.

So things on my home front have been a little wacky and as a result I've been working my "real people job" more than expected. This has given me less time to devote to the listing of items but I've got some time today to expel the backlog I've accrued. Don't forget I take custom requests!

Giveaway! And more Grimoire work

Hey Guys and Gals, I'm a sponsor for The Spooky Spring Easter Casket Giveaway over at Bloodbath's blog! You have the chance to win some Spirit Sustenance Incense and some Graveyard Dirt from my shop plus a ton of other cool prizes from some really great Etsy sellers, so hop on over!




I've been working on my Grimoire as often as I can and have done a few small watercolor pieces in it, mostly on pages devoted to deities and I have yet to really put color on anything else. I chose one of my favorite images for the inner front page, sketched it and then used a steel tipped pen and "Black Magic" Higgins ink. It was interesting how the slightly slick Moleskine sketchbook paper took to the watercolor, the color sitting and beading on the surface until it became absorbed by the paper. I have so many Evil Eye/Hamsa pieces of jewelry and trinkets, and with it being the symbol and logo for my shop I thought it was appropriate I emulate it here too. It's probably my favorite occult symbol and when I open a brick and mortar shop I'll be sure to include it there too.


I also sketched out this Hecate picture last night. It being a dark moon and a Wednesday, Hecate was calling. The sketch isn't finished but will be done in watercolor within the following days. I've been looking for a good image of Hecate for my altar and have found very few so I decided to just draw one myself that encompassed as much of her imagery as possible. I plan on adding some Yew branches and maybe her wheel as well. Most Pagans tend to neuter her power and water it down, making her just another crone or moon goddess or whatever. I embrace all aspects of her and wish that others would too, her vast knowledge, her ability to traverse the heavens, earth, and underworld, etc. I guess we all look at our deities differently.

For the shop the next items I plan on working on will be Spell Component Kits, but ones that cater to all levels of Witches. There will be no specific instructions, just themed items. For example: the Hexing kit will include a Bayou Black candle, War Water, Graveyard Dirt, Coffin Nails, and so on. As for myself I really enjoy crafting a spell of my own, not using one straight from a book. Yes, I use some ideas and reference from many books but part of any works of magic is your gut and knowing what works for you. Use it! Use the knowledge you've obtained through all your practices and mold it to your path. Use your deities, your spirits, not someone elses. That's the great thing about being a Witch.

What's your favorite occult symbol?

Another watercolor

Goddess of the Dark Blue Watercolor on Paper. 2009

These are really relaxing. The process is incredibly organic and even though more planning went into this one I didn't feel constricted. Fun stuff.

I'd love to hear what you think about it.

Watercolors

On a whim I decided to break out the watercolors after using them for my Craftster card swap portion. I love the murky mixing of colors and the transparent layers. It's all very fun for me and watercolors are more forgiving than you'd think. It's sort of a self portrait since I was in a selfish and strange mood last night.



Consumption by the Blue Boy Watercolor and ink on paper, 2009

I know it looks just like slap dash color, but it means something. I'll leave that up to interpretation, though. I might work on some more watercolor stuff since it's so organic and enjoyable. I dislike any craft that is too much of a hassle because it gets in the way of my process, of the flow from my brain to my hand.

Apologies for the shoddy picture, but I don't have a very good camera. I use my phone :)

Last semesters work + mug reaction + commission

So my mug post at Craftster was pretty great, even got chosen as a Featured Project. This intrigues me greatly because of the wonderful response I got. If I make more, would people be interested in purchasing them? I'd probably have to get a paypal or etsy account first. Trouble is I don't have a bank account and I doubt people would be willing to send me a check/money order. I'd love to be proved wrong, though.

Basically within the next month or so I hope to start taking commissions and selling crafts/art online. I'll probably take commissions for 18x24 charcoal portraits/drawings in addition to the other crafts I do. I'd take commissions now if a check/money order is okay for payment. Contact me with interest.

Also, for those who haven't seen it, pop over to my Flickr photostream to see some of my work for drawing class. All done with traditional mediums. When I say portrait, I mean like the ones below.

Concept art, or what I do sometimes for money

So this is what I do to make money. At least right now. I thought I'd share one of the concept sketches I did for a project I was involved in. See? I also do normal art. I've done tattoo design, children's book illustrations, color work and line art. In my heart I suppose I'm an illustrator but really I just adore the creation of the character no matter the medium. I create characters constantly, make little costumes and stories, and think deeply how a character acts and behaves. Sometimes doing concept art for other people is a little daunting and difficult to chug through since there can be restrictions put on the product.



Don't really know why I felt like sharing, I just did. In a crummy mood but needed to do a post. Heh.

Apothecary Label

So I got my partner for the swap I'm involved in over at Craftster.org. Then I realized that when I need to send things in plastic bags, I wanted a label to go on top of them. Using some wonderful vintage graphics from The Graphics Fairy(check that website out!! I was drooling over all the images) and various fonts from Dafont I Photoshopped together a 3.5 inch wide label for small plastic bags.

I was definitely going for a vintage apothecary label sort of look. I plan on writing in the item on the line using my ink and quill pen so that way I can just print out a whole page of these blank labels to save paper. I suppose these would come in handy if I ever decide to open a shop... hah!

Other than that I've decided to start wearing skirts and dresses more often. Before I would wear a pair of torn up jeans and an old band t-shirt with a smart looking cardigan. I always buy clothing at the thrift store and make something frilly and girly and never end up wearing it. I've decided to start, it's a waste otherwise. For the past 3 days I've worn 2 dresses and a skirt and I don't plan on stopping. I even picked up a vintage sleeveless plaid dress at the thrift store today. It needs to be taken in, but I'm excited about it.

You are The Magician

Skill, wisdom, adaptation. Craft, cunning, depending on dignity.

Eleoquent and charismatic both verbally and in writing,
you are clever, witty, inventive and persuasive.

The Magician is the male power of creation, creation by willpower and desire. In that ancient sense, it is the ability to make things so just by speaking them aloud. Reflecting this is the fact that the Magician is represented by Mercury. He represents the gift of tongues, a smooth talker, a salesman. Also clever with the slight of hand and a medicine man - either a real doctor or someone trying to sell you snake oil.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Also, don't steal the label. Or I'll hex you!! :)

New Layout

I'm sick again and I felt restless today so I did a new banner and background for the the blog. Wanted to do a colder sort of layout for the approaching dark months. Also I organized the cabinet under my bathroom sink, shuffled some things around on my work desk to give me more space to craft, and organized some of the fabric and ribbon scraps I had lying around from my Halloween costume. Seeing all the white and antique-y lace lying around inspired me to craft another little fairy doll. All I have to do is put wings on her but this WIP picture shows her naked and headless. Slightly horrifying, eh?

I should finish her and post pictures tomorrow while it's still light outside. I never end up getting out there while the sun is still out and it's changing my mood. Plus I keep getting sick which always destroys the energy I have to do anything. Oh well. Tomorrow, then.

Under the weather.

So I've been feeling slightly under the weather today. By slightly I mean a perpetually runny face accompanied by sneezing in succession for minutes at a time. There's also the yummy cough. All of this could be attributed to the changing weather or being around sick friends. So today my creativity has been confined to mostly computer work.

Did some collage/scrapbook things. Used a few of my own images and other various free stock images. I needed some new wall art anyway that was seasonal.


Also continued work on a bird house. It's still a work in progress though. Used one of these clever bird house fronts that attaches itself to the open end of a coffee can via a cut channel on the back of the wooden birdhouse front.


Spooky, no? Can't wait to throw some paint on it.


I'll leave you with a picture of the grass.