I’ve finally completed the new gallery page. Not only will you find a much more comprehensive collection of images, but I also list next to each image what size prints (or other merchandise) that image is currently available as.

This move not only revealed to me that a lot of artworks were missing in various (or all) sizes, but that there are a lot of originals I need to get back up after taking them down for shows. It also forced me to make the prices more across the board uniform, as each was priced according to my (then) current prices for prints. They have all been updated to reflect what good price shopping has done me over the year, i.e. I’ve dropped a *lot* of them in pricing.

It also provides for me a checklist of what I need to add in the future. Watch this space for jigsaw puzzles, refrigerator magnets, and book marks to return, as well as new t-shirts designed (as I am able to afford pre-ordering them in bulk). I aim to introduce a new t-shirt design every 2 months.

Also, April means I will be adding links to SKINS for each image, as I have finally found a provider of the damned things worth working with.

Lastly, I have removed most additional packaging prices from most every print, save for a few of the bigger ones. Many of these prices were remnants of the days when I offered only un-stretched giclees; Now that I have switched to the greener, less expensive model of shipping them rolled (though the option for stretching and mounting remains) additional crating and packaging prices need no longer apply in most cases.

I have, for the most part, returned to the easy, no-nonsense flat rate shipping: $5 shipping for the USA, flat rate $14 for Canada, etc.

First Flight

An alternate version of the promotional piece done for Dexter Palmer’s brilliant and fantastic novel: “The Dream of Perpetual Motion”, published by Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press.

( http://us.macmillan.com/thedreamofperpetualmotion )

This is the scene as I first imagined it, not the actual piece for Macmillan’s site.

In the novel, the main character is rather un-phased by his flight; This one however is a more dramatic piece, and is as I would imagine the reactions of the *other* children. I also used the demon with the scarier first-draft visage I imagined (in the book, the mechanical demons aren’t meant to be all that frightening).

There are 25 limited edition giclees available, printed in high quality 200-year archival pigment inks upon fine high white-point fine art rag paper for the best and most vivid representation of this piece. The printed area is 11.75 x 11.75 inches, and the extended white border extends it to just over 13 x 13 inches.

They are, of course, signed, dated, and numbered in the margin in pencil by me.

They can be purchased here: In the Store

They are *also* available as are open edition prints, printed in high quality 200-year archival pigment inks upon fine heavyweight metallic professional paper for a beautiful and lustrous representation of this piece. The prints are also coated with a UV resistant, moisture resistant, scratch and fingerprint resistant protective luster coating.

The printed area of the metallics is 10.75 x 10.75 inches, and the extended white border extends it to just 12 x 12 inches. They can be purchased here: In the Store

Thumbs of the other three images from this series are below, which can be viewed on the book page for “The Dream of Perpetual Motion”. For the triptych, you’ll need to right click:view image (it is a bit scrunched on that page). I’ll add these others to the site gradually over the next month - I am refining each of them to be printed well at full-size - here or there as I have time.

There, you can also view the image of the above scene as it was intended to be, with Harold as the main focus, mildly amused and otherwise un-phased by his flight.

Mankind Has no Time Desktop 1280 x 960

This image was the cover for the upcoming September/October issue of Gatehouse Gazette, an excellent dieselpunk, pulp, horror, sci fi, steampunk mag if you aren’t already reading it. It was originally done for the magazine in pen and ink, as per their black and white specifications, but I decided to complete the piece with color after the publication date.

This is the finished result… very vintage pulp in its look and feel.

What I was going for was a very retro sort of Neon Genesis Evangelion sort of concept…of course what it translated to, especially with the 1940’s technology looks very “War of the Worlds”, both of which made it an enjoyable and fun piece to do.

Gatehouse Gazette 10 Cover Remixed

The drawing for the Gatehouse Gazette was ink on Bristol. I decided it needed some color, so I broke out the acrylics and got to work on it. This is the finished result… very vintage pulp in its look and feel.

What I was going for was a very retro sort of Neon Genesis Evangelion sort of concept…of course what it translated to was looking very “War of the Worlds”. I’m perfectly okay with that.

Also - I made the below engraving the other night. It is a throwback to my darker and more minimalist style.

A quaint moonlight ceremony on a cozy cobblestone path, surrounded by stone, lit by flickering torches which lend light the reverse side of the tree.

The Path

If you are interested in Prints of “The Path”, they are at ettadiem.etsy.com for now. If however you are interested in prints of The Gatehouse Gazzette piece, watch this space tomorrow (Thursday). I’d get them up tonight… erm.. this morning.. but I am beat.

Thank you for dropping in,

Myke Amend

SuperPunch has collected a fantastic collection of funny, shocking, or otherwise awesome valentines on his site, Superpunch.blogspot.com.

There are many steampunky/speculative fiction ones, several lovecraftian ones, ones involving dirigibles and zeppelins and things more related to this blog - The one below however insisted on being posted here (and I leave more for you to see over there).

Predator Valentine

A finely detailed pirate airship in a fog of wispy swirls and whorls passes by a ages-forgotten temple in the cliff-top mists.

The original is 12×9 inches, highly detailed, micro-fine line engraving; Though it translates well to screen resolution, looking at the prints or the original are an entirely new experience.

For the desktop, I have also greyed out the surroundings, otherwise desktop folders and icons would be lost in all the swirling detail.

Prints are available in my store, and in our Etsy store right now.

by Myke Amend

The Giclees are printed at roughly 12×9 inches in archival inks on fine art rag paper with a one-inch border all-around (making the print 14×11 inches); They are signed, numbered, and dated by the artist lightly within the margin. There is a limited run of only 25 giclees.

The Metallics are open edition. This is not a guarantee that I will carry them forever, or even for years - but simply stating that they are available, for as long as I choose to offer them. Though not limited and signed, they are beautiful prints - and like everything I sell, very high quality, and 80 to 200 years archival.

Cropped from the full-size piece to feature the airship only to make for a more up close, boldly detailed, and vivid view of the work (available as 18×12 metallic prints, and as 36×24 giclees on canvas in my store)

This desktop is 1800 x 1200, but can be resized or stretched to fit your needs.

Enjoy!

Desert Shadows Desktop Wallpaper 1800 x 1200

Just an update to say I am still working on the painting for Cherie Priest’s upcoming book “The Clementine”, but will be done shortly.

A tiny piece of the current painting for Cherie Priest

Currently I am running a sale on my airship pirate tees, as I do not need to do much custom packaging for those, which will help to keep my workshop going with a minimal time needed to spend on shipping. These $25 shirts, artfully screen-printed on brown heavyweight cotton tees for men, super-soft ring-spun baby dolls for women and reduced to $17.95 (just click “Clothing” in the store categories to the lower right of any page.

When I return, I’ll be posting images of the Gatehouse Gazette #10 cover all painted in, and *maybe* a full image of the illustration for the cover of “Clementine” (I am not going to post the full image until the publisher gives me the go-ahead as they may want to hold that for a special time).

Also, for those who were wondering - I am finally completely through the proofing process for “Desert Shadows”, meaning numbers 1 through 50 of those prints are now available. I am holding the APs, for art shows, except for the one spoken for - but if you are interested in having one - just go ahead and use my contact form to reach me.

I would say I am done with commissions for a bit, but Bethalynne and I am gearing up for two conventions, hopefully - we need to earn a little more money to secure our tables at a few of them, but have at least reserved hotel rooms. If you are looking to secure a commission, please keep in mind that I like to know at least 3 months before the piece is needed - and only serious bidders need apply.

A month back, I did a cover image for the Gatehouse Gazette, my second cover for them. The Gatehouse Gazette being a black and white publication, with a standard of using line-art for the covers, I decided to do the piece in pen and ink.

Though not exactly an expressive and creative masterpiece by any stretch, the piece made me happy looking at it, as it reminded me very much of the sorts of things I used to draw at my desk behind a makeshift wall crafted of several propped up books and a huge overfilled backpack. It also threw me back to the days of hoarding strange fiction pulp comic books, cyberpunk or dungeons and dragons manuals, and sci fi books - which I collected primarily for the artwork and imaginative worlds within.

I tend not to see works which simply look ‘neat’ or communicate a scene as art, more I see them as concept art or illustration, as such is typically the purpose of these works. No underlying meaning, no personal expression, no sociopolitical undercurrents or overtones, no mysteries contained within… just a scene from a story, a character or item from a book.

In this, as much as I looked at my line art piece, and desired to see it at its very-most complete, I thought it would be best to push on to other actual artworks - but this what rather hard to do, as the piece was continually, incessantly calling to me - so, in order to remove this distraction, I took to it with several tubes of acrylics and have been working at it a little each night.

I can’t say how oddly happy this makes me, as I work on it, and as I look at it at the end of the night - running my fingers over its surface as I know I shouldn’t - fascinated by the results because in all my time looking for that perfect surface for me - I never really gave bristol or illustration board a serious try, especially when it comes to paints. I like to at least have the illusion that my work will last forever and am forever trying to find more time tested and durable media to work on, to print on or to paint in. Though bristol has a high archival rating, I always think of all the things that could possibly happen to a piece over a few hundred years - and shudder to think of it.

The trade-off however - very nice. No tens of layers of gesso and sanding. No fighting/working with the grain of the wood or the texture of the canvas - a nice smooth surface which is easy to draw on before painting, and handles the paint rather nicely once a base coat has been applied.

It may not be an historic or ground-breaking work of art in the art world - it is however ground-breaking in mine. Not only have I found a new surface to love, but I have reminded myself once more that all art is self portraiture - as even though not intended, it unavoidably communicates the loves, interests, desires, fears, fancies, and soul of the maker… in this case maybe only my love for strange pulp fiction horror/sci fi, or perhaps a little more. I may never know, but I certainly won’t know until it is finished.

Well, enough of my musing… I now return you to your regular programming.

Oh… some progress piccies:

Gatehouse Gazette cover - pen and ink

Gatehouse Gazette cover - acrylic on Bristol W.I.P

Gatehouse Gazette cover - acrylic on Bristol W.I.P

Today, I sent off three giclees to Gallery Nucleus for the “Lift Off!” art show, adding subtle miniature new artworks within each piece including (but not limited to) added airships, additional polar bears, bottles of rum, additional cephalopods, brightened constellations and other details in order to make each giclee its own unique piece of art.

For these I not only hand-stretched and varnished each one, but I have-made the supporting wood frames with a lot of extra care. I took some photos as I went, though admittedly it is hard to take photos of oneself working without use of a tripod, timer, and a lot of shots. Anyway, I got enough good shots to put together the tutorial this site has been needing for stretching and mounting canvas prints (Shipping giclees unstretched is a greener, less expensive solution - and stretching is not all that hard or expensive to do).

Oh… the show details…

Take Flight!
January 9th (opening reception) thru January 30th

GALLERY NUCLEUS
210 EAST MAIN ST
ALHAMBRA,
CA 91801
http://www.gallerynucleus.com