Kir Talmage – Ellen Million Graphics Blog

Wrapping Up Sketch Fest #105

What a wonderful Sketch Fest we had last weekend! Twenty-one artists joined us and contributed 50 creations to the Sketch Fest gallery – we have thumbnails and watercolors and colored-pencil illustrations. We have a Christmas teddy bear, wonderland winter foxes, sweet Christmas mice, and polar bears, too – alongside Christmas tree cats and curious blops, folkloric illustrations and more.

And did we mention the art for sale? Snag originals and prints for all your friends this holiday season – just look for the red border in the gallery to discover what’s on offer.

Let’s have some final featured illustrations before we go.

The holiday spirit gets a little earthy in “Mistletoad” by Nathalie Reinholz – Nathalie was traveling this weekend but still managed to squeeze in this sketch!

“Kitten in Christmas Tree” by Tara N Colna

Tara N Colna uses photography with “Kitten in Christmas Tree” to demonstrate that the struggle is real when you have kittens and Christmas trees together: “Can’t keep the new kittens out of the tree. This is Oreo getting caught, her brother Beelzebub jumped out before I could get him.”

We love this super-quick sketch from Kir Talmage! “Next Step of the Plot” captures the raccoon’s hopeful deviousness as he dons a disguise to steal Santa’s sleigh… “The plans were ready. The diagrams were complete. All he needed now was his disguise.”

Sarah Alden created this beautiful “Christmas Mermaid” and she has a question for us all: Sarah will be coloring her soon and asks, “Do you think I should keep the shell crown or go with more of a holly wreath crown instead?”

Feel the warmth of joy in your heart with this “Silent Night” landscape featuring a family of rabbits in scarves around a cheerful campfire.

This charming Christmas tree from Charlie Galvin made us grin! Here’s what Charlie said about it: “It counts as steampunk because I put the tree on a gear, right? The tree is also decked out in Edison bulbs. 🐙” We think it counts, too!

We hope you enjoyed this, and we hope you’ll participate in our next Sketch Fest in February! Enjoy the holidays and follow us on Facebook for the latest #EMGSketchFest updates.

Sketch Fest Saturday, October Edition

We’re a bit over 24 hours into #EMGSketchFest 103, and our participants have not been idle! We have dozens of illustrations in our gallery, ranging from a bevy of witches to a cuddle of cats to angels and elves and demons, oh my.

There are also A TON of prompts – if you’d like to join in, we’ve got plenty to inspire you! Just register on the site (free!) and get started.

Time for a few illustrations to get you excited:

This adorable orange octopus is ready to celebrate Halloween! Prompted by Jill Britt, Paola Zunico drew this “Kawaii Octopus inspired in Halloween theme.” You can pick up the original 5.5″ x 8.5″ illustration on Canson paper for $45.

Can you feel the wind of this mischievous “Magic Cat” darting by you? Jill Britt was inspired by Rosie Wells to draw this feline in motion.

This “Pangolin Witch” by Kir Talmage is the envy of her neighborhood! As she sketched, Kir spent her time looking up references, and “watching part of a variation of The Little Prince. (The starred fox is marvelous!)”

Caitlin Woods’ “Harpy Witch” is coming for you!

Maria J. William, prompted by Jenny Heidewald’s love of chickens and her “The Witch of the Chickens” prompt, created this gorgeous portrait titled “The Simple Life.” You can snag the original 6″ x 8″ ink drawing on Strathmore paper for only $40 or purchase prints for $10.

That’s it for this afternoon’s featured illustrations! Hop on over to the full gallery now for even more, and don’t forget to use our official hashtag of #EMGSketchFest when sharing on social media.

Happy Sketch Fest Saturday!

Saturday may be wending to a close, but we’re still sketch festing the night away! It’s our 101st Sketch Fest, and you’ll find the gallery full of playful cats and fairies, and pieces inspired by unicorns, Game of Thrones, and the Victorian era.

Enjoy our featured illustrations, then take a dip into the gallery!

Becca “Boo” Moore’s prompt of “Rainbow Magic” inspired this rainbow-bedecked unicorn by Elisa Ferguson.

Becca broke out a brand new sketchbook for this “Toadstool Fairy,” and she commented: “Warming up with a steampunk fairy!” This toadstool-appreciating fairy is on 5.5″ x 8.5″ Canson Mixed Media paper. And you can snag the original for only $20!

“From the Depth of the Ocean” by Mayumi Ogihara

Inspired by another of Becca Moore’s prompts, “Spooky Mermaid,” Mayumi Ogihara drew “From the Depth of the Ocean” from the deeps of her own imagination and this reference. This illustration is Col-Erase brown and white charcoal on 5″ x 7″ toned paper – and could be yours for $30.

“Keeper of the Last Summer Light” by Kir Talmage

This warm and homey sketch that creator Kir Talmage titled “Keeper of the Last Summer Light” well-evokes the last lights of summer. She commented, “I need more anatomy/life drawing lessons! These arms are giving me so much trouble! But I like her expression.” We do, too!

Maria Gonzalez drew the wonderfully enchanting “Luna” as a play on Mayumi Ogihara’s prompt “luna moth fairy.” You can take home the original 4″ x 6″ sketch in colored pencils on an toned paper for $16!

We’re signing off for the night, so head on over to the full #EMGSketchFest gallery – it’s free to sign up and participate!

Featured Artist: Kir Talmage

Welcome to Ellen Million Graphics’ Featured Artist of the Week! Each week (or so), we select an EMG artist and share their work and history. We hope you enjoy getting to see incredible artists this way.

This week, our spotlight picks out that artist of adorable whimsy and organic delight Kir Talmage! Kir joins us from a cabin in the woods of Vermont, where she lives among creek and fauna and forest.

She’s been creating art since she was a child drawing on the walls of her grandmother’s summer cottage, and kept up the practice for stress relief and “casual comfort” for many years as her focus stayed riveted on STEM studies. Now she embraces her art as a journey, part and parcel of the fabric of her life. She finds herself inspired by and learning from so many other illustrators, and also found her work grounded by excellent art teachers in high school and college. Some of her inspirations include the work of Trina Schart Hyman, John Bauer, Alan Lee, Brian Froud, Jill Barklem, Mary Jo Koch, and Stephanie Pui-Min Law. While she most often draws with pencil and pen, she adores watercolors, saying “I am astounded and amazed and delighted and befuddled by them.” They help her evolve as an artist. She doesn’t have much time for hobbies, but also doesn’t see a sharp delineation between her work and her play. There are always family relationships to nurture, books to read or create, hikes and outdoor activities to enjoy, and so much more as part of life. You can explore more at her website.

Kir has been a friend to EMG for at least half a decade, participating in many Sketch Fests and contributing to the shared world and worldbuilding project that is Torn World. She has contributed over 100 sketches to her Sketch Fest gallery, depicting everything from a present-toting dragon and a behatted coffee-rower to a hookah-smoking unicorn and a rock-and-roll naiad. She’s also a prolific and creative prompter, leaving over 200 prompts from the simple “crab apples” to the involved “where Neverland, Neverwhere, Otherwhere and the Borderlands meet.” Over at Torn World, you can find an illustration of longfingers that she did and an article on the Dorruuyirv, a sort of polar seagoing mammal. We invite you to explore her work at EMG via the links below.

“The Song of the Twisted Tooth (a personal concert)”

Kir’s Sketch Fest gallery.
Kir’s Torn World creator page.

“Grandmother Fox Stitching Up the Stories”

The featured illustrations are:
“Ocean Child”
“Mage Rat”
“Rocking the Water”
“The Song of the Twisted Tooth (A Personal Concert)”
“Grandmother Fox Stitching up the Stories”

Enjoying Sketch Fest Sunday?

#EMGSketchFest 99 may be over, but that’s no reason to stop the party! If you wander over to the gallery, you may still find new art – and you’ll definitely find something fantastic! You may even find a piece of art to buy, and you should absolutely leave some comments for our participants!

Let’s do some featured illustrations:

“Dragon and Sleeping Fairy” by Afke van Herpt’s Cousin Susan

“Unicorn of the Sea” by Afke van Herpt and her Niece Ronja

First up, we have these great illustrations done by Afke van Herpt’s cousin and niece. “Dragon and Sleeping Fairy” by Afke’s cousin Susan is blamed on Ronja! For “Unicorn of the Sea,” Afke wrote: “My niece Ronja did another collaboration with me! I sketched the horse part, and she did all the rest.”

“Blue and Orange Stockings and the Green Dress” by Heather Kilgore

Heather Kilgore created this dancing beauty, the evocation of a summer breeze in her green dress with sand-and-sea stockings below!

Monika Holloway is putting us all in a vaudevillian frame of mind today with her fancy-free depiction of a nurse.

Founder of our Sketch Fest feast, Ellen Million took Mayumi Ogihara’s prompt “Unicorn of Shadows” and ran with it to create #Junicorn 16: “I loooooved this prompt. See more details about my #junicorn project here!”

Katta went three dimensional and sculpted this adorable earth dragon, resplendent in green and showing their belly and holding on to a brown stone.

The glory of the night sky emerges in “Stardust” by Mayumi Ogihara. This illustration is mixed media on 7×5 toned paper, and you can even purchase the original! Just $27!

“Trinkets and Tentacles” by Natacha Chohra

Inspired by Selina Fenech’s great prompt, Natacha Chohra created this provocative and playful drawing: “Trinkets and Tentacles” is a 5×7 graphite sketch and you can purchase the original for only $40!

Our last featured illustration for today is an untitled piece by Kir Talmage. Inspired by Edward Cammarota’s prompt, “Blue warrior women,” Kir commented that she’s “just drafting some idea” in this pencil and colored pencils sketch.

That’s it for a super-sized Sunday Sketch Fest featured set! Don’t forget to check out the full gallery, and come back here tomorrow for our After Action Report – completed with more features and our announcement for #EMGSketchFest 100!

Summer vibes in #EMGSketchFest 98!

It’s been a wonderful day at #EMGSketchFest, and many of our participants clearly have summer and MerMay on their minds! You’ll find many interesting mermaids in the gallery, along with flower fairies, attentive dryads, and tiger ladies.

Let’s take a peek at the gallery!

Ellen Million, the founder of our Sketch Fest feast, began sketching this “Tiger Lady.” As she says, “big cats are such fun to draw.”

ElmaBree shared this rough sketch of a mermaid wearing Asian jewelry, inspired by Mayumi Ogihara’s prompt!

Kir Talmage created this inspired ribbon motif twisting and turning with the words of a twisted tale! Ink pen on paper.

Becca “Boo” Moore drew a nymph and her tree in spring (as prompted by Edward Cammarota). She says, “Nature Nymphs are known as Dryads (sea/river nymphs are called Naiads) and boy are they fun to draw!”

Elisa Ferguson was also inspired by Edward Cammarota’s spring nymph prompt. In “Small One,” she says, “A nymph has decided to help a small tree grow!”

That’s it for now! The #EMGSketchFest 98 gallery keeps growing, so check it out and drop off some prompts for our participants. And if you have some time, get creative this weekend with us!

#EMGSketchFest 96 Saturday!

Welcome to Sketch Fest Saturday afternoon, everyone! We hope you’ve enjoyed a leisurely morning and found some time for creativity. To entice you to join our creative weekend, I’ve got some sketches from the gallery to feature for you! Let’s get to it.

We start with this piece by the founder of the Sketch Fest feast, Ellen Million! Ellen created “Highlander,” a cheeky hunk of the shapeshifter persuasion. She’s selling the final inked version of this sketch as well!

Kir Talmage, inspired by “the swamp mermaid” gave us this fantastic mermaid in her mangrove grotto, joined by nanatee. “Mangrovians” is pencil on ACEO-sized sketchpaper.

This is MrsFriSco’s first Sketch Fest, and she’s given us a finely behatted mermaid! “Just a coral reef mermaid finding steampunk flotsam and jetsam – she is trying her best to mimic the fascinating air-breathers’ fashion with her ocean finds, some of them even genuine articles!” This sketch is titled “Steampunk Mermaid” is 12×24 pencil on 140lb cold press paper.

Shell’s very keen daughter Willow took Amy Sue Stirland’s prompt of “garden landscape” and drew this pretty landscape of flowers and fish! “Garden of the City.”

“Tonight We Ride” is a fantastic dragonrider inked sketch shared by Becca “Boo” Moore! Look at that armor, and those faces – this pair means business. I wouldn’t get in their way!

Our last featured illustration this afternoon is “Fantasy Violinist” by Amy Sue Stirland! Inspired by Julie Rabischung’s prompt, Amy comments that she thinks her fantasy violinist is reminiscent of Lindsey Stirling! We have to agree. This illustration is gouache on 5×7 toned tan paper.

We hope you enjoyed this set of featured illustrations! Don’t forget to click through to the full gallery for even more mermaids and dragons along with hummingbirds and fairies and more. We hope you’ll stay a while, submit a prompt, and maybe even create a little with us. See you there!

Sunday Sketches

EMG Sketch Fest 91 is drawing to a close, and it’s been a great one! There are dozens of ink and pencil sketches, paintings, handcrafts, and so much more over at the full gallery – which is full of autumnal delight, witches and fairies, magpies and crows and cats.

We’ve selected a few illustrations to feature that’ll intrigue you and have you clicking through to the full gallery in no time.

A fluffy white cat sits with tail curled around its paws, looking at out the viewer from the mid-right; a pair of round glasses lay to the left on top of an open book with the suggestion of lines of text; another open book lays partially atop it and behind the cat, and another open book lay further in the background. Stacks of books occupy the right edge (one in front of another) and the left edge of the illustration. Brown pencil and white charcoal on toned paper. — “Ex Libris” by Maria J. William

This beautiful cat from Maria J. William is just waiting for you to start reading before she happily and pointedly walks across your book and sits on it, purring all the while. You can purchase a glossy print of this 6″ x 8″ brown pencil and white charcoal drawing on toned paper for only $10.

Rough sketch. A kid-sized dragon faces away from the viewer, standing on two legs and wearing a backpack patterned with circular squiggles. There's the suggestion of flowers around its feet, and a bus stop sign in front of it. — “Waiting for the Bus” by Kir Talmage

This young fellow is ready to get back to school in Kir Talmage‘s adorable depiction of this kid dragon at a bus stop. Look at his little backpack! We can’t wait to watch this pencil sketch develop further.

A wizard faces the viewer on the right side of the drawing, his cheeks and chin and visible neck covered in stubble. He seems to have mid-length hair or long sideburns. His face is lined, and he has a gruff expression on his face. His brown eyes almost glare at the viewer. He's wearing a purple knit hat with golden arrows pointing down detailed along the edge; it's pulled down over a wrinkled forehead. He may be wearing a blue plaid scarf, along with a purple jacket or robe - you only see it from the shoulders. A wand is held aloft, sloping in from the left side of the page - held aloft by the wizard, no doubt. The wand is brown, and there's a poof of golden magic floating above its tip. — “Gruff Old Wizard” by Charlie Galvin

Charlie Galvin‘s “Gruff Old Wizard” isn’t taking any guff, and isn’t above a little magical assist to get those darned kids off his lawn. So, y’know, stay off his lawn.

A blue detailed sketch depicts a field of mushrooms of varying height, shape, and sizes. The mushrooms seem the size of large hedges compared to the little witch depicted among the mushrooms. Her body faces the viewer but she's looking and pointing to the viewer's left. She points with her right arm and holds a broom with her left. A waist-high fox stands next to her and looks in the direction of her pointing. The witch is wearing shapeless robes, belted with a small sack at her belt. She also has the requisite witch's hat on, which is a bit lumpy. — “Through the Mushroom Forest” by Mary Rose “Marose” Magpily

Marose has got us longing for a story! This witchy cutie and her sharp-nosed fox pal are definitely headed for adventure, and it looks like it’ll be a fun one.

A fat tome of a book sits on a vague background in this ink sketch on white paper. The book is padlocked; a crow sits on top of the book, back to the viewer and its head looking to the viewer's left. The crows holds a key in its beak. A mouse standing upright on its hind legs and wearing a hooted cloak and some type of baldric presses its back to the book (which is taller than it is), looking apprehensively up toward the crow above. — “The Quest” by Katerina Romanova

Speaking of stories, we’re also eager to know more about this cloaked rodent rogue and the key-grasping crow. What’s in the book? Who’s the rat’s tailor? Will we ever know?! Only Katerina Romanova can tell.

That’s it from #EMGSketchFest 91! (Have you been remembering to use our official hashtag?) More illustrations may be added over the next several hours, but our event officially ends at 12 PM AKST. We hope you all had fun – check our social media feeds next week for the announcement of October’s Sketch Fest dates!