Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges is one of my favorite authors and probably the most influential Spanish writer after Cervantes. Many say he is one of the founding fathers of speculative fiction and you can see his influence all over the genre from William Gibson to Doctor Who. His stories weave in and out of reality and psychology and I often find myself thinking about one of his stories years after I've read it. Nearly all of his works include reference to a labyrinth, which is a symbol I have always been drawn to and is certainly another reason his writing speaks so strongly to me. The profile portrait is traditionally used to depict someone passed in a more symbolic and immortal composition, and I thought would present him as the noble, timeless titan of literature he is. Even though he struggled with poor eyesight and blindness for a good portion of his later life, he saw realities enough for a hundreds lifetimes.

If you have never read Borges, I recommend starting with his "Labyrinths" collection. The Garden of Forking Paths, The Lottery in Babylon or The Library of Babel are some of my personal favorites and you may recognize some of the ideas.

New painting for Lincoln Arts Project show

Oil on 16 x 20 cradle board

One of Scott's former students, Pat Falco, and his friend Elliot Anderson have started a gallery in Boston. Their goal  is to bring quality, new art in from  young artists around the city into areas that might not normally see it. The resulting Lincoln Art Project Gallery has already hosted some unique shows including a showcase of concept  artists from Harmonix and a Type show.  When Scott and I heard about their plans to do an 'artist couples' show for Valentines day, we couldn't resist and thought it would be fun to create some portraits of each other for the show. I decided make Scott into a symbolist image about the relationship between artist and creative urge.

charcoal drawing and beginning washes of color 

Scott did a fantastic portrait of me looking very confident with my painting attire and, best of all, surrounded by books. It's a stunning graphic piece and I love that he sees me this way:

acrylic and pen on 16 x 20 cradle board

You can read Scott's blog about the process here.

And some press about the show, in which we are interviewed with some of the other artists, in the Weekly Dig here.

'Match'  at Lincoln Arts Project Gallery

Show Dates: February 8 - March 10

RECEPTION: Friday February 10, 7-10 PM

Gallery Hours: Wed - Fri 4-9 PM, Sat 2-8 PM or by appointment.

Holiday Cards for Sale!

 Impress your family and friends with completely unique limited edition holiday cards. Only $10 for a set of 15 with free shipping until December 7th!

I have a few of my limited edition holiday cards left and have decided to offer them to you in a special holiday sale! These full bleed, rounded-corner, 4x6 cards feature art from my Realms of Fantasy Illustration for  "Maiden, Mother, Crone". The text on the back quotes a line from Robert Louis Stevenson's poem, Winter-Time:

Black are my steps on silver sod;

Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;

And tree and house, and hill and lake,

Are frosted like a wedding cake.

Then reads:

Warmest Wishes this Holiday Season 

Information about the original art is along the bottom opposite the card's number out of 100.

I am fancy- packaging them in sets of 15 with envelopes included. Use them yourself as a unique alternative to store-bought cards or give them as a gift-set to the collector in your life. The cost is $10 per set of 15 and as an extra special early bird offer, I will include free shipping until December 7th! After that, shipping will be an extra $3. Please email me at kristina (at) kristinacarrollart.com if you are interested. I accept most forms of payment.

Remember- there are only a few sets of these remaining so order soon!

It's all about me!

Today is my birthday! So I decided to do a whole blog post about me! Self Portraits that is. One of my favorite teachers, Irwin Greenberg, used to say "If you are unsure what to paint- just do a self portrait!" It's good exercise for sure and what's good enough for Rembrandt...!

These were all done in a little over an hour.

This one was done very quickly last night. My last self portrait as a 20-something!

Nudes to chase away Tuesday blues

Every Monday (except when he's closed up the studio for art making) Rick Berry hosts a figure drawing session run by the Boston Figurative Art Center team. It's one of my favorite things to do up here, naturally, and here are a few of my favorites from the session:

August 2011 copy of Realms of Fantasy now on stands!

I just got my copy of the August 2011 Realms of Fantasy!

Check out my previous blog on my process for this piece, and you can order your copy here!

Cover Illustration for Realms of Fantasy

I am very pleased to announce that my art will be featured on the cover of the August '11 issue of Realms of Fantasy! This is my second time working with Doug Cohen and RoF, and it was once again a pleasure. One of my favorite things about working with them is their philosophy of creative freedom. It is a very rare thing these days for publications and art directors to show so much trust in their artists, and it is a big breath of fresh air to be allowed to really bring a personal voice to a story and feel supported doing it.

Originally this piece was commissioned solely as the interior illustration to a story called Leap of Faith by Alan Smale. The story had a lot of themes that really appealed to me: archaic biblical gods, the imperfection of creation, flawed industrialization. It brought together very separate historical elements that you wouldn't expect to see together in one world, and it was a fun challenge to bring them together. I did pages of thumbnails but eventually narrowed down what I wanted to a scene with the main character and Smale's incarnation of the Lilith 'demon'.



I played with the composition and size relationships a bit but decided the first two felt a little too "Night on Bald Mountain' for me. The last had the best movement and hinted at a more communal relationship between the characters. Plus the view of a vast ruined industrial landscape from a place of height tied in better with the story theme for me.

Progress shot of mostly under painting.

The final piece!



Now you may have noticed a slight difference in my final piece and the one appearing on the cover. That's because when it was just an interior, the presentation of the Lilith's 'femininity' was still ambiguous enough not to be worrisome. There was no blatant nudity after all. However, when Doug started talking about using it for the cover, there was then the question of how ambiguous is not ambiguous enough for the general public. While Doug and I both loved the piece how it was, I didn't think a little edit for peace of mind would do anything to its integrity and a few more appropriately placed feathers did the trick. Et Voila!

I can't wait to see the cover all shiny and in person!