Spectrum Live! New art, panel info and table info!

It's time for Spectrum Fantastic Art Live again! And this year I have finally broken down and got a table. To celebrate, I have created a few new original oil paintings that I will be debuting there this weekend:

Blue Mage
Oil on Panel
5 x 5

Dragon Mage
Oil on Panel
 6 x 6

Fae Mage
Oil on Panel
5 x 5

In addition to my new art, I will be displaying a few other originals as well as selling some prints of some of my favorite pieces.

Minotaur
Oil on Panel
16 x 20

Grey Widow
Oil on Panel
6 x 6

Blue Assassin
Oil on Panel
6 x 6

Ascend
Oil on Panel
5 x 5

Dragonslayer
Charcoal
18 x 24

 I will also be selling prints of Dragonslayer, the Minotaur and House of Leaves below including a few others.

House of Leaves

AAAAND if that weren't enough- I am also going to be participating in the Fantastic Women panel Saturday at 2pm. I was very honored to be asked to join this panel and am very much looking forward to the conversation. Here is the info:

Fantastic Women! [room 2505 A&B] 2pm — 3pm 
Illustration & fantasy art used to be a male-dominated industry: has that changed or are their still challenges woman artists face? Winona Nelson [M], Rebecca Yanovskaya, Annie Stegg, Zoë Robinson, Kristina Carroll, Camilla d’Errico discusse the good, the bad, and the ugly of working in today’s marketplace.

So please come find me and say hello, buy something or just sit down and draw with me a bit! I will be at Table 17:

Short Video Interview

The multi-talented Scott Bakal has been making some lovely videos lately and got me to sit down in front of his camera for a few minutes to do a little mini-interview. I talk a little bit about my life before deciding to focus on illustration, school and how I ended up in New York.



Kristina Carroll from Scott Bakal on Vimeo.

May the Fourth be with you!

Happy Star Wars Day! Here are a couple little watercolor studies I did of everyone's favorite Droid.

R2D2
Watercolor 4 x 6

R2D2 - 2
Watercolor 4 x 6 

White as Snow

No one knew what the Queen whispered in her ear before she fled into the woods with the Huntsman; but as the Princess disappeared into the trees, her hair turned from inky black to white as snow...

White as Snow
Oil on Panel
16 x 24

 This is a painting that has been on and off the easel for a few months now, getting attention between other projects. I'm happy to finally share it with some process! I started with a digital rough for this one- just playing around with shapes, value and a bit of color. I did a lot of studies of my photo reference and tried to use the photographs a lot less than usual to keep a little more movement in the piece.

Ascend I - Small portrait

Ascend 1
Oil on Panel
6" x 6"

Here's another one of my quick, small portrait studies. I love taking a break to do these in between larger projects. It gives me a chance to experiment and relax the mind a bit.

The Minotaur

The Minotaur
Oil on board
16 x 20

A while ago I was invited to contribute a piece to the first volume of the Fantasy Illustration Library by Michael Publishing.This high end art book will explore mythology from all over the globe with hundreds of new works of art. Not only was I thrilled to join the ranks of over 100 terrific artists (such as Donato Giancola and Michael C. Hayes) and but it gave me the opportunity to explore a character that I've been wanting to paint for a long time: The Minotaur.

Excerpt from the book:

I’ve always been drawn to stories involving labyrinths so naturally I love the Minotaur myth. I feel empathy toward the Minotaur. I see him as an innocent suffering for the sins of his parents and the whims of the gods. His story is usually overshadowed by the hero tale of Theseus where he is the lowly monster at the center of the maze to be defeated. However, the Minotaur is half human and was raised briefly with his human family so couldn’t have been all beast when he was imprisoned in Daedalus’ Labyrinth.  I imagined him as a king over a lonely domain. His human half craved beauty and so he taught himself to carve to pass the time. Many hours were counted in spirals carved into the stone and the walls became covered in years as he made his prison beautiful.

I spent some extra time getting reference for this piece since I knew I wanted the lighting to be very atmospheric and was dealing with some uncharted territory in the anatomy and some of the architecture ideas. Getting a good model (the amazing Dennis!) and taking a quick hour to build a small maquette and light it made all the difference.

One of many pages of thumbnails

One of many photos of Dennis from the photoshoot

Clay model approx 6 inches high

Some preliminary studies to prep for drawing

Preliminary Charcoal drawing
16 x 20

Digital color study

Final

The Man with Green Eyes for Creepythread

The Man with Green Eyes

Last month I got an email from Jensine Eckwall and Peter Schmidt about a book they are putting together revolving around the internet scary story phenomenon called Creepypasta. I love scary stories and the internet-so how could I say no? The /CREEPYTHREAD book will debut at MoCCAfest 2014 along with Brooklyn Zine Fest, TCAF, and SPX.

After reading tons of these scary shorts, I came upon The Man with Green Eyes and knew it was the one I wanted to do. It's got elements of myth and the supernatural and the character intrigued me Most importantly,  I saw an image in my head that felt like fun to paint.  Here is my version of the story:

The Man with the Green Eyes

There is a road near the Everglades in Florida which you will only end up on when lost. There is no cell service, your radio will turn to static and your map will have mysteriously vanished.

Driving forward, you will find that you can't turn around and everything behind you is dark. You will come upon a crossroads with no signposts. In the middle there will be a man, covered in various pieces of cloth. Only his eyes are visible, which are bright green.

There are a very specific set of rules you must follow in order to survive an encounter with the Green-eyed man. In the end, you must kneel before him and offer him your loyalty. If you do this, he will close his eyes and bow in return, extending a hand to whichever path will lead you back to safety.

You can read the original story and many others here.

Check out some of the other awesome art for the book at http://creepythreadbook.tumblr.com/