Kiriko Moth’s Blog

This lovely cover is from “Holmes Poems”, published in 1883 by
Houghton Mifflin. I found it cheap at a used bookstore in Auburn a few months ago, which justified purchasing it instead of a $250 fully illustrated collection of Byron’s poems. Sigh.

Besides being a poet of some note, Mr. Holmes was also a physician, a professor, coined the term “anaesthesia”, attempted to admit the first African-American and women students to Harvard Medical School while he was dean, and was the bearer of some very fine muttonchops.

If you happen to be in San Francisco, visit the Mission District in October and keep an eye out for posters and postcards for Marigold Project’s Dia de los Muertos events. I was chosen to design and illustrate the promotional materials for the occasion!

The theme of this year’s event is “Whispers of Death”, and I decided to do an illustration of a young woman in costume as La Calavera Catrina, whispering the stories and wisdom of our ancestors.

The main Dia de los Muertos event, a processional through the Mission District, starts at 24^th and Bryant streets and will end in Garfield Park at 24^th and Harrison for the Festival of Alters. So, if you’re in the area, come out on November 2^nd and support this local nonprofit! Activities begin at 7:00pm.

The Marigold Project is a nonprofit organization who, for 30 years has been dedicated to preserving, promoting, and sharing the traditional Meso-American rituals surrounding the Dia de los Muertos. And now they need your help! The city has raised permit fees and the organization is in a funding crisis. Visit their website at www.dayofthedeadsf.org to learn more and donate to their organization, because without the support of the community this amazing event cannot continue!

These lovely pieces are from a 1927 issue of National Geographic article entitled “Our Insect Friends and Foes and Spiders”, illustrated by Hashime Muryama.

This article was later reproduced in 1935 in a collection by the same name of insect stories and illustrations.

As much as I love scientific illustrations, they’re even better when they could stand alone as beautiful works of art!

Continuing my series of illustrations inspired by Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh!

I recently visited the aquarium and exhibits at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park. They hold a weekly ‘happy hour’ event in the evening that is adults only, and you can buy drinks and cocktails to take around the museum with you.

I took my sketchbook around instead. It was awkward to draw because there were very few places to sit and still have a view of any exhibits, so I only ended up with a single page of sketches.

I liked the albino alligator a lot. Unlike the fish, he was sleepy and still. Even that starfish I doodled moved around more than he did. And the gazelle thing didn’t count, because it was taxidermied.

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, and the movie based on it, The Secret of NIMH, are two of my favorite things from childhood. I’m extremely leery of the new CGI/live action movie they’re making based on the book. I personally can’t see it working on the same emotional level that the book and 2D animated movie did. There’s a certain expressiveness in the style of those Don Bluth animated films that suited it very well.
Now, if it was Pixar handling it rather than Paramount, I could easily believe they could pull it off and be true to the spirit of the original book.
Anyway, to get over my pre-emptive ill-will towards the new movie, I’m rereading the book and doing my own illustrations for it. I’m doing it in an unstructured way…just drawing whatever scenes strike me as needing to be drawn. Here’s the first:

“With her forepaws and sharp teeth she pulled off a part of the husk from the top ear of corn and folded it double to serve as a crude carrying bag. Then she pulled loose as many of the yellow kernals as she could easily lift, and putting them in the shuck-bag she hopped off briskly for home.”

I have a deep love for vintage prints and books, and I was thinking that some of them need to be shared with the world.

This is a plate I picked up this past weekend at a Vintage Paper show here in San Francisco. It’s an odd piece, according to the label it’s some kind of plan or schematic for decorations on a piece of furniture. I love the birds and the mice, but it’s the little Xs marked on the drawing that really make it for me. You’ll sometimes see that used to denote areas of a print that are to be filled in with black, but I don’t know if they serve the same purpose here. Anyone know?

Details:

This print is from a loosebound collection called “Documents d’Atelier Art Décoratif Moderne”, published in 1898. The only clue as to who the artist might be is the ‘Th. Lambert’. Which may not even be a name!

I’m going to try to make a weekly feature of posting scans of some of the vintage peices I’ve collected. Just need to come up with a snappy name for it…

This was the biggest challenge I’ve encountered yet on ArtOrder – illustrating a book cover. I had to squeeze in time for it, because one of the judges for the challenge is Irene Gallo, the AD for Tor books.

It’s a wrap around cover, and had to be laid out to accomodate a lot of text.

I admittedly had to struggle with the composition, because I stubbornly wanted the drow in front. I’m pretty happy with the final piece, especially after I added the decorative elements – some Charles Rennie Mackintosh-inspired spider designs carved into the rocks.

I’m caffeinated, let’s go.

I’m working on a whole package of branding and illustration for a local beekeeping and honey store, Her Majesty’s Secret Beekeeper, that is opening up soon. Here’s the logo:

I can’t even begin to tell you how much I enjoyed making up a mechanical bee. The entire look of the store will be very Art Nouveau meets Steampunk.

I did another of the Concept Challenges over at ArtOrder. This time the brief was to make a series of four silhouettes, one for each character archetype. This was my first time doing full blown silhouettes, and it was fast and fun, like sketching.

And this final piece was a private commission from an author who wanted a depiction of one of her characters.

I recently sent my portfolio to WotC, and the AD that got back to me had a link to his very very useful art blog, ArtOrder in the sig line. Well, I’m bound and determined to keep a visible presence ’round WotC ’til I land me some work. They have an ongoing weekly concept challenge, and the current one just happens to have a prize of a commission for one of their magazines. The challenge ends on Sunday – it started about two weeks ago and I’m late to the game. So I’ve only got a pencilled line drawing, whereas some of the other entries are full blown beautiful paintings.

But I’m happy with my gruesome little creation. Isn’t that larva peeking up over the rocks just precious?