Mother's Day Seals

Hot off the press: my latest Mother's Day/new baby card, featuring a baby Nerpa seal and its mother snuggling together.

Fall Collection: Fairy tales, octopi and Baikal

Now that I've been able to get blogger's image uploading device to work, here are the rest of my new cards:



This card depicts the Chinese folktale of the famous archer Houyi and Chang'e, his wife. Rewarded with a pill for eternal life for his heroic feats (namely, shooting down nine of the ten suns that were scorching the earth), Chang'e accidentally swallows the pill one day and flies up to the moon. She then commands the Jade Rabbit on the moon to make a new pill for her so that she can be reunited with her husband. Legend says that the Jade Rabbit, to this day, is still pounding the herbs for the pill. Available here.



My second Baikal-inspired card. I call this "Love is color-blind." The seals depicted are a harbor seal (brown) and a Baikal Nerpa seal (white). Available here.



This is another Octopus Love card, and it was a rejected sketch from my customer back in July. However, I do like the idea, so I made this Octopus card. Available here.



This card is an illustration of a Swedish folktale I read when I was young, about a girl who outwits a giant. Story can be found here.

Baikal-inspired cards

I'm back! Sorry for disappearing again, but I was studying for the bar and then I was in Russia. That's a valid excuse, right?

Since I've been back, I've managed to crank out some new cards (two of which are inspired by my trip to Lake Baikal):

Baikal Seal - New Baby card.
The Baikal seal, aka Nerpa seal, is native to Lake Baikal in Siberia, and when born, it has a soft white fur that it sheds when it reaches adulthood. The Nerpa seals are found in the Ushkanny Islands in Lake Baikal, west of the Svyatoy Nos Peninsula. It's a mystery as to how they wound up at Baikal, thousands of miles away from any ocean. One theory is that a much larger body of water once connected Baikal to the Arctic Ocean. Another theory is that the seals swam through rivers from the Arctic to Baikal. In any case, they are the only freshwater seal in existence.

Unfortunately, something is wrong with blogger's image uploading system, so I can't upload anything else right now. Next time!

More spring cards

I spent the night before the MPRE making this (after studying of course). It's addressed to a graduate who "stands out from the crowd." The hat is actually modeled off the design I made for my own college graduation hat, not that I'm trying to flatter myself by implying I'm a standout in any way. Actually, a lot of people in my department decorated their hats: my friend, who sat beside me, put a little bear on her hat, one guy dressed up as a pirate, and apparently there was another guy who decorated his hat in a similar way to mine. My friends, who had been trying to find me, told me about him. "That guy was really big and macho," they said, "and we thought, 'no, that can't be Michelle.'"

Anyway, the card isn't finished yet - I still need to write a "Congratulations." But just wanted to preview it here.

However, after the MPRE yesterday, I was able to finish these cards below:



The Easter Egg nest



The Russian Easter cake (kulich), which is taken to the church the night before Easter to be blessed.



The Octopus graduate, complete with a graduation cap, tassel, and lei (but no diploma! It will be mailed to him later.)

A Russian Easter

Easter egg bashing is a game Russian children play on Easter. One child stands still and holds a hardboiled egg while the other child takes another egg and smashes it against the still egg, the goal being to see which egg survives with the fewest cracks. The winner gets the opponent's egg. The children call out, "Christ is risen!" ("Khristos voskres!") when bashing the eggs together.

I've tried to illustrate this tradition in the card above, although it still strikes me as unfinished somehow. Maybe a "Happy Easter" in the white space between the children would do the trick?

Russian round-up

Ironically, I've decided to do my "Russian round-up" on the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. I do remember that day, and I remember it was important, but I didn't realize why at the time.

In the days after the collapse of the USSR, these local globes - globes of your country or even city or village - became the rage in all the former Soviet Republics. EnglishRussia has provided a DIY guide to making your own local globe. (Photo from EnglishRussia)

This Moscow neighborhood is home to some pretty amazing street art. (Photo from EnglishRussia)


And lastly, I'm happy to announce that I've finished my Holy Supper card! I was told that the lone arm was scary, so I made a few revisions, and voila!

A Russian Tradition

The Holy Supper, which in Russian Orthodox tradition, takes place on Christmas Eve after a day of fasting, begins with the mother of the family blessing each person by drawing a cross in honey on his or her forehead. I've tried to capture this tradition in my latest card, above, although it is still a work in progress.

(On a similar and somewhat funny note, when I showed this card to my Russian boyfriend, his response was, "I didn't know there was a tradition of drawing a cross on your forehead." But to be fair, he isn't Christian. So... :))