My Love of All Things Hobbit

"Dragon's Lair"-$30

Medium: Ink on bristol board

Size: ~5x8 inches

©2012 

In the anticipation of The Hobbit movie coming out, my muse cranked out this drawing which was actually started last year. I inked it out, and at the very end, added a little Hobbit in the bottom right corner. This is a scene from my favorite J.R.R.Tolkein book, The Hobbit (soon to be a movie). Bilbo sneaks into Smaug, the dragon's cave and has a little chat with him. Smaug has an awful lot of treasure which he just sleeps on top of and lives in... 

Fun little piece to do to get the juices flowing again and to get excited for the Hobbit movie which comes out in what feels like won't be a century.

This drawing is offered at my website, www.clairenoblesart.com under "Originals". Click the picture and it will take you directly there, and you can also get some detail. Because I have a free shipping over $25 purchases policy on my website, then this original work can be yours for only $30. No unauthorized reproductions, alterations or copyright infringements of any kind.

About the Artist (and her giant squid obsession)

"A Great Misfortune"-$40

Medium: Ink

Size: 9x12 inches

©2012 

I don't believe I showed this ink from a while ago. As I was getting back into the flow of creating I decided early in the day I would "draw a squid attacking a big old-timey ship." What was the inspiration for this? No idea. I wanted to do something challenging, outside the box, and something I definitely hadn't done before. So ta-da! I'm officially back n the creative zone.

The original drawing is available on Etsy for $40.

In other news, I finally put up an "About the Artist" page on my website. Click here to view. It's filled with some random tidbits about my materials, creative process and my weird quirks. Enjoy!

Nail Party! (All painstakingly painted by me)

I meant to post this MONTHS ago when it happened, but I guess I just forgot with school and life happening. Anyhoo, this is a slightly girly day that happened with two of my friends, Alexandra and her sister Jess. I wanted to cheer up Alexandra, so I told her that I wanted to bring her flowers, but since I had been obsessed with nail polish, I'd bring that over instead... All the nail art is done 100% by me with ONLY the use of the brushes that came with the particular bottle. This took me over two hours for both girls.

Hand #1- Alex (the middle finger has hearts and the ring we dubbed her "Drag Queen Nail" since I glued extra rhinestone flowers and sparkles on it) 

Alex's Hand #2 - The pointer has a free-hand painted flower and the pinky is her "Irish Finger" 

Possibly due to the nail polish fumes, I decided I would paint a miniature wizard. Very hard to make out-- it took about 17 layers and I even mixed colors a few times.  It's a wizard in a blue pointy hat with a blue cloak with star patterns and he's holding a magical wand/staff. I have no idea to this day how I got the dots for the eyes so perfect.

Side note: I proceeded to scream "You Shall Not PASS" in a tiny high-pitched chipmunk voice the rest of the day to pay tribute to Gandalf's sad scene in Lord of the Rings..... (nail fumes, I swear!)

 DRAGON!! I figured if Jess had a wizard on one hand, she should have a balrog on the other.... But Alas, I went with a dragon. The dragon has a red eye and is spewing fire from his mouth (as dragons tend to do...)

Happy Buddha. This buddha turned into a "WAZZAPPP Buddha" when Alex made me laugh about something as I was painting him... Also since we didn't wait for him to completely dry, when we put the top coat on, he smeared a bit. =/ 

Alex's manicure 

Jess' Manicure --Also on the thumb, I did a little campfire, no idea why, and we never got a great picture of it though... (dragon is upside-down)

Jess' Manicure (hand two- the wizard is upside-down) 

Jess with her pretty nails

The sisters with their pretty nails!

Thanks for reading! And I know this looks cute, but I am not pursuing a career in manicures, this was just for fun. So don't ask me! Have a happy rest of your Sunday!

Finals Week: Plan of Attack!

I have less than 24 hours until I'm done with this semester. So here are my plans for the next 24 hours.

Step 1
Eat a bagel! (most important step)

Step 2
Study for an hour...

Step 3
Draw a comic of self studying! (Also continue eating food for steps 3-9)

Step 4
Write Term Paper...

Step 5
Annoy Jasper the Cat by poking him, talking in a baby voice and finish by dancing with him to a song I make up on the spot!

Step 6
Continue studying...

Step 7
Sleep! (around 4am)

Step 8
Take final...

Step 9
Go out for celebratory tea! The end has come!

The Alpha Spider Taker Carer Of-er

Almost everyone I know has a certain level of fear when it comes to spiders. In general spiders are not usually welcome company.

For me, I don't mind a spider hanging out in a corner of my wall, far away from where I need to be. But if a spider is crawling on me or my things-- I might freak out a bit. And of course, the bigger and hairier the spider, the higher the level of screaming and arm flailing that will take place.

However, I have come to notice something pretty hilarious about group dynamics and spider killing. And that is, that if there is a group of people and a spider, there is such a thing called the Alpha Spider Taker Carer Of-er (a title I just made up). Seriously though! There is always one person of the group who will take charge and kill the spider (or take it outside). And I have noticed that depending on the group, the role of the Alpha may surprise you.

For me, when I am in a group of girls who are screaming and standing on chairs, I take charge (goes back to my tom boy days when I was 8 and liked to play sports and roll in dirt). If I'm with a group of boys, I find the most buff- looking guy and in a completely sexist way, give the responsibility to him (and then I stand on my chair). Sometimes the group of guys I am with are pansies and I end up taking care of the spider. Even when I say really unfair and sexist comments like "Are you man-- or a sissy?" the spider killing is the one exception that can make even the manliest and toughest guy in your group-- who opens beer bottles with his eyelids-- into a sniveling little boy standing on his chair screaming "Somebody save me!!!"As I said, the Alpha changes in every group of people you are with.

If I am all alone, I call my dad on the phone. My dad is Champion Alpha Spider Taker Carer Of-er! When I was little, I used to wake him up at 3am sometimes to kill a spider that was across the room on the ceiling because I couldn't sleep. And he would get out of his warm bed and stand on hazardous make-shift stands in an overly sleepy and dangerous state in which you shouldn't be balancing on things to kill the spider for me. My dad is the greatest. However now that I've been over 18 and a legal adult for the past 6 years, he will tell me to deal with it myself.

So sometimes I call a girlfriend who at first welcomes the challenge and then we will poke at a fleeing spider with super sturdy objects like a plastic bag or a paper towel (we hold the very ends of these items and just sort of wave it at the spider while screaming, which is actually highly ineffective).

So the other day I had a really interesting experience when I was alone and there were three spiders in my bathroom, on my makeup, which I had been applying... I first did the whole thing where I screamed and ran out of the room. And then I got the most Alpha "person" I had available to me at the time: my cat, Jasper.

Jasper likes things that crawl and move around that he can chase (like most cats). So I placed Jasper in the direction of the spider and Jasper took care of those bad boys in under a minute.

So my cat, Jasper is now the official Spider Taker Carer Of-er at my house. How did he take care of the spiders, you ask? He ate them. =D

So next time there is a spider and a group of people you're around, don't be quick to judge. The Alpha Spider Taker Carer Of-er of the group may surprise you.