Well, I originally said they would be printed and ready by January 31st. I’ve been talking to the folks who will print the book (who are the same folks that printed the book edition of Validation), and I have pretty much everything together.
However, I’m fixing some formatting errors before I send the book off to print. I want this book to look its best, darnit!
But that means the book won’t be available on January 31st.
The latest the book will hit the market is February 13th (and yes, that IS a Friday the 13th. No, I’m not superstitious about it).
You can still pre-order a copy, so I can reserve a book JUST FOR YOU from the printer (because I like you, reader, and you are awesome). It’s $10, and that price includes shipping.
I did not find out about this badass until earlier this week. I should have known better than to stay ignorant for so long, because Rosa Bonheur is her own special kind of awesome.
She was raised in a socialist family that sought equality for the sexes, and she smoked cigars, cut her hair short, wore mens clothing (even gaining a permit from the police to do so), and it was rumored that she had lady lovers (why else would Art History Archive call Anna Klumpke her “special companion until her death”?). Most importantly, she was a world-renowned painter at a time when women were not regarded as artistic.
She was born in 1822 into a family of artists – her father was a trained artist and each of her four siblings had a vocation. Because training women in the arts was rare and unheard of in the 1800s, Rosa’s training was under her father as an apprentice in his shop. She copied engravings, drew still lifes, and copied paintings by masters in the Loeuvre. She also frequented “masculine” areas like horse fairs and slaughterhouses to study the anatomy of animals.
As a matter of fact, her subject of choice in her paintings were almost always animals, and she became famous for her animal paintings. She showed at the Paris Salon so many times the judges eventually gave her permission to just send her work in rather than go through the jury process.
Her most famous painting is Le Marché aux Chevaux, or “The Horse Fair,” show below:
When it was shown she was 31 years old.
She won quite a few gold medals for painting in the Salon, and also got the following honors over the course of her life:
Honorary member of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Société des Artistes Belges,
Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (she was the first woman to get this award)
The Cross of San Carlos of Mexico
member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of Antwerp, Belgium
Commander’s Cross of the Royal Order of Isabella
Catholic Cross
The Leopold Cross
honorary member of the Royal Academy of Watercolorists of London
Mérite des Beaux-Arts de Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
Officier de la Légion d’Honneur (the first woman honored with this position)
While her badassery was well-recognized, she eventually decided she didn’t like the spotlight and so she retired to the country side, drawing and painting until her death in 1899 at the age of 78. Many of her sketches and paintings were found posthumously by her aforementioned “special partner” Anna Klumpke.
If you want to find out more about this awesome painter, check out the Art History Archive, and books like Rosa Bonheur by Rosalia Shriver.
Thank you for reading, and I’ll see you on Monday.
As I wrote before, for the month of January, I’m drawing one new superhero lady every day. Once the month is up, I’ll be compiling the sketches into an eBook.
Today I want to show you one of my favorite ones I’ve done so far.
Her name is Malarkey Maddie.
Malarkey Maddie!
I loosely based her on a fan I met at Phoenix Comicon, who wore a shirt saying something like “Crush the Patriarchy!” My response was, “Down with the Patriarchy! Up with the Malarkey!”
Malarkey stayed floating around in my head for a while until this sketch series happened. Then I thought back on that fan and that phrase, and went, “What if a superhero lady incorporated that into their superhero name?”
And Malarkey Maddie became a superhero.
She may not fight against the Patriarchy, since it’s an abstract concept and not a person. So she has yet to get an arch nemesis.
She IS, however, super strong and has the ability to fly.
She doesn’t have a story yet, but she’ll be mentioned in other stories I’m working on. Maybe she’s the favorite superhero of Charlie from Charlie & Clow? Or Tracy’s favorite comic book hero?
Who knows what the future will hold for Malarkey Maddie?
If you have any ideas, I would love to read them in comments.
This post is coming to you in 5 Parts, so let’s get right to it!
Part 1. If you did not see it yet, I finally posted something on the Women Warriors Project. You can check that out here.
Part 2. My awesome friend Chloe sent me volumes 1 and 2 of The Heroic Legend of Arslan and I am SUPER EXCITED, because we both mutually love Hiromu Arakawa and it’s great to see her work on other manga.
Chloe also sent me some fanart a classmate of hers made, which also looks fabulous.
I’m going to write and post a review of volume 1 this upcoming Tuesday, reviving a feature I introduced last year, “Review Day Tuesday.”
Speaking of recurring segments on the blog, that brings me to,
Part 3. Favorite Artist Friday!
I’m going to rename this feature “Featured Artist Friday,” so it’s not just my favorite artists being featured.
Featured Artist Friday is going to feature lots of different types of artists. So expect to see comics artists, painters, mixed media artists, sculptors, or just people I find while I flip through my stack of business cards I’ve accumulated over the years from conventions.
Speaking of art, though,
Part 4. New Mini-Comics!
I made and finished a new mini-comic recently called “Duck for Dinner.” It’s a short little autobiographical story.
Duck for Dinner… the mini-comic!
It’ll be up for sale on Storenvy soon.
If you would like a digital copy of the comic for, say, $0.99 (US Currency) please leave a note in the comments. I’ve been thinking of offering short 99 cent digital comics for sale through Gumroad, but let me know what you think?
Speaking of Storenvy, though, that leads me to,
Part 5: Crafting Stuff!
So I had a ton of excess paper and decide to bind some new books (because bookbinding is one of my new hobbies). I used a new technique I found the other day called the Slot-&-Tab method, which requires no thread or gluing.
Hand Made Books!
The thing is, I don’t have a use for these (although I’m keeping the grid paper book), so I’m thinking of selling them as filler notebooks or something on Storenvy. If you’re interested in getting one of these, drop a comment below.
And if you would like to see a tutorial, let me know about that, too, in the comments.
So what other things am I crafting?
Well, I have some T-shirts I don’t wear anymore…
These shirts either don’t fit me or are just too bland.
I’m going to repurpose these into tote bags. Because tote bags are awesome, and you can totes (HA) use them in lieu of plastic bags when you shop, which is my favorite thing to do.
I’m not confident enough in my sewing skills to consider selling the finished totes, though, so it may be a while before I offer any for sale.
That’s all for today, but come back tomorrow, when I talk about a new artist for Feature Artist Friday!
The Superhero Ladies project is coming along nicely! I have 17 ladies already drawn and the month of January isn’t even over yet. Hopefully I can keep up the good work and have lots of awesome superheroines by the end of the month.
There’s a few characters in the project that I’m thinking of branching off into their own stories, or maybe even comics. So who knows?
Another project I’m working on is one I’m reviving from hiatus.
At the time, there was a lot of freelance work going on and I couldn’t update it consistently.
It was hitting an artistic wall, where I felt like every piece I made for the series was getting worse.
I wanted to experiment more with tools like watercolors and acrylics, and I didn’t have the resources or time to do it at the time.
But I’m bringing it back! With a few changes.
Firstly, there will be a new finished painting every month. Acrylic, watercolor, doesn’t matter. It’ll be a painting.
As progress is made on the paintings, I’ll be posting them on the Women Warriors Project blog. The intention is to make a chronological series of posts, showing a painting from initial sketch to finished piece. Tonight I made a sketch to develop an idea for the first painting, so expect to see it on the blog soon!
Know any cool historical women warriors? Leave their names in the comments below!
