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Image: © Briana Blair

Last night I decided that I didn’t want to sit in front of the television, so I went to try some art instead. I haven’t created a new piece in quite some time and I wasn’t sure if I could make anything good after so long. I’m amazed at what happened.

First of all, concept is the hardest part for me. Coming up with a concept and seeing it clearly in my mind, then actually making it happen, is where I struggle the most. Last night I thought it would be a good idea to get inspiration from some of my own poetry, and it was a *great* idea. I opened my main poetry document and looked at my most recent piece. I was instantly inspired and knew just what to create.

I’m so happy with that piece. That is all my sketching with my Genius Tablet. I used reference photos to help me with the face and the knife. I’m fairly mind blown that I was able to draw the bloody handprints. I applied a canvas effect to the hands to make them look less drawn and more print-like. I applied a pen and ink effect to the background to give it a more sketchy look since I didn’t want to draw all the little scratches by hand.

When I got done with the major components, the face looked rather stark, so I copied the background layer, flipped it over and applied it over the face with a color burn then used a sponge brush on smudge to work it in. I love the final effect. I love the whole piece. It seems I’ve developed a particular style from using the tablet, but it’s kind of cool. It’s not like any of my drawn-on-paper work, but I like it, and it’s amazing to be able to do art in a computer.

And here’s the piece that inspired this artwork. I’d post the poem on its own and link it to the series, but this piece is from Volume 11 which I just recently started. So you’re actually getting a preview of art and a poem that no one else in the world has seen before.

410 – Slick Silver – September 2013

The blade slices
Cutting slowly
Slick silver
Slipping in
Sweetly ripping
Sick drips
Soothing crimson
Numbing slightly
Slowly deeper
Quick steel
Screaming soul
Finally silenced