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

Briana Blair

Briana Blair is an author and artisan. She has published more then 30 books and thousands of articles across multiple sites. After practicing Paganism and witchcraft for 25 years, she's now on a journey as an atheist and skeptic. She's eclectic, unpredictable, and always evolving. Facebook - Twitter