The Blue Side

I am a writer. I am an artist. I make art with pixels, crochet, paint and magic. I make what I see in my head come to life in pictures and words.

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Happy Star Wars Day!

This is my second year making art for today and I had a blast drawing these two with their t-shirts on! Rex is very happy Cody agreed to join in the fun!

Here’s last year’s offering (because I’m still proud of it)

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Signs of Life a virtual exhibition

http://semple.foundation

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Earlier in the year I started an online art course, keen to grow my confidence and get myself back to making art and sharing it more regularly. The course, Make Art or Die Trying, is based on the newly released book of the same name written by Stuart Semple.

The result of that course is this online exhibition I’m honoured to be sharing with the wonderful artists I’ve been able to meet and get to know over the past few months.

Visit here: http://semple.foundation/

Virtual Art Gallery

It has been a joy to explore my art and I’m excited to be able to share the exhibition with the world and the art I made as part of my final project.

Called LilWorld: Dawn of Art, this project explores the origins of human creativity and art and presents it in a new comic style I’m hoping to develop and continue in the future.

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Iris Test. Feb 2019

From the Archive pt 4

This is the first thing I did when I got Procreate. I think I was going for a sort of “stars in her eyes” mood. I like testing new apps by doing things like colouring irises because they’re super hard and you can experiment with lots of brushes in the process.

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Deer

by Tori Wyatt. Dec 2022

From the Archive pt 3

Glow Wild is a wonderful outdoor event run by Wakehurst Place each winter. You have a lantern and walk the grounds marvelling at the glowing creatures shining out of the darkness at you. I first went in, I think, 2018 and was absolutely mesmerised. In 2022 it was even better and I could have spent hours watching the stunning sights. I took a lot of wobbly video without really looking away from the reality in front of me. It’s nothing more than a reminder of the experience but it enabled me to recreate the gorgeous deer I fell quite in love with. The almost stained-glass appearance digital art allows for makes it look so much like the original I feel it evokes the memory far better than the dodgy video! I think I used this for a birthday card, but can’t be sure now. Might have been a tag for a present.

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Hera

by Tori Wyatt. Jan 2019

Piece 2 from the archives

I’ve no idea why I made a drawing of Hera Syndulla from Star Wars Rebels going on a shopping trip with a tote bag with Sabine’s phoenix symbol on it. I just know that it was a big challenge to make her lekku look right.

Unlike the watch, I do remember making this one! In the months after getting my iPad Pro I tried to develop a new style to reboot my webcomic, which has been sadly languishing since 2012. The problems with my wrist cause me to be so slow and inconsistent my attempts never became more than just disappointing doodles. But the basis for what’s becoming the new comic is here already, an embryonic beginning to something new. I’d continue to struggle with how best to do the eyes until recently when I realised the simplicity of my established version is very much me.

I wasn’t happy with the results at the time, but five years after drawing this I can see it’s not as bad as the me of then thought. I present it proudly!

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Time

by Tori Wyatt. Feb 2019

I started a pretty (very) intense online art course this month and it’s left me with no time for making any other art than the pieces I’m doing for the course. This leaves me with little to share! So I thought I’d delve into the the past for things. I have very little in the way of finished pieces from the previous 9 years thanks to a serious wrist injury, but I do have a few bits. This is one.

I’d forgotten all about it until I began looking through my art apps! I made it in the first week or so of getting Procreate and it was part of my learning of the potential of the app. I have no idea why I drew a watch but obviously there was a reason at the time or I wouldn’t have finished it! As I write about it I’m starting to remember making it, but the why eludes me…

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Eleven by Tori Wyatt

On the 21st June 2015 I was watching Doctor Who. Specifically my favourite episode of Doctor Who, The Doctor’s Wife. Even though I’d seen it before I found myself captivated by a particular shot near the end of the episode, my artist brain firing over the cinematography and lighting. I hit pause and snapped a shot on my phone, thinking I’d turn it into a piece of fan art. I kept revisiting it over the years, never confident enough to know what to do with it.

Until now.

It’s an experiment, and my first time painting digitally and freehand (I’m far more accustomed to painstaking sketching and planning) like this. For a first attempt I’m pretty pleased!

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Tulip Mosaic

by Tori Wyatt

This happened to me more than by me. I was watching an archaeology documentary where a Roman mosaic was uncovered. I’ve always been fascinated by mosaics but haven’t tried making one since I was a kid with a packet of geometric stickers! My iPad was right there and I just wanted to draw some squares. I had no direction in mind, simply went where I went and this happened. I found myself looking at a tulip with the sky and bright sunlight behind it. It’s not the kind of art I’d usually make and yet I find myself liking it a good deal. It’s bright and cheerful and quite abstract. A real departure for me, but that seems to be happening a lot lately! I hope you enjoy!

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Solar Eclipse

by Tori Wyatt

I’m in the wrong place to get to see the solar eclipse today but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it anyway! I love astronomical wonders and this is my representation of the Diamond Ring phase.

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Wood & Pebbles

by Tori Wyatt

Part of my Brighton series – you can find my first piece, West Pier pt 1, in my blog. Pebbles in a sleeper found on the beach.

I’ve walked over these sleepers many times without stopping to admire the way the pebbles gather in the texture of the wood. I guess the light must have been just right to make it jump out at me the day I took the photo that inspired this piece. Having said that I’ll go through all my old photos one day and find years of pictures just like this!

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Asajj Ventress

In honour of her appearance in episode 9 of the final season of The Bad Batch, I decided to draw Ventress. I loved seeing her again and thought her bounty hunter outfit was very cool. Great fun to draw.

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The West Pier by Tori Wyatt

This beautiful and run down old girl has been my fascination all my adult life and while I’ve written short stories featuring it this is the first real artwork that I’ve done with it as the focus. (I don’t count my beach hut gallery as a pier picture!)

This is one of those rare moments where what I saw in my head matches what I actually created. Please forgive me for not depicting the pebbles and making it look like sand – I didn’t want the piece too cluttered.

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“The Primrose Dragon” by Tori Wyatt

She slumbers through the winter, her bedraggled scales a sorry sight of tatty brown and yellow. As the sun heats the earth her blood warms and colour floods her form anew.

Soon the primrose dragon will fly.

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Been thinking, ever since I saw the Bad Batch S3 trailer, about how uncomfortable Rex might have felt stopping wearing his pauldron. I can’t help but think he wouldn’t have given it up lightly, what with it saving his life on Saleucami and being such an intrinsic part of his identity. So I came up with this little moment where it’s broken and he’s adjusting to life without it, flashing back to getting shot because that has to have lingered all this time.

Takes a bit of getting used to seeing him without it…

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Who doesn’t love a houseplant you can’t kill?!