Yeah, I got a new Dover book for Christmas, called Medieval ornament, and its got tons of awesome ornamentation in it.

And I also got a blank sketchbook, so you know what that means...   :)

Link List

Published Books

• Celtic Knotwork Coloring Book

Art Prints

• Society6
• Spoonflower

Social Media

• Amazon Author Page
• Deviantart
• Youtube Channel
• Godtube Channel
• Artist Tumblr
• Art Tumblr
• Main Tumblr
• Picture Book Tumblr

Deviantart Group

• Ornamentation

This is a group on deviantart that I sort of manage but the artwork is (almost) entirely by other people.

And there's lots of wonderful art there so go and check it out.

Writing

• Upon The Deep (Poetry)
• Questing (Poetry)

Featury Stuff

So I got rid of the pageview counter on this site.  This is because I don't get a whole lot of pageviews.  Also I think it might count myself every time I get on here and I think half of those views are just me (or my mom).

However I want all of you to know, individually, that if you have ever visited my dumb blog here you are much appreciated.

Merry Christmas & God Bless.

Here, Have Some Poetry!

As the summer turns to fall,

It is best to stay at home.

Here and there are stormy squalls

And yet meandering we roam.

As the autumn turns to winter

And the rain disolves in snow

And we're feeling cold and bitter

Yet adventuring we go.

No cold treasure can replace

Cozy snoozing by the fire,

The smile of a familiar face,

Yet we go tramping through the mire.

Quester do you even quest!

What greater glory can you seek?

By going on this jesters jest

You will be dead within a week!

 This was for my NaNoWriMo novel, but it stands very well on its own.

Tangled Earbuds

Add caption

So I won NaNoWriMo again this year, and now I have another rambling, 50,000 word rough draft, in medieval fantasy that will take years to edit.  I also have time to untangle my earbuds, that got tangled from listening to all that novelling music.  :O)

I'm A NaNoWriMo Winner Again This Year!

So I did NaNoWriMo, again this year!  This is my second year doing it.  If you don't know what NaNoWriMo is, its National Novel Writing Month where writers from all over the world commit to trying to the write the rough draft of a novel, (the goal is 50,000 words,) in the month of November.

If you want to understand it your best chance is to go to NaNoWriMo.org, which is their website.

At any rate I finished today, a day early with 50,049 words and meanderous mountain of story that I will be trying to edit and cursing for its madness for years to come.

I know I will have a hard time editing it because I still haven't figured out last years NaNoWriMo novel!

But some day I will get one of these monstrosities edited to my satisfaction and published, (probably self published) you wait and see.  And then it will be glorious.  In the meantime thank you for visiting my blog!  ^-^

I Have A Spoonflower Store Now!

I now have a Spoonflower store:

spoonflower.com/profiles/jpmorrow

Which means I will soon have a huge selection of my own designs for sale as fabric, gift wrap, and wallpaper!

A Tree Is Nice

I painted this with oils, mostly a quick way to up my left over green paint from another painting I'm working on.  But I quite like it, it reminds me of a book: A Tree Is Nice, which is a beautiful children's book that I really enjoyed when I was little.

Some of my better photography

Just some photography by me.

(And like most of my images, They're also on my deviantart,)

Another Old Painting

Unfinished Goat Painting

Unfinished Rainbow Painting

Windmill Painting

 

 

 The four paintings on top are from years ago when I took a painting class or two with my beloved Grandma.  The one below I just finished today, I think it has a nice medieval fantasy look to it.

Cave Painting

So I've been messing around with watercolors lately, and this is my first attempt that actually turned out.  I've been playing around with watercolors lately in the vain hope that the increased evaporative quality of the water, will compete with my tendency to totally obliterate the paper.  The colors have more variety in them than I could reduplicate on purpose, being reconstituted accretions of previous experiments.

New Art Blog!

Now I have a new art blog, where I can share my artwork on tumblr.  Here it is:

jpmorrow.tumblr.com

This may seem pretty redundant because I already have plenty of other places to put stuff up.  But I've been on tumblr for a while, and have some feel for how it works, and probably have my largest following on there, and I have a feeling that if I ever create anything truly exceptional, (I haven't yet but I keep telling myself I'm going to), tumblr is where I'll go viral.  So I figure I've got the social media aspect of this nailed down tight.

So far I have 7 web presences!  The Magnificent 7!  Count em, there's this one, and the other six linked to on the right, (unless you're on mobile).

I won't have to come out with any more for years to come, which means I can now devote more of my time to actually being awesome, and creating artwork like I'm supposed to.

And a big heartfelt thank you to everyone who who follows me on the internet!  <3  :o)

Agapanthus

Agapanthus Sketch

 

An agapanthus sketch that I just did that I think turned out rather well, even if its just a pencil sketch.  Maybe I'll add some kind of color to it later.

Here's the original flower that I drew it from.

It had been a while since I had done anything in color so...

Celtic plant pot, in color

 Done with colored pencils.

I gotta be a bit proud of this one!

Kelltagram by myself on jpmorrow.deviantart.com

Celtic Bird, Snake, and Vegetation from my deviantart

Banned In China

So I'm a contributor for a new blog on tumblr that my sister tertiumkid started.  Its sort of a cross between a Pro Life blog, and a history blog, and its seriously awesome and you should go check it out!

Banned In China

Weekly Throwback

Reptile Cross - Color  on my deviantart

Updates

Take a last look at it cause I'm getting rid of my Etsy store in the next day or two.  This not only marks the death of my Etsy store, but is also the funeral of all my entrepreneurial endevours on the internet.

Although I might still write and maybe illustrate books someday.

Weekly Throwback

Pollywoggle 1 - Color

Pollywoggle 2 - Color

Pollywoggle 3 - Color

A trifecta of triple pollywoggles!! :)  All of which can be found on my DeviantArt page.

Updates

At one point I said I wasn't selling my prints on my DeviantArt any more.  I am now selling them on my Etsy store instead.  Because you have to pay to list products on Etsy I will not have all of my artwork on there, but feel free to leave a comment or message either on Etsy or DeviantArt if you are interested in purchasing anything.

Thank You!

New Artwork

Bird And Reptile from my DeviantArt

Another knot, finally.  One of my first designs combining different kinds of zoomorphs, I hope to do more in the future.

New Artwork

Lots Of Oxalis

Wet Oxalis

Taken a few years ago, but I just put them up on my DeviantArt.

Weekly Throwback

Reptile Braid

Weekly Throwback

Oxalic Gem

California Hills Springtime

This is the first one, there will be more.

Novel Illustration Psuedo-Extravaganza After Report

These are the only pictures I can stand to share, because I am really bad at drawing and most of them are even more unfinished.

As I said in an earlier post, I wanted to try out an idea I had for a contest similar to the famous event National Novel Writing Month, only with drawing illustrations for a story instead of writing a novel and I would try to do 50 illustrations in the month of February as opposed to writing 50,000 words in November, which, if a picture is worth a thousand words is a very fair exchange rate.  It has symmetry too, as February is one month in from the beginning of the year and November is one month in from the end.

So much for the theory, now for the practice, I finished the first 23 of fifty sketches and drew the frames for all fifty and it would take a hundred illustrations to get to the end of the book unless I scale it back a bit.

I did get some good drawing practice in though.  I'll figure out what to do with the psuedo-event next February.

Updates On Your Updates!

So last post I had a lot of ideas for updates and 'improvements' on my various websites.  I have thought about it a bit since then and realized that most of them are really stupid ideas and aren't really improvements at all.  So I probably won't be doing most of them.

So what did we learn from this?  Well it turns out that when I say I'm going to do something that means its probably not going to actually happen.  And I don't think that you, O reader, have any interest in hearing me go on and on about boring details of my web presences that may or may not actually happen.

So I will confine my statements to significant items about projects that are already well underway, like if I said, "oh I've got a new book out next week," or "I'm going to take up piracy and construct a zeppelin!"

You get the idea.

Some Updates

First: I am hard at work on my version of Novel Illustration month, where my goal is to do 50 sketches for my novel in the month of February.  I am keeping up with it and its a lot of fun (and work) and I will spread awareness and try to make it a much bigger (than just one person) event next year!

Second: I have been doing the calculations and I figure that I will have my medieval fantasy novel written and illustrated, self-published and promoted, by November of 2016!  In just 2 years from when I started it!  If it sells, I will try to come out with another novel set in that universe every 3 years or so.  If it doesn't, then that will be the end of it.

Third: Since this is Novel Illustration Month, I am really busy, but with the beginning of March, I will be doing a lot of changes to this and my other websites, with the idea of improving it on every level.  I apologise in advance if you prefer it the way it is and don't like these aterations.  The modifications are as follows:

• New awesome background and header images for this website.
• I will also start tagging my posts here.
• In the spirit of pruning back things that are neither profitable nor relevant, I will no longer link to that short story I have up.
• And probably not my Youtube channel, (and maybe not my Godtube channel).
• Nor either of my two blogs.
• My Etsy store will become a place where I sell all of my various kinds of artwork, not just my mathematical paper shapes.  So I will start by putting up prints for sale.
• I will also change the name of my Etsy store and come up with an awesome new header image for it.
• I will start a new tumblr blog, but this time it will be just an art blog where I put up my artwork. (tumblr is the only real social media site I feel comfortable on, I still don't really want to do facebook, or twitter, (and sure as hell not google+)).
• I will come up with contests and quizzes to try and get people to comment on here.
• My list of links to my other websites will also appear in my blogger profile, because I think that's about the only place where they show up on mobile devices.
• Come out with lots of new artwork.

I think that's pretty much it.  My goal is to come out with the new tumblr, and the new look, and the new stuff on Etsy, and the new artwork, and everything, all at once to fool people into thinking I know what I'm doing, and that way maybe someone will buy something off my Etsy store.  Feel free to leave leave comments below.

First Day Of NaNoIllMo

Today is the first day of February, which means that it is the first day of a completely made up event, which I have made up myself, and which I will be competing in, (and probably no one else because I haven't gotten around to spreading awareness, or starting a website, or anything), called NaNoIllMo, or National Novel Illustration Month.

My goal is to draw 50 illustrations for my story during the month of February.  Maybe I will work on the name, and rules, and finding out if anyone else is interested, and this will be an epic event next year, but for now I'm just going to try it out.

Celtic Bird

Drawn by me.

February is NaNoIllMo

I have decided that February is NaNoIllMo, or National Novel Illustration Month, where the goal is to draw 50 illustrations for a literary project, in a single month.

I don't know if anyone has thought of or done anything like this before, but here goes.

I might be the only one doing it because I just made it up myself and I haven't spread awareness or made it official or anything.  But I still think its a good idea.

The saying is that a picture is worth a thousand words.  So with that exchange rate 50 illustrations would be equivalent to the 50,000 words of NaNoWriMo.  Or, to put it another way, a word is worth 0.001 pictures and 50,000 words, has the same value as 50 pictures.

Having the event in February has a nice symmetry to it too, as November is the second month from the end of the year and February is the second from the beginning.

The literary project chosen for the contest could be your NaNoWriMo novel, a different novel, a children's book, a comic book, or anything.  Or you could begin with the illustrations and write a story around them later.

If this generates sufficient interest, I would be happy to do a kickstarter and start an official website and all of that.

I don't know about anyone else but I, for one, need a kick in the seat of the pants to actually do some drawing instead of sitting around with a pencil in my hand and a blank sheet of paper in front of me, and only thinking the illustrations in my head.

Cheers,

JP

Our Lady Undoer Of Knots by PortraitsOfSaints on Etsy

So I just finished marking up the first draft of my NaNoWriMo novel, and I still have absolutely no idea what I just wrote.  The plot is tied up in a knot and I don't know what to do with it.  So I've been praying to Mary as Our Lady Undoer Of Knots to help sort it out.  My sister of the same name is also going to be marking it up with her ideas of how the story should go, and then I'll start in on the actual editing.  Today I am also getting started on the storyboarding, because I really want to illustrate it as well.

So this is me.  With my NaNoWriMo winner shirt.  And my real Celtic sword.

Prints Vs. Reality

So artwork on my deviant art, which is the place where I've been putting up my artwork, such as it is, will no longer be available as prints, because nobody ever bought any (except my mom, thanks mom).  The artwork will remain, just not as prints.

My Etsy store, where I put up my geometric paper crafts will remain.  This is because I have recieved some interest in doing custom work.

I have a new policy however, that I do not do any kind of custom artwork for people apart from my geometric paper crafts.  There has not been any interest in anything else, but I also think it would be too soul-sucking to try conform my actual artwork to anything anybody else wants.

I believe the lack of symmetry....

...enhances the wild Celticness of it rather nicely.  I have many more Celtic knots on my deviant art

Happy New Year!

Or at least a survivable new year anyway!  I decided that the old year was defective so I sent it back to the store for a refund.  I hope to come out with more artwork and more beautiful artwork this year as well as put in a lot of work on my novel.  And I'll work on the look of my website and hopefully it will look less like the back end of nowhere and be more of a fun place to hang out.