Playing around with a few ideas Zinc Cafe.
Tag: trees
Woolsey Fires
Trying to avoid the 🔥s’ on this Sketchy morning…thoughts & 💕 going out to all my neighbors affected by the #woolseyfire
Bare Thought
•Ishan Project: 341/24•
BARE THOUGHT
Resistance is pointless. After tomorrow, the vapor will be shipped all over the world, and there’s nothing you can do about it. 4bear still doesn’t know how I have been administering it. Don’t worry, I have no reason to keep it a secret. I will just tell you. Then you will know how unprofitable resisting it will be.
Think. Besides food shelter, and clothing, what commodity does this world revolve around? I find it amazing how the ‘powers that be’ have caused this world to be dependent on something which is unnecessary for sustaining life, oil. In my studies of the Ishan’s branches, I found they have an amazing ability to not only cause amnesia by neutralizing brain cells, but there are properties in their branches that are very adept at neutralizing emissions as well. Marketing my vapor as an additive to gasoline companies was a perfect stratagem. People use gasoline everywhere, and wherever gasoline is used, my beautiful, peace giving Sufna formula will be dispersed. Oh, and Anali, please thank our father for making all this possible. ~ Queen Chûndra
BARE THOUGHT / Collage, Gouache / 9″ x 12″
Thanks for all of your support this year!
Just wanted to take this time to thank everyone of you personally who’ve supported the Ishan Project over these past 11 months. Can you believe how quick the time has flown by? Your likes, shares & comments have kept this project continuing smoothly & have helped support the fight of 4bear.
Something odd has been happening lately. Now that we’ve entered the final 30 days of our tale, I’ve been experiencing some interesting disturbances as I try to post & upload things online. I suspect I know who’s behind this. We’ll have to wait and see. In the meantime Resist & Remember.
A Paradigm Sifting
•Ishan Project: 304/61•
A PARADIGM SIFTING
For weeks now they’d been studying her movements. The 4bearance watches this young woman as she plays her stereo. She displayed creative prowess with her fingers and her viewpoint had been so open. She would’ve been an exceptional candidate to join their team; more than worthy.
But regrettably, there wasn’t much that could be done for her at this point. The Bird Face Crew had already surrounded her modest home. 4bear watches in disgust as she succumbs to the affects of Chûndra’s vapor. She first shudders as it enters into her cerebellum. Then it’s absorbed throughout her body’s central nervous system.
Despite a new year beginning tomorrow, the right part of her brain, and her free will sifted into this dormant state.
A PARADIGM SIFTING / Mixed Media / 5″ x 8″
A Glimmer in Her Peripheral
•Ishan Project: 297/68•
A GLIMMER IN HER PERIPHERAL
They watched the drones exit the doors then Anali slid through an adjacent window. Once she crawls through the tight space, she notices a natural light cast a mysterious reflection on a wall nearby. She was amazed that despite the large amount of natural light coming in through the windows, the palace still remained very dark. She still would need to use caution so as not to be seen tracking through Chûndra’s new lair. Although her guards weren’t as plentiful as her last palace, they were definitely armed and trained for combat.
As she slowly climbs the staircase she first notices a familiar branch which had grown alongside the wall. She then searches for where it had originated. Something about the texture of this wood seemed so familiar to her. But it was as though there were two trees intertwined that had been growing. In the hallway, she sees a glass case. Once she laid her eyes on the source, the impact of what she saw knocked her to the ground.
A GLIMMER IN HER PERIPHERAL / Mixed Media / 5″ x 4″
A Habitat Made For Hiding
•Ishan Project: 296/69•
A HABITAT MADE FOR HIDING
After finding the old eucalyptus where Chûndra’s mother was buried, we expected to find her hideout. Nothing. So, 4bear devised a scheme to gather a few of The Flowers that Feed to bait the creatures she created to mimic our True Birds, so that they will lead us right to her. As we watch them flutter around the few petals, their tiny tongues begin licking the nectar from the flower’s base. Once their appetites were satisfied, they slowly drift away into the shadows. We began following them from a safe distance. These moths fly haphazardly into surrounding objects in a drunken style inebriated by the nectar.
As they dive deeper into the cave’s empty darkness, their wings echo against its’ walls creating a soft buzzing noise. Rïden had been the closest to them, but he underestimated how slick the cave’s floor had been. He slipped and broke one of his left branches. Once he gathered his bearings, his gaze drifts in front of him to a dim light. “Is that a window straight ahead?” he asks us.
A HABITAT MADE FOR HIDING / Mixed Media / 9″ x 12″
A Hurried Mimic
•Ishan Project: 295/70•
A HURRIED MIMIC
As the impostors gorged over soft petals that feed, they begin resonating its’ electromagnetic pulp. Preet was alarmed how the fur on their hind began glowing like Fireflies. This wasn’t an ordinary insect.
After a more thorough investigation, we now have come to the conclusion that the scientific name of the original insect was Macroglossum stellatarum a.k.a. the Hawk-Eyed Moth. However Chûndra took this beautiful creation and merged it with an extinct species of Cicada. This genetically hybrid species mimics the flight of the True Birds. One major difference is that when it sucks on the flowers sweet nectar, it greedily swallows everything, or produces oddly shaped holes in the petals.
A HURRIED MIMIC / Mixed Media / 5″ x 4″
Turned
•Ishan Project: 292/73•
TURNED
Chûndra watched as the heart of her mother began to break, but she had already been infected by her father’s lust. She couldn’t understand how her mother, with so much power, could be such a weak individual. What a waste of life to be waiting for a person who is betraying you. She watched as her mom took her last breath. Chûndra then turned her back to her and the eucalyptus trees.
TURNED / Mixed Media / 5″ x 8.5″
Collapsed Petals
•Ishan Project: 291/74•
COLLAPSED PETALS
He’d never let her in to his private quarters. He didn’t want her to find what his secret experiments entailed. So for years, Vale remained patient. Trusting him. Allowing him privacy.
Every day she would sit and watch the world from underneath their eucalyptus tree. She decided to allow herself to be excited about his experiments and his goals. If his experiments will work it would be worth whatever time she had been waiting. Even though weeks and months would pass by when he wouldn’t leave his lab, that would be such a small time in comparison to the time they would have ahead…If—no—when his experiments worked.
Then she realized he was experimenting on himself. He was so sick. He wouldn’t let her help him. Each year that would pass, her heart would tear a little more and a little more, as she watched him destroy himself. Finally, when news had spread throughout Ishandria that her husband, without her knowledge, had been performing ‘experiments’ to create a hybrid species of bird, Vale realized that none of that obsession was really about them and their life together as a family. It was about himself. His insecurity. He had forgotten all about her. She wasn’t important to him. And he wasn’t going to change. Chûndra watched her one day as she withered from a torn septum. Her grief had been so tangible it was as though the petals from her flowers slowly collapsed themselves over her lips.
COLLAPSED PETALS / Mixed Media / 5″ 9″
Requiem
•Ishan Project: 278/87•
REQUIEM
Now that they were fully grown, the larvae begin to molt to a pupal stage and have gone through a complete transformation. This process was accelerated when the 4bearance magnetized them hoping to stop or postpone their rapid growth. But Anali eventually stops once she sees that her efforts are futile.
She folds her limbs and watches the larvae take its’ first breath into its’ adult stage with a feeling of regret. The magnetism no longer was effective. We’d need to search into another method.
REQUIEM / Mixed Media / 5″ x 8″
Laughter In The Horizon
•Ishan Project: 264/101•
LAUGHTER IN THE HORIZON
As Chûndra gets closer to the young one, she grabs her purse and snatches a vial laced with a stronger dose of her sufna formula she’s been trying on some of the citizens of this small town. This wouldn’t take long, but…then she notices something that disturbs her. He’s laughing. In this small town where she has been testing out her vapor, no one laughs—as long as the vapor is working properly. What she sees next infuriates her. Somehow this little boy found a piece of chalkboard with chalk, and he’d been drawing something from his imagination. This is a threat. Only people with free will have an imagination, and no one in this town should have free will. She looks toward the horizon as she realizes that somehow those irritant flowers had affected more than the Western Hemisphere.
LAUGHTER IN THE HORIZON / Mixed Media / 5.5″ x 4″
Drizzle
•Ishan Project: 263/102•
DRIZZLE
Anali embraced the rain as the drizzle slowly pours down her upper extremities. Her leaves had already fallen now, but she enjoys how it feels when the cool water hits the bark. It’s all so rhythmic.
But a different noise is coming somewhere from a distance. First there’s a loud buzzing. Then it softens like static.
DRIZZLE / Mixed Media / 5.5″ x 4″
Bend
•Ishan Project: 250/115•
BEND
You can hear Preet’s limbs bend as the wind blows roughly across the hills of San Francisco. Brine’s plan to manipulate the Sun-Eaters was strategic. 4Bearance discuss their strategy as the fog begins to slowly creep into their peripheral. It will be easy to bait the bird, since there hasn’t been a field of flowers planted all together in a while. The bird must be pretty famished by now. So naturally, the first thing they will do is plant some seedlings grouped massively together. Then they will need to use the erythromycin to get rid of its cloak of light bending sun eaters. That will expose the Bird’s feathers making it visible. After that, there hopefully won’t be a problem catching it.
BEND / Gouache, Chalk, Graphite, Color Pencil / 5.5″ x 8.5″
Ishan Project Begins: The Awakening
•Ishan Project: 1 /364 •
Due to a mysterious occurence, mankind’s memory has been wiped clean of a group of people that look like us but whose extremities streach to the heavens like branches from a tree. Through a series of Art projects for the next 365 days, Leah Smithson is documenting her investigation of what this occurrence actually was. In addition, she is creating a visual anthropologic documentary of the Ishan’s story and history. Resist + Remember. Follow this compelling story through pictures and interviews of the Ishan.
THE AWAKENING
There were two storms. The first, happened 774 C.E. This storm, while putting the Ishan to sleep, gave humankind amnesia. May 7, 1988 the second storm started coming in waves creating an unsettling condition in the earth. And so begins the awakening…
THE AWAKENING / Charcoal, Pencil / 9″ x 11″
1 Day Until the Ishan Project Begins
One Day Until the Ishan Project Begins. Get set…
Sign up to Follow this epic tale at http://leahsmithson.com/blog.html
4 Days Until Ishan Project Begins
4 Days Until the Ishan Project Begins. Materials: Ready. Sign up to Follow this Gripping Tale at http://leahsmithson.com/blog.html
5 Days Until the Ishan Project Begins
Sketchbooks: Ready. Sign up to Follow this Gripping Tale at http://leahsmithson.com/blog.html
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