Skipping Painted Stones
An entertaining art blog based in rural Iowa and written by author and artist Haley McAndrews.
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Tuck was tall for an earth fairy, standing at around two and a half feet tall. It was difficult to tell the tint of his pale skin and shaggy hair through the brown grease and gray ash that covered him from the tips of his pointed ears to his metal-clad boots. Nearly every waking moment, he wore a pair of dark, bronze goggles that he had crafted for himself years ago to protect his sensitive eyes. The goggles were on their sixth elastic strap; originally a bright orange, this strap was the same dingy tone as the rest of him. He wore a tan long-sleeved shirt, unbuttoned at the neck under a pair of dark brown canvas overalls. The overalls were clearly custom-made for him, with an unusual amount of pockets and loops. He filled them with bits and pieces of metal, screws, nails, washers, and various small tools. He never knew on a daily basis what he might find a use for, and so he preferred to carry a collection of supplies with him (even if sometimes his shoulders ached by the end of the day from the extra weight.) The street was filling up with a bustling crowd - humans, fairies, elves, and other unique creatures. Air fairies buzzed overhead, darting back and forth among the birds. Horses with riders and carriages cut through the current of bodies like boulders in a river. Standing next to the female water fairy he had met the day before, Tuck watched the crowd go past. They all seemed so busy. Everyone had something to do, somewhere they needed to be... except him. His stomach growled, but it was drowned out by the noise of the busy street. Tuck stumbled as a small green plant fairy collided with his knees. He peered down at it, covered in leaves and greenery. It got back to its... feet? Stump? Roots, perhaps? Tuck was sure there was some sort of foot in there, but he couldn't quite tell. Its face was round, with big emerald eyes and plump cheeks. It squeaked in surprise as it stared up into his huge, black goggles. He supposed he looked like some sort of bug-eyed giant to the young thing. Tuck crouched down in front of the child, shoving the bronze goggles up into his already messy hair to reveal large clean circles of skin underneath. The young plant fairy gasped as they came eye to eye. Her vine-like green hair trembled slightly. Tuck smiled, pulling a small lump of silver metal from one of his many pockets. He showed it to the little fairy, winked playfully, and began rolling and tugging on the metal. He used a combination of his magic and his oversized, powerful claws to form it into a clumsy flower with four petals and thin stem. He offered it to the child, who reached out only after their parent (Tuck wasn't sure of the fairy's gender, as they resembled a bush more than a male or female) nodded encouragingly. As the child grasped the little silver flower, their eyes wide with awe, Tuck nudged one of the petals with the tip of his claw, sending them spinning like a wheel. The young fairy's face split in a wide grin, and it bounced up and down with delight. The parent thanked Tuck and the pair continued on their way down the street. Tuck stood, replacing his protective goggles over his eyes as he rose. "What... are you?" the water fairy next to him asked in disbelief. Metal fairies didn't exist... Did they? "Oh," he chuckled. "I'm an engineer. If I had more time, I would have smoothed out the stem, maybe added a fifth petal. If I could hollow out the stem like a straw..." His voice faded from her mind. There's only one Engineer in this city, she thought as a grave chill ran down her spine to the tip of her finned tail. The Engineer of Death. 
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3/15/2025 1 Comment The Trouble with Kids and ArtIt's December 8th, 2024 as I'm writing this - very appropriately in my Moms Who Create Journal (unrelated, I only have about 10 pages left in it and I'm so sad about that!) (Also unrelated, what are my kids going to do with all my sketchbooks and journals when I die, because I have a TON!) Ok, ok, back to the point! It's December 8th, 2024, and I've just finished cleaning up our crazy mess of a dining room table (and the floor underneath.) It's been covered about 3" deep with plastic bags, markers, paint, brushes, colored pencils, glue, cut up and torn magazines, crayons, scissors, etc. because back in August I gave myself a crazy 14-day art challenge that I'm currently halfway through. I'll write more about the challenge itself later on. Between Jon and I, I am the strict parent. This may surprise you, it certainly surprised me, but it's true. Once when I was pregnant with Alex, it was Emma's bedtime. I told her when I was done going to the bathroom (which happened every 15 minutes at that point) we were going to brush teeth and she would go to bed. Everyone agreed, but when I waddled back from the bathroom Jon and Emma were sharing a bowl of ice cream that had NOT been there when I left! Five years later, if you ask my kids what I hate, they will probably tell you I hate messes. The sheer number of times I say "Clean up this mess!" probably rivals the number of times I say "I love you!" to them. As a disclaimer, my studio is the only room in our house that is in a constant state of mess and chaos, and I blame the fact that it's the random catch-all room. Also sometimes there's 6' statues in there.  This is basically a picture of the whole room. It took me a good 30 minutes to clean up the dining room this morning, including sweeping the paper scraps that had migrated to the kitchen and hallway, cleaning glue stick residue off the table. putting away all the supplies, and using rubbing alcohol to remove some permanent marker from the table. What started our art-full weekend was going to an artist reception downtown after work. No kids, just me meeting and chatting with other artists. It had been SO LONG wince I've networked just because. And I came home with creative excitement in my soul! So I got out some supplies (after the kids went to bed) and started collaging with my mom, who was visiting for the weekend. We had a great time, and some of the tension I'd been hanging onto eased. I was creating, and it was FUN. Fast forward to the next morning, when I wake to a chorus of "We want to make that kind of art, too!" Deep sigh. I love seeing my kids make art, but like with all things, if I'm helping them I'm not able to do it myself. Which is fine, except when I'm actually trying to get some art done. Like when I'm painting a statue that has a deadline, and my girls want to paint at the same time.  My toaster collage! So I let them create. I gave them the scissors and glue and set them free. I was able to do a bit of art alongside them, which made it even better. They kept coming back to their projects throughout the weekend to do more. It left a huge mess in their wake. As I cleaned up, I chose not to listen to music or books. I just wanted to think about things as I scooped up tiny bits and crayons. A few days prior to this I saw a video of a woman complaining about the wreck in her house due to her kids' toys being everywhere in her house. She goes to work after making and posting that video - I think she's a nurse - and her work that day was with a little girl in home hospice, who had stopped playing with her toys... indicating that her health was declining and she would pass soon. The woman cried in the video, I cried watching it, and any second now Jon is going to notice that I'm crying as I write this (and then he'll poke fun at me about it!) The trouble with kids and art is that there's always a mess left behind! And as I've mentioned, I hate messes. But the mess I was cleaning up was the leftovers of a weekend of art and memories made with people that I love. Cleaning up the mess was less work and more of a chance to live in the moment and reflect on how lucky I am to have this mess to clean up.
When my girls see me creating art, they are seeing their mom fulfilling her dreams and making her passions a priority. When my girls as to create art themselves, they are asking to do the exact same thing. Am I going to revel in every single mess that my children make? Of course not. Will my kids remember that I didn't make them pick up after themselves this time? Oh please, they've already forgotten that there was a mess there. But I sure appreciate the lesson for myself this morning. (And Jon never noticed me crying, ha ha!) Last year, Jon and I went on a rare, kid-free, date night in Omaha. It was my job to plan what we were going to do, and I was pretty much at a loss - until the good old Facebook algorithm came through for me and suggested the Verse Immersive experience at the Amazing Pizza Machine in Omaha, NE. When I asked him if he wanted to go to the Amazing Pizza Machine, without our children, Jon asked me if I was serious. Yes, I was, and he was totally down for it too! We made plans to go eat a ton of food, then do two of the Verse Immersive Experiences. We decided on the Star Walk and the Art of the Future (of course!) Before I get into the Experiences, let me explain what Verse Immersive is. It's not virtual reality, which completely blocks out your view of the room around you. They call it "augmented reality," which still uses a headset but projects 3-D images on top of the darkened room you are in. So from the outside looking in, there are a bunch of strangers in one room, all with headsets on, wandering around with their hands out (you can interact with the 3-D images with your hands and by aiming your viewpoint.) The headset plays sound and music just for you, so everyone in the room can be doing their own separate experience. I thought Jon and I would be working together, but we were actually doing our own thing in the same room. Plus, you can still see all the other people around you in your peripheral, so you don't run into each other or the wall. We started off with Star Walk, which is educational about space and our solar system. Each experience is about 20 minutes long, and about 5 minutes into Star Walk my headset quit on me. The two teens running Verse Immersive basically said "Sorry about your luck" and were going to have me stand in the corner and watch Jon wander around, but when I pushed them with a "I paid for this, can't you do anything?" they restarted my headset and I jumped back in. The second experience, and the one I was most looking forward to, was the Art of the Future. The description from the Verse Immersive website says, "Art of the Future is an immersive augmented reality (AR) art gallery which brings you into the future of art! Wearing Augmented Reality glasses, you'll walk around the room discovering groundbreaking artworks that push the boundaries of imagination! Explore the latest trends in digital art, virtual reality, and interactive installations, and learn about the techniques used to create them. Test your knowledge to see if you can spot the difference between famous art pieces, pieces from up-and-coming artists, and AI generated art. Date night, family adventure, or solo excursion - Art of the Future is great for all ages and all groups of people!" Sounds super cool, let's do it! When we told the teens that was the next one we wanted, they said "Are you sure?" Now, we may not encourage interest in the arts in our country as much as we should, but could we maybe not actively try to discourage it? Yes, I am sure. Give me ALL of the arts experiences! I'll admit that we both ran out of time before we could fully complete the Art of the Future experience, so I'm not sure how it ends. I have mixed feelings about it because the experience was like a gallery space with a series of pieces of art, and you were supposed to guess if each one was created by a professional artist, and emerging artist, or by AI. The whole experience had a very pro-AI generator message, which was really disheartening as a human artist. I wrote a post a while ago about AI generators, and now that they have been out for a few years now, and have largely been used in immoral, copyright infringing ways, I am extremely anti-AI. To the point that we watched "The Creator," a movie where a man tries to save an AI child, and I felt nothing. (If you didn't know, I cry whenever I watch the Paw Patrol movies with my kids and just last week I teared up during a 20 second Uber Teen commercial, so it doesn't take much to turn on my waterworks.) A pro-AI movie? Nothing. Overall, would I recommend Verse Immersive? Yes, I would! The augmented reality technology is very cool. However, I would like to see the Art of the Future encouraging more contemporary art made by actual artists, and less focus on AI-generated art theft. Maybe the writer(s)/designer(s) could have consulted with a few galleries or artists to get a less biased message. I'm all for technology that makes our lives easier or better (we love our robot vacuum, Rosie!) but I don't want technology to replace or destroy the value in human touch and creativity.
I whole-heartedly believe that ANYONE can be an artist, but the theft of art with AI generators isn't the way to do it. 1/15/2025 1 Comment The Value of Fan ArtFan Art!? Yes, this post is all about fan art and why I believe it's a valid art form. My own creative journey began with fan art and fan fics. The definition of fan art, according to Merriam-Webster, is "artwork based on popular works of fiction (such as books, movies, etc.) that is created by fans." Fan fic, or fan fiction, is referring to "stories involving popular fictional characters that are written by fans." Basically, unofficial creative works made by fans. I know when I was younger I made A LOT of fan art, and even wrote some fan fiction. In fact, the name DemoniCat (the name I used to post my art under) was the name of a little cat-robot I had designed as a teenager as fan art for some anime show about fighting robots (that I cannot for the life of me remember the name of. EDIT: It was called Medabots!) I only drew the robot once, but the name stuck with me and I gave it to my original character, DC, who I still draw to this day. My biggest defense of fan art is that it can be a gateway (as it was for me.) Don't get me wrong, because creating fan art and fan fics is perfectly valid on its own. It doesn't need to be a stepping stone on a journey to "real art." The creatives who make fan-creations shouldn't feel pressured to "be more original." The creative works they make are already art, just because they were created. Seriously, think about the love, passion, and inspiration they have - enough to want to create their own versions. I drew many DragonBall Z and Digimon inspired drawings. My style of drawing is still heavily influenced by anime (I think? I'm a little too close to my own art to be able to discern my own style.) The stories told in writing and visually through fans can be incredible! I know I've mentioned before the incredible feeling when someone really connects with a piece of your work enough to say "This! I feel this!" especially when it's enough that they will pay money for it. Fans drawing, painting, writing about, or even dressing up as (that's right, I see you cosplay!) is like that special connection multiplied a hundred times! Here's an example:  My first year selling at Siouxpercon in Sioux Falls, SD, people went crazy for my toaster art! One family bought some of my work, then came back the next day to give me a marker drawing that their son made for me. It was my first toaster fan art and I nearly cried on the spot. His drawing is framed and hangs in my studio right above my table.  Here's another drawing of toasters by a young artist - my own daughter, Emma. I didn't ask her to draw this one for me, which makes it all the more special. I especially love that she drew all different sizes of toasters, and their curly, kinky tails are the absolute best!  This little guy was given to me by Ms. Chevious. I can't express how much I love it, she even made little fork trees and added winged little toasts! It lives on my desk at work so I can see it five days a week. It's right next to my beloved LEGO Bonsai Tree and terra cotta Bob Ross bust (formerly a disturbing Chia Pet.)
I'll admit I have a secret dream of my fantasy books becoming popular enough that other artists will create fan art of my characters. Until then, I'll keep doing my own and being absolutely thrilled when someone else loves my toasters enough to create their own versions. I'll also continue to accept pictures and videos of kids reading my picture books because that, too, is extremely heartwarming. 🥰 11/12/2024 0 Comments Cover Reveal: Eisdreya: Leaving Lazea
As foretold in a post earlier this year, I am finally tearing the dark curtains down to reveal to the world what I've been working on for a few years now - a series of short stories and novel(s?) set in the fictitious continent of Eisdreya!
After indie publishing three children's picture books and one illustrated haiku book (I like to say Toaster Haiku is for all ages) under my actual name, I wanted a bit of a separation between my illustrated works and my non-illustrated fiction (which is meant for an adult audience.) The solution? A pen name, of course! When I decided to use a pen name, I was torn on how much of a secret it should be. I mean, nobody knew who Banksy was for years! But on the other hand, I've seen books in stores that straight up say "Nora Roberts writing as J.D. Robb" and what's even the point then? I know authors use different pen names for different genres... And while I do have a paranormal romance that I wrote in college and would like to resurrect some day, juggling two names has nearly been too much for me to wrap my head around. Before I get too deep in my struggle of creative identities (let's be honest, it's probably a future blog post) I've decided that for my own sanity I'm going to be totally open about being both Haley McAndrews and D.C. McAndrews. My first official release as D.C. McAndrews is a short story titled "Eisdreya: Leaving Lazea". The main character is a female water fairy named Rema A'Lazea (Ree-mah Ah-Lah-zee-ah) who dreams of traveling and exploring the world outside her small woodsy river town. But if she leaves, will she be leaving more than just her hometown behind?
I created the cover myself - and it's been a long time since I've put this much time into a single digital piece! I didn't track my exact hours of work for it, but I know it was around ten or twelve hours, give or take. It's the first time I've ever illustrated dappled sunlight, which was definitely a stretch for my Photoshop muscles.
My plan at this point is to release my fantasy writing as ebooks with the possibility of print in the future, but let's not hold our breath on that. I'm going to release two short stories in the Eisdreya series in 2025, with the second one to be announced yet. "Eisdreya: Leaving Lazea" is now available for pre-orders on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc. as well as being released to digital libraries like Overdrive. The official release date will be March 4th, 2025. I'll also be selling prints of my covers at my in-person art events (signed by D.C. herself!) You can follow me as D.C. McAndrews on Facebook and Instagram, or sign up for the Red Stone Art Studio email list to be one of the first to know when I'm working on new projects! |
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