Day Sixteen

Good morning :D

Today I have for ya another coffin trinket box. This one is completely woodburned, no paint or ink.

PRECIPITATION 🌧️

Original trinket box available in my shop: https://novastardust.com/originals/precipitation

The design on this box is based on a henna painting of mine from 2017. I like that the color is so similar using a completely different process.

I’m off to an important meeting with an entire pizza, see you all tomorrow with a cute little graphite drawing!

:):):)

Nova

Day Fifteen: October Art Challenge

Good cloudy day to ya! Here’s a sunny rainbowy piece to open up your sky. I had some more matte and frame painting fun on this one. The matte is watercolor with black ink and gouache speckle, and the inner edge of the frame is painted with gold ink.

TINY SPECTRA 🌈

Original framed watercolor painting available in my shop: https://novastardust.com/originals/tiny-spectra

Re-painted from this watercolor lady “Spectra” from 2016

Had a beautiful cemetery walk this morning whilst stuffing my face with Cakerino bagel & donuts. See the ghost squirrel?? I need to bring it gifts so it likes me. Also interested in befriending crows…I heard that if you make friends with one, eventually they will bring you gifts!

I’m looking forward to tonight for two reasons: Scoping out a patch of bioluminescent mushrooms when night falls (on what I just found out was national Mushroom Day) and the Season 3 premiere of You!

See y’all tomorrow with a woodburned piece :)

XOXO

Noooooova

Day Fourteen: October Art Challenge

Good mornin’! I had some fun with this thrifted wood frame last night. The matte came in a neat oval shape, but it was a musty blue color that wouldn’t really lend itself to my bright or black and white art. I first painted it all over with black india ink, then spattered it with gold.

STRAWBERRY BLINK

Framed and handmade matted black & gold ink, white gouache and red watercolor piece available in my shop: https://novastardust.com/originals/strawberry-blink

These are a few strawberry print pieces I’ve made in the past; there have been more, but these were Valentine cards from last year! I love to paint the seeds metallic gold or silver.

Strawbaby doin’ it’s work. I think my seeds are on the outside too, how about you?

See you tomorrow with another framed piece with a custom painted matte!

XOXO

Nerva Sterderst <3

Day Thirteen: October Art Challenge

Good eve! Craig and I just got back from our oh-shit-the-sun’s-about-to-go-down walk.

Today’s re-make is from a pastel pencil drawing in a 2018 sketchbook. I went with different mediums this time; oil pastel (which I have on hand but almost never use for no reason) and woodburning on a coffin trinket box. I only have one box left, I’m going to have to see if there are any more at the art store!

SUNROSE box

Original trinket box available here in my shop:

The original drawing

As a work in progress but almost finished, wanted to show ya the oil pastels.

See yas tomorrow, hope you’re all well!

Thinkin’ to do another woodburning for tomorrow’s.

XOXOXO

NoVa

Day Twelve: October Art Challenge

Good evening!

So…my first wave of burnout has arrived. It happens every time I do this challenge. It’s like a race, start with a burst of energy, lose steam, then second wind. In the past I have 1. Given up completely (when I was an inktober rookie), 2. Continued the challenge throughout the year taking entirely too much time to complete it, 3. Taken a break day or 4. Make more simple, less time consuming pieces until the second wind comes. I’ll make a decision tomorrow- definitely 3 or 4! I’ve got no quitter blood left in me.

Today’s redraw is from a somewhat recent sketchbook, maybe last year. Please meet…Bratz doll in a kelp forest!?

KELP ME

Watercolor & pastel pencil

Original painting available here in my shop: https://novastardust.com/originals/kelp-me

See you all tomorrow!

:):):)

Nova

Day Eleven: October Art Challenge

Good late eve to ya!

Today’s piece is another remake of a doodle in one of my childhood sketchbooks. I got a timestamp on this one! ‘96; I was 9 years old. Wizard rams FTW!

STARMAKERS

Watercolor & pastel pencil

Original framed painting available here in my shop: https://novastardust.com/originals/starmakers

Need to catch some z’s and stars and count the rams <3

See yas tomars!

XOXO

Aunt Nova

Day Ten: October Art Challenge

Hello hello!

Today I was feeling like working with a new medium for a change. Every October I grab a few of these little coffin boxes to work with. For your marbles. I didn’t feel finished with the cactus/star halo theme, so I ended up woodburning some of those onto the box. The sunset is watercolor, the rest is ink and it’s sealed with a protective spray.

SAGUARO SUNSET

Original trinket box available here in my shop: https://novastardust.com/originals/saguaro-sunset

They have my soda pop at the Italian deli again! Special thank you to my husband-unit for keeping me caffeinated and choculated this week.

I’m going to do a little cleaning before I start tomorrow’s piece (I have the inability to be clean and make consistent art at the same time), but I’m thinking either a. more coffin b. more cactus or c. more creepy water nymphs.

Until then!

XOXONOVA

Day Nine: October Art Challenge

Good day! It’s a cloudy Saturday, and the bed was feeling reeeeeally comfy this morning. I had started the sketch and background for this one a couple days ago and let the salt textured background to dry. Since it wouldn’t require any messy paintage, I thought it would be the perfect piece to make whilst being a lazy sack of fairy dust under the covers. I used India ink for the background, markers for the sword, a fine tip black pen for the outline, a gold paint marker for the moon & white pastel pencil for the highlights and stars.

LUNA SPADA

Original framed painting available here in my shop: https://novastardust.com/originals/luna-spada

Sittin’ pretty in its gold speckled desk frame! Office, bedstand, alter anyone?

Teeny tiny original sketch this was redrawn from. The dagger looks more like a doopy little screwdriver, so I was pretty happy to beef it up a little. I like this little ghosty fleurish underneath as well.

I’m not exactly sure which one I will make next for tomorrow; I’m leaning towards woodburned coffin cases! But we shall sea.

Until then!

XOXO

Novaaa

Day Eight: October Art Challenge

Good evening! I’ve got another creepish eyeball painting for ya.

Another sunny day outside, so I painted today’s piece on the porch again. The sun was really useful to help dry this very watery piece. The background texture was made with course salt granules left to dry into the paint over last night.

MONSTEREYES

Watercolor & gouache

Original painting available here in my shop: https://novastardust.com/originals/monstereyes

Thank you for looking back at all my eyeballs looking at you and I’ll see yas tomorrow for the next one!

OXOX

AVON <3

Day Seven: October Art Challenge

Good evening!

Just a super quick bloggy today because I am so sleepy! Made entirely too much art today, lol. Finished 2 commissions in the morning, ran to the post office to ship an order, started two paintings intended for today and once I realized they were not going to dry in time, started this one! Oh and shoved a bunch of flautas de papa in my mouth (Thank you El Patron!!).

LURKY WATER

Watercolor, black and silver ink

Original painting available here in my shop: https://novastardust.com/originals/lurky-water

This rich turquoise is one of my favorite colors of all time. The colors I mix from my watercolor set are peacock blue, sap green and indigo.

Here’s the very simple and scribbly original sketch (and what appears to be a frilly gumball machine):

Before I go, I want to dedicate today to my grandma Lucia (Lucy) who passed today 4 years ago. I miss you very much and I hope you’re in the sky with diamonds!

__

Have a good night everyone and I will have a botanical and spooky painting for you tomorrow at a less ungodly hour!

XOXO

Nova

Day Six: October Art Challenge

Good evening! Another late night post because it was dog food day. I cook my dogs their food from scratch, so it’s a whole production from grocery shopping to cooking for a couple hours. But it’s so worth it, they love it and are super healthy doggos. It was nice and summery out today with no wind, so I painted some of today’s piece from the front porch. I love painting outside so I can see the true colors of the paint. All of a sudden I had a new flower in the garden! My ma says it’s a zinnia. I love it. I found this awesome kind of fungus, Bird’s Nest Fungi growing on a little chunk of my mulch! I couldn’t get a proper photo, but inside those little bloops are a bunch of tinier bloops that look like eggs in a nest. Lastly, today’s Chaka den photoshoot. Onto the painting!

ZOMBEYE ROSE

Watercolor and pastel pencil

Original painting available here in my shop: https://novastardust.com/originals/zombeye-rose

As you will see with the original sketch, it began as all nature and whimsy and rosy pinks, but I decided it was time for a spooky monster painting for our October. What began as an innocent cactus hand has turned into a zombie hand eyeball extravaganza.

This original sketch in pastel pencil has many natural elements within the palm. This is something I’ll play with further in the future, but for this month…zombie palm. And again with the inverting; it looks so cooool!! Kinda tattooey?

Here is a little process painting video:

Thank you for watching, see you all tomorrow for the next one!

OH P.S. I bought TINY COFFINS for woodburning (as always) so maybe some re-burns?

XOXO

Nova * Dust

Day Five: October Art Challenge

Hello, no longer from the future, but from actual Day Five!

Before we begin, I have to share some very important doge-posting. I have discovered that Chaka really likes to be in this human-made blankie den. She slept in there alllll day bein’ a little rainy day wolfie gal.

Today’s re-draw is in pastel!

I loooove using pastels, maybe partially because I don’t really know what I’m doing so it’s a whole adventure. I have much less experience using them than I do with watercolor or oils, so this is newish territory. I wanted this to visually give warm earthy and firey feelings at the same time. A grounding passion? A growing ambition?

She’s called FOLIAGE & the original pastel drawing is available here in my shop: https://novastardust.com/originals/foliage

This one is framed!

The original Foliage sketch is from a little newsprint type paper sketchbook from 2018. I like the ghosty limbs, but I added some hands cuz I love giving drawings fancy nails. I used some chalk pastels I got at Arlene’s; I only picked a handful of colors that you see in the jar. It’s pretty expensive to get an entire set of good quality pastels so I picked some faves for now. I have a feeling I’m going to need a good set of greens though! The thinner pencils are Carbothello pastel pencils. Been addicted to those for years now and I do have a full set that was gifted to me! They are sold individually as well if you want to pick your faves. If you’re an artist and want to play around with materials, I highly recommend these.

Until tomorrow!

Cheers from my cider to your cider 🍎🍎

XOXO Nova

Day Four: October Art Challenge

Hello from the fuuuuuutuuuuure, from Day 5! I couldn’t work on yesterday’s painting until night time and needed it to dry overnight! Usually I’d use my blowdryer, but I couldn’t make the late night racket. I heard the internet was broken anyways. Here is Day 4!

SAGUARO NIGHTS

Watercolor & Ink

Original painting available here in my shop: https://novastardust.com/originals/saguaro-nights

The original concept is from a sketchbook from 2015. I remember how relaxing it was to melt the cool blues and greens into each other and pair it with the bold contrasting night sky halos. For the re-paint, I wanted to keep the concept and color scheme almost identical, and just have the craftsladyship be a little less lackadaisical. In real life, the finger halos are in shiny gold ink.

Here is a photo from the last time I went to Arizona, waving to a giant Saguaro cactus on a desert hike! I love any oversized nature items like cacti, trees, and mountains; they’re very humbling It’s good to feel smol and insignificant sometimes.

I have this thing where every time I scan and edit my art in Photoshop, I must invert the image to see what it would look like. Can we check out this twilight disco cactus!?? This makes me want to re-make the re-make, twilight style.

Come back a little later to see the Day 5 painting!

* cactus hand waves *

NOVA

Day Three: October Art Challenge (Also national "Mean Girls" Holiday October 3rd)

Hello hello!

Finishing today’s painting and blogging late in the evening because I spent the day with a couple friends galavanting at Indian Ladder Farms. The restaurant/cidery was super busy being a Sunday in apple pickin’ season, so we walked around the orchard and in the woods trails while we waited for our table. I ate a ground apple and found a mushroom the color of my dress! Our food was soooo goooood DROOL, we were all vegan so we got some dishes to share: an autumn salad, mango habanero fries, jackfruit bao buns and a massive pretzel with cashew cheese dip. I got a hot cider and the other gals got their raspberry cider.

Today’s painting is called Ghost Toast!

I found this little red pen doodle in my sketchbook from my last year of college, 2008. I was playing with the utensils in the kitchen to see what I could spell with them. I have a whole page of those possibilities, I’ll scan those for ya this week :D I must have seen the toaster next to them in the kitchen and decided to include it and an inhabiting ghostie friend. In the new painting, I had to give them a lil piece of tiny toast! My paintings love to snack, too.

The original painting is available here in my shop: https://novastardust.com/originals/ghost-toast

Tomorrow might be a late one as well as I have a super full day ahead. I’ll give you a subject hint: CACTI!!

I will see you all then, thank you so much for reading!

XOXO,

Miss Nova

Day Two: October Art Challenge

Hello from this summery fall day; Found this big ole pumpkin ‘n lil ole birdie on the roof on my lunch break 🐦 Went with a friend to a little food truck called Wren & Rail. Super cute patio with fire pits & lots of tofu options! Then, some Armenian pomegranate wine for painting fuel. I had it with some Italian orange dark chocolate. We love a constant stream of snackage.

The Queen With Fake Nails

Watercolor, black and silver ink

Today’s remake comes from one of my homemade childhood sketchbooks. I don’t have an exact date on here, but it appears that I must have been 3-4 years old. Here we have “THE QWEN WETH FACK NALLS” otherwise known as “The Queen With Fake Nails” lol! So, as I worked on the remake, I kept asking myself why this character seemed so familiar. Something about the crown. At the point where I am almost finished with the painting, I realize perhaps this looks like Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. I’ve never seen the movie “Maleficent” and I don’t think I’ve seen Sleeping Beauty since I was a kid, so I had gone through with the painting without looking at the character thinking it was just our O great Qwen weth the fack nalls. I look up the Disney character and the crown sure enough looks REMARKABLY similar, so I’m going to go ahead and say I was 4 years old drawing and watching scary toons! Also, check out the sweet outer space flare on the felted cover.

The original piece is available in my shop: https://novastardust.com/originals/the-queen-with-fake-nails

Thanks for lookin’, will see you all tomorrow for the next one!

xoxo NOVA

October art challenge Day ONE!

So here we art

UM I just accidentally typed that and I’m not fixing it!! 😈🎨

SO here we are, day one! Just to re-cap in case you missed it, I’m re-drawing sketches and concepts from all my old sketchbooks. I don’t have a time stamp on all of these, but I do happen to know this one is from 6 years ago. Since I only have less than a day to work on each of these, none of them will be any kind of photorealism masterpiece, but I am super excited to see how my skills/style have progressed nonetheless!

I remember I drew the original sketch in the car ride back from a Frida Kahlo show at the New York Botanical Garden. Needless to say, was feelin’ leafy!

I decided to put a spin on the background and use leaf printing technique with ink instead of drawing them in charcoal. The figure I did draw in charcoal and used a paintbrush and water to blend it.

The new original piece is available in my shop: https://novastardust.com/originals/seed-and-leaf

I mostly spent today finishing the drawing and doing some errands, but I did get in a little walk break to the Italian deli up the street. In a failed effort to grab a Manhattan Special (an espresso soda which I HIGHLY recommend if you can find it! Check your local Italian deli/bakery) I went for a Chinotto flavored soda. Chinatto is produced from the fruit of the myrtle-leaved orange tree!

That’s all for today, I’d love to hear what you think of the new drawing! I’ll see y’all tomorrow for the next one :)

xoxo

Your fairy art mother,

NOVA

It's the most wonderful time of the yeeeeearrrr!

Hello friends!

The next month is just about here, and like clockwork I will join all of the many artists around the globe in an October art challenge! I will make art piece every day of the month all of which will be available in my shop as originals as well as prints. The last day will be a giveaway piece!

Last year my theme was mythology from around the world:

AETNA - Sicily

PATASOLA - Colombia

MAMI WATA - Africa

For this year’s theme:
I have STACKS of sketchbooks going back to when I was 4 years old. I’m going to go through them and do a redraw/repaint of one each day.

Here is a preview of a work-in-progress re-draw in charcoal:

I’m excited to revisit past doodles and concepts & I hope you’ll enjoy coming along for the journey!

Sincerely,

Your fairy art mother,

NOVA <3 <3

Honest to blog ~ Gramless galavanting

This week’s art and nature adventures began with a trip to Kingston to see my incredibly talented friend Gülnar’s sculpture exhibition. It was only up for one more day and I would have kicked myself if I missed it; plus Gülnar and I hadn’t seen each other in over a decade! We met when I used to be a model for artists at the Woodstock School of Art in Woodstock, NY. She took some artistic license and was the only student in the class to take my form and turn me into Medusa! We really vibed, so we kept in touch online all these years. I grabbed my Albany bestie Sam and we headed down to meet Gülnar for some lunch, art, macarons, book browsing, and walking along ships down by the water. Pictured here are a couple of my favorites, “Attuning” and “Blue Origins: Comfort”. You can see more of Gülnar’s work here: https://gulnarbabayeva.com I highly recommend viewing her work in person if you get the opportunity!

My favorite season is here; hot hot hot and storm storm storm. The clouds and sunsets have been particularly beautiful. Took the doggos for a lilnsunset photoshoot walk.

My chanterelle spot has begun to pop! Took enough home to make a vegan New England style chanterelle (perfect clam sub) chowder. On top are some chives and chive blossom from my garden. In other garden happenings, our cactus bloomed its first buttery yellow flower! I’m still amazed that it makes it through the New York winters. The heat has also led me to some nice waterfall dips.

In arty news, I built a new companion rainbow rolly drawer tower to my existing rolly drawer tower. I had a lot of art supplies in a super old and farty falling aparty drawer stack, and couldn’t wait to get rid of that eye sore.

So I’ve been having this butterfly synchronicity thing going on lately. I was in an antique shop and found a super pretty olden and golden green butterfly necklace which immediately became my new favorite. The next day, I found a tiny gold butterfly charm on the ground. I also keep getting stuck in traffic behind this one car with a butterfly bumper sticker. As I type this, a song called “Butterfly” pops on from someone else’s playlist I’m streaming :D

I started playing on a canvas in oils with just a reference photo of a green butterfly and decided to combine that with the fireflies that have been gracing the gardens at night. Do you say fireflies, lightning bugs, or thunderbutts?

Either way, hope you’re all well & enjoying this dreamy summer!

<3 Your fairy art mother, Nova

New beginnings

Hellooo to everyone who has made their way here! Whether you came from my new mailing list or from my Facebook page, let me fill you in.

Before I had even heard wind of a flip-your-life-upside-down-and-inside-out style solstice coming up (and apparently some Mercury in Gatorate action to boot) I had been feeling the need to take a kind of scary but meaningful action in my life.

Something I had toyed with the idea of for quite some time but never thought feasible was getting rid of instagram. An app I have shared my work and life on for over a decade, which has introduced me to so many wonderful friends, fans, and fellow artists began to hold me down instead of boost me up. Their algorithms became a bit less friendly to the kind of content I share and many new platforms started to spark my curiosity but with the amount I created and posted for instagram, I couldn’t find the time to explore them. And let’s face it, I had developed a scroll-finger likened to a brick foot on the gas pedal. I wanted to convert my anxiety/doom scrolling into productivity.

But how would I keep in touch with everyone, how would I keep making and selling my art?? I began to read articles and watch youtube videos from many artists who took the same social media plunge. It started to feel a little more hopeful of a venture, and I decided to put my trust in the ol’ fairyverse. I was met with tons of support and agreement, and I was so relieved and touched that so many people signed up for my e-mail list to keep seeing my art making journey. And my unsolicited foraged edible mushroom bounties of course.

That being said, WELCOMEEE to my blog!! Revisiting this page on my website made me realize how much updating I’ve neglected, so I am also currently adding my art from 2019-present in case you just want to go into browse mode and look at my big booty fairy folk friends and rainbow merms.

I look so forward to sharing more art and thoughts with you all, thank you for being here!! Be well and stay cool

XOXO Your fairy art mother, Nova <3

Frida

Last month my family went down to the New York Botanical Garden to see the Frida Kahlo Art/Garden/Life exhibit.  I could never get enough of Frida's art, life, style, history, being. 

Oh Frida, you're so dreamy.

The garden at Frida's home in Mexico, Casa Azul was recreated at the NYBG.  It was a beautiful experience.   

Recreation of Frida's painting station nestled in her garden

Inside the conservatory

Sketching after a day in the gardens, full of inspiration

Some added digital color

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