Any Tolkien fans in the Netherlands/Belgium/Germany/Euregio, there's a fun event coming up this weekend in Baarlo (NL): Hobbit Feest! I'll be there with a stand selling prints, and doing a Fantasy art workshop on Sunday, 14.30.

Info (German): [link]
Info (Dutch): [link]

Programme (German) : [link]
Programme (Dutch): [link]


Secondly, thank you so much, all of those who bought a print from me! With your help, not only was I able to buy a top notch printer (Epson Stylus Photo R 2880) but also the first set of new cartridges - at nine cartridges, no small feat!

Great friends, great artists, great people:

I'm holding a print sale to help me pay for my new printer! For details, go here: [link]

Here's some of the images that are available:



Many more on the link above!


Thank you so much everyone who has already purchased prints from me! What I've sold so far actually covers half the printer!

The sale will last for two more days - get your favourite prints while you can!

Please let me know by mail if you'd like to buy a print, not by note or comment.

Great friends, great artists, great people:

Hey guys, if you're going to Ring*Con in Bonn thsi weekend, catch me at my stand! I'll be selling prints and I'll be holding a Fantasy drawing workshop on Saturday at 5 pm.

On Thursday night, I'll be on a chat with FangReaders (a fan art community) scheduled for 9 PM CET. To join, send an email to thefangreaders@gmail.com so they can send you the link to the chatroom!


... no, that was not the big announcement. Stay tuned...

Great friends, great artists, great people:

Have a look: [link]

If you feel you're desperately missing something from my work, leave a comment, and I'll consider adding it!

Great friends, great artists, great people:

I'm happy to announce that I will be at this year's Ring*Con [link], (5th to 7th of October), from Friday afternoon to Sunday. On Saturday, I'll be holding a workshop on Fantasy Drawing. The rest of the time, I'll be at my stand selling prints! Come and see me!

Talking about prints, I have been trying to set up something like a shop section on my website and I'm a total failure. I know there are ways to incorporate eStore or similar into Wordpress, but I don't even understand the tutorials - I start to think I have a different version of Wordpress. Maybe you need the Pro upgrade? Does anyone happen to know and would be willing to help? I don't even have a clue where and how to install the thing.

Lastly - I continue to be amazed at how my art-life has taken off this year. Exhibitions, a breakthrough of sorts in the area of Tolkien illustration, new friends in high places, so many commissions that I'm hard pressed to keep up, and so much publicity by you guys here on dA - it's amazing. I'd like to say a huge thank you to you all again, and I'd also like to ask you to forgive me if I can't keep up with comments. I'm still trying to answer everything I possibly can, but I find it increasingly difficult. If I don't reply to your comments, it's not because I'm snobbish or anything - just frantically busy.

That said, I have a nice little (or actually, huge!) announcement coming up soon, that one art-related, too. I know you'll love it. Stay tuned. ^^

As I'm setting myself up with new prints, I'm selling out the old ones I had made a while ago.

Each print is 10 Euros (check www.xe.com if Euro is not your currency) plus 3,50 shipping (no matter where you are or how many prints you take).

2 prints – 18 Euros
3 prints – 25 Euros
each print past the third – 5 Euros

Each print is A3 size, on heavy matte paper (except for the Oath of Fëanor; that's semi-glossy.)

If you're missing the newer ones – they'll be available soon, with nice passepartout, some with sketches in the margin or as special editions – stay tuned!

GONE
GONE
5 available
GONE
3 available
GONE
4 available
GONE
2 available
GONE
GONE
1 available
GONE
5 available

If you'd like one (or more), send me a mail with the names and number of the prints you'd like and your address! Payment is possible either through PayPal or Überweisung, if you're in Germany.

PLEASE NOTE: Some prints are going really fast! In order to determine who gets the last one, I'll take emails only, in the order they reach me. So hurry if you want one - and send me a mail to jenny at goldseven.de!

Back from the watercolour workshop last weekend, which was an absolute blast - thanks to
and Sarah Burrini!

It was two really great days with loads of exchange, learning and fun. I will post photos and videos (yes, made videos!) once I get back from Loughborough. In the meantime, you can see some of the results (also from older workshops) in this folder: [link]

The next absolute blast is set to begin tomorrow, when I set off for Loughborough, for the Return of the Ring event - with art show, panels, films, music, and generally five days of Tolkien.

[link]

If you're in England and you're a Tolkien fan, be sure to head over! The programme is so chock-full of interesting things that I almost regret being at my art stall for most of the time!

Edit Thursday: I've got Internet access here and wisely brought my netbook. If you like, read my blog on [link] about the Loughborough Experience!

Edit:

Wow! Thank you so much for all those wonderfully evocative ideas. A few rang with me more than others, and a few had already been on my mental list for a while. I've narrowed it down to:

Eärendil with bird!Elwing in his arms aboard Vingilot
A portrait of Beren (I've done Lúthien, but not him, since ... 1995 oO
Dagor Dagorath, with Túrin slaying Morgoth, the constellation of Orion behind him...
Ancalagon the Black


Possibly:

Arien and Tilion with the Sun and Moon
Maedhros and Maglor with Elrond and Elros
The death of Beleg
Nienor's suicide
Idril leading the fugitives out of Gondolin
Feanor glamour portrait
Maglor singing by the waves/fading
Fingon's battle cry before the Nirnaeth Arnoediad

So, I'll wait for serious inspiration to hit and hope the time until August will be long enough!

Thank you all so much for your ideas, even the unanswered ones. A lot of them will still be carried round with me, and over time the sparks may ignite into flames. I love you guys.



Original post:
I'm planning to do a few more Silmarillion illus. Maybe some of the more iconic scenes, rather than documenting the life of Maedhros the Tall in flip-book manner. Not that there was anything wrong with that, mind. But a few more iconic scenes, you know.

Why Silmarillion and not the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings? Because the feel for me is totally different. The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings are great books. The Silmarillion is my heart and soul. Plus, it's in its thirty-fifth year of publication and I'll be celebrating my twentieth year of being obsessed with it this summer. Reason enough.

So, if you have any ideas, please leave a suggestion!  Thank you!

Edit June 7

I won't be at the Tolkien event in Loughborough after all.

It's the days before term starts, and I have to be at my school.

Sorry if I got up any hopes besides mine.

Forgive me if I don't reply to comments at the moment. Life isn't very kind to me just now.
If you have a prayer to spare, incidentally, please send it along to ~Uneide. She's having her massive cancer operation today.


OLD POST

I have the pleasure (read: I'm jumping up and down with glee) to inform you that I'll be at this years Return of the Ring event in Loughborough, England, from 16th to 20th of August, 2012, alongside such illustrious people as Ted Nasmith, Anke Eissmann, Tom Shippey, and a whole bunch of other people whose names might mean something to you if you're into Tolkien.

[link]

Needless to say, I'm deliriously happy to be part of the event. I'll be part of the art show, I'll have a table where you can chat with me, get a sketch (maybe two if it's Maedhros you want), and very probably buy art prints and cards with my Tolkien art. This is the absolutely greatest thing that has ever happened to me, art wise. What a fitting way to celebrate twenty years of Silmarillion fan-ship!

Edit: Only one slot left! If you want it, send me an email!

Hey all, I've decided to hold another watercolour workshop this year, as several people have already asked. *cracks knuckles*

WHEN: August 11th/12th; one weekend (Saturday and Sunday); eight hours on both days (10-18.00
WHERE: Youth Hostel Aachen, Germany. [link]
WHAT: You'll learn the basics of how watercolour works, along with an assortment of colour theory, special tricks in watercolour, get the chance to try out different sorts of paint (I'll bring the docmartins), plus anything you'd specifically like addressed. The approach to watercolour you'll learn is very much lineart-based, so it's a good idea to bring some lineart with you (on watercolour paper).
HOW MUCH: 60 Euros per participant. The workshop fee covers only the workshop, not your accommodation or journey!
WHO: Anyone who reasonably thinks I can still teach them something about watercolour. Total beginners are very welcome, as are non-German speakers. I held the last workshops mostly in English, but either English or German is a must.

As of now, I'm just sounding out interest, so nothing's fixed. Just reply here if you're interested or would like to know more! If you're already sure you want to come, please send me an email with "Workshop" and your name in the title, along with the following info: name and nickname on dA/skill level in watercolour/languages spoken/vegetarian or other food specifics/email address (so I can copy them all into one word document)/anything specific you'd like to learn from me, apart from watercolour in general.

UPDATE: No more website help needed - several people mentioned wordpress, and it's got everything I need, gallery features, independence from Google, parent-able pages - and an "import" function for my entire blogspot content.  

And the possibility to enter the letter ë through the text editor. That alone did a great deal to convince me.

I'll be putting together my new wordpress site over the next few days, so stay tuned for the brand new GoldSeven blogging experience!



OLD POST:
First off, a huge thanks for all the birthday wishes, cake badges, points, llamas, actual gift vouchers and art you sent me for my birthday. I was floored. (And it seems my previous thank you journal was premature.) You guys r o c k.


Next, I'm looking for someone to help me with my website and/or my blog.

What I'm looking for:

My old website goldseven.de is horribly out-dated, and my blog has become my homepage of choice. There's one thing blogger lacks painfully, and that's a gallery tool. So what I need would be:

a gallery widget installed in my blogger design (I know there are some around, but I'm too stupid to understand how to implement them). A customizable gallery with unlimited images per item as well as unlimited sub-galleries would be heaven.

PLUS a simple redirect from my own domain, goldseven.de, to my blogspot journal, so that people don't get stranded in that old stuff.

OR

a gallery tool installed on my own website, which I could then use to upload pictures myself. I've found one called "4homepages" (or "4images") [link] which looks like exactly what I need, but I'm open to other ideas. As long as it's something that has an upload feature that I can use without having to program anything.

So, if you think that you'd be able to do this, please send me an email (not a note, those tend to slip me by) and tell me how you'd go about it (tell it as if you've talking to a monkey... I know that little about programming and such), how long it would take you, and, of course, how much you'd charge for it.

Thanks in advance!

Commissions are open - Tolkien themed only (though I might extend that to other "fandoms" I like - you know which they are). I'm sorry I can't offer open-themed ones right now; with school as busy as it is, I know I won't have my head free for anything else.

I'm also offering pastel paper commissions (like the ones I've done recently), which aren't as expensive as full paintings. Worth a look.

So, if you think you'd like a commission, check my rates and commission info [link] and drop me an email!

Time to say thank you - for all the love in the last month (front page at least four times)! I'm sorry if I haven't managed to reply to everyone who warranted a reply. I usually try to say at least "thanks" to everyone leaving more than a few words on my pages.

Thank you for all the support, the lovely conversations, and the helpful input on my blog - especially with that bookmaking endeavour.

Thank you for all the llamas flooding in recently - an upcoming birthday has become synonymous with a llama stampede

And THANK YOU, anonymous deviant, for the premium subscription - I'm really floored. Thank you so much!

As I read the Hobbit to my son, as Smaug lies buried under the waters of the Long Lake and as Elves, Dwarves, Men and Orcs are drawn to the Lonely Mountain by greed, I stumble over promo photos of the Hobbit [link] and am reduced to disbelief.


Of course, I should have known. The target audience are the "Lotr" fans, the ones who have never read the books (probably tried, but gave up after "Concerning Hobbits"), who can't even be bothered to spell out the title of what they call their favourite book (or movie), who whooped with glee when Legolas surfed down the stairs of Helm's Deep on a shield or when Viggo, Orly and that alcoholic of a Dwarf kung-fu'd their way towards Théoden, and whom Jackson expects to be clamouring for more of the same in The Hobbit. He couldn't have made it a children's movie, no, of course not.

Thus, those lovable, squabbling Dwarves, who have only bread knives (which they lose soon enough after their encounter with the Orcs) and bows and arrows (which they waste shooting after black deer in Mirkwood), are portrayed as literally armed to the teeth. What do they need a burglar for? What do they need Bard for? They can just walk into the Lonely Mountain and bash Smaug on the head with that armoury of theirs, and all his jewel-encrusted armour won't avail him anything.

They don't even look like dwarves. They look as my first RPG game master always imagined them- heavily armed and armoured, grim creatures. Those are D&D Dwarves. They have nothing to do with Thorin and Company.

And Kili? I can already see the slash fic that'll be written about him. Screwing Fili at the Troll cave, in Rivendell (probably as a threesome with Elrond), and of course all the lovely bondage they'll be having with Legolas in the Elven-King's halls - whenever he can spare a moment between washing and conditionering his hair! Expecting the first fanfics in... less than three hours! Hey, those things are quickly written. And the fanart's going to beat Haldir.

Consider this: In the Lord of the Rings, Jackson gave us Frodo, Gandalf, Galadriel, Gollum, and a good handful of other characters exactly as we'd all seen them from the illustrators that had given us Tolkien illustrations for more than half a century. And we loved him for it. And he was confident enough in this to still give them to us like that, and not say, "Everyone sees Gandalf with a blue hat, long grey cloak, long beard and staff! Hey, I'll give him dreads, a full-plate armour and a shaven chin, just to prove how imaginative I am!"

But now he's gone and done exactly that.

Sorry, PJ... but NO. Leave a good book alone, and stay WAY clear of all that disgusting fan service.

I'm sure he'll have moments of greatness in between there, even moments of grandeur as he managed to put into the Lord of The Rings. I'll probably enjoy parts of the movie. I do love the Lord of the Rings movies (a few well-planned toilet breaks at strategic points in The Two Towers help), and when I saw the promo pictures for the Lord of the Rings movies over ten years ago, I was absolutely crazy with enthusiasm. So this is not a routine exercise in book-to-movie bashing.

I wonder what they'll do with the movie title in German. The book is known here as "Der Kleine Hobbit" (The Little Hobbit), and that will definitely not fit for the movie...

PS: Everyone who said that it was necessary to make the movie darker and the Dwarves less Disney please explain Nori and Ori to me. Especially Nori's hair...do. [link]

There are photos from my latest watercolour workshop online on my blog! [link]

Participants were:




A few of the works that were made at the workshop:

The lovely *abasss from has published an interview with me in their blog "AquaTalk". It was loads of fun to do and you can find it here: [link]

I'm feeling like doing one or two Tolkien commishs, so if you're interested, please take a look at my rates and the formats I offer [link] and drop me a mail to jenny (at)goldseven.de!

Tolkien only at this time, please, though I might extend that to Harry Potter or Song of Ice and Fire.

Edit: All slots taken, thank you!

I've got a free slot for one more person at my watercolour workshop on 27th/28th of August! If you're interested, please drop me a mail at jenny(at)goldseven.de !

Info on the workshop in this journal: [link]

I'd like to say THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to all who swamped my inbox with the faves and comments yesterday for the Daily Deviation on "The Sword and the Harp"! It wasn't my first, but I know that this particular piece was probably the most deserving of the lot. A lot more than the Marauders, certainly.

Please forgive me if I don't reply to all of you who left your congratulations - or to all the nice comments on the "Jon Snow" pic and the photo of me (which garnered a lot of rather flattering compliments - thank you so much for those as well), which were completely lost under the pile of new messages. I'm completely swamped with school work at the moment and heavy-heartedly cleared my inbox of most of the comments today that didn't ask a direct question. But I've read them all and they're so appreciated!

(And they were a welcome excuse to break away from my marking class tests yesterday...  who wants to read shaky analyses of newspaper articles written in even shakier English if you just have to hit "refresh" for a new slew of comments saying how awesome you are? See. That's how I spent my Tuesday.)

Thank you all so much!