Sofonisba Anguissola (Italian, c. 1532 - 1625): The Chess Game (Portrait of the artist's sisters playing chess) (1555) (via Wikimedia Commons)

As a woman, Sofonisba was barred from the life studio, a restriction sh side-stepped by using herself and her family as subjects. Her most famous painting, The Chess Game (1555), is a wonderfully vivid and affectionate portrayal of her sisters, accompanied by their maid, Giovanna, playing chess -- a game considered to be both intellectual and strategic, attributes not often associated with women at the time. Bejewelled in gold and pearls and dressed in costumes more extravagant than the girls would normally have worn to play in a garden, it’s clear Sofonisba wanted to honour her sisters’ beauty and lively personalities, while demonstrating her own dazzling gifts. Perhaps she was also aware of how ground-breaking her homage was: she was the first artist to portray her family as a primary subject. Her younger sister, Europa, smiles broadly at Minerva to her left -- in itself a radical gesture, as such levity was not considered decorous. Minerva is seen in profile, but her right hand is raised, as if in mock surrender to her superior opponent. To Europa’s right, Lucia, the older sister, looks directly out at us, faintly smiling: her right hand moves a chess piece, while her left holds a captured queen. The five hands we can see in the painting are all active: holding, moving, raising, touching. It’s a rare, playful image of girls employing their wits against each other and having fun. The scene is set in a garden to a backdrop of a misty, mountainous landscape. As the landscape around Cremona is flat, we can only assume that Sofonisba was dreaming of future journeys to distant lands.

Jennifer Higgie, The Mirror and the Palette: Rebellion, Revolution and Resilience: 500 Years of Women’s Self-Portraits

easily one of my favorite character designs ever

What is your desire?

"Lotta true crime" palette for the butcher gang member(s) if you draw them? (both toons OR corrupted)

decided to do both sets :P i think it came out pretty good!

the butcher gang with lotta true crime

⧼⧼🎀⧽⧽ A broken mirror.

( That was the color palette I used for the drawing.)

So uh guh here's my 2nd project for my Digital Imaging class wheeee. God I made Crowbar look too Irish here (weeps) but uaghhhh it's done!!! I drew the sillies!!!

The paper is 17 x 22 inches and glossy or something like that so the photo I took is kinda wonky since the lighting would reflect too much off of Snowy

Also my professor was like "I wouldn't trust this man, with his crowbar and that bouquet. She looks like she calls the shots though. What's that cone thing she's holding" and then I got to tell him some tidbits like how that's a lancet and then how Crowbar's name is exactly that and that he's the most sensical out of the group teehee and my professor just went "well he's probably knocking sense into the others! Literally!!"

some small details i love but didn't love drawing

daffodil: unequaled love, hope, "the sun shines when i'm with you" wisteria: never-ending love, devotion that transcends death

✨ turning fanweek ✨

day 2 flowers | sickfic | soulmate au

open for better quality | no reposts

Wisptober Day 21: Shard

 "In the castle, there is an old shattered mirror that the owners never took down.  In its shards, you can catch a glimpse of the last moment of your previous life."

Another day where I post close to midnight! 

space marbles!

What I long for is the freedom of going about alone, of coming and going, of sitting in the seats of the Tuileries, and especially in the Luxembourg, of stopping and looking at the artistic shops, of entering churches and museums, of walking about the old streets at nights; that's what I long for; and the freedom without which one cannot become a real artist. Do you imagine that I get much good from what I see, chaperoned as I am, and when, in order to go to the Louvre, I must wait for my carriage, my lady companion and family?

Marie Bashkirtseff (Ukrainian, 1858-1884), quoted in Jennifer Higgie, The Mirror and the Palette: Rebellion, Revolution and Resilience: 500 Years of Women's Self-Portraits

You ever think about how purple Testament kinda looks like willy wonka i have been debating making a willy wonka skin for them because of this and I feel perturbed. I would say this is a confessional for me but I'm not even Christian I just need to share my willy wonkament agenda.

Admittedly my reaction to ourple testament is more Awooga than Wonka but i suppose i see the vision. Scary. Scary. Scary. Scary

Happy Birthday Cody?

it's April Fool's Day, but the joke was never funny in the first place

also upcoming spoilers for TD Monsters but don't worry about it

been rewatching steven universe lately heres some lapisses

Kirby & The Amazing Mirror turns 20 today. I drew a little something to commemorate it.

Sentimental old person rambling under the cut.

Amazing Mirror is my favorite video game, and it is one of my earliest video game memories. I played it before my sister was born, and before I could even READ. I distinctly remember calling it "Rock Hat Game" (referring to the stone ability) before my mother corrected me. For those unaware, the unique thing about this Kirby game is that the game lets you explore the Mirror World and beat the bosses in whichever order you want. This game was full of mystery to me as a child. This was before I had internet so I couldn't just look anything up. I was always wondering what I would find next. I spent HOURS trying to find rooms I hadn't been in yet, believing they held the most incredible secrets (a child's imagination is very powerful.) I believe I got my first glimpses of the final boss when I was around five or six years old. I remember Dark Meta Knight frightened me because of how fast he moved, but I loved the music that played when you fought him, so I'd leave the game paused just to hear it (too frightened to unpause it or else Dark Meta Knight would whoop my ass lol. Does anyone else remember holding the GBA speaker up to your ear to hear the music? I remember listening to the Candy Constellation theme like this.) Something this game is infamous for are the NUMEROUS times you have to beat the final boss, Dark Mind. I managed to get to his second-to-last phase, the giant eye, when I was six or seven or so. If I had to beat his first form four times, I wondered just how far it would go. I distinctly remember having a dream that some sort of mouse boss emerged from the eye (funnily enough, I got Squeak Squad for Christmas when I was nine.) I beat Amazing Mirror when I was eight years old. It was a Friday afternoon, and I was so excited to finally beat the game that my legs went numb lol. Fast forward a little to when I was twelve or so, I started trying to get 100% completion. This involves entering every room and getting every treasure. I know this game like the back of my hand now. When I was thirteen, I wanted to see how quickly I could beat it after watching speedruns. I can beat it 100% pretty quickly now. It's a game I like to play for my friends because I can beat it quickly and without dying.

The drawing above hardly begins to fully encapsulate how much I love the game, and I struggled trying to think of a drawing that could truly show my appreciation. In the end, I went for something rather simple. Emerald is my favorite spray paint color, but if you asked younger-me, I would have answered "Ocean." I was totally obsessed with finding all the spray paint colors, and I remember turning the game off and on to switch the colors to see how they'd look with the UFO ability. If anyone has read this far, tell me what your favorite spray paint color in Amazing Mirror is in the tags if you'd like! Also, the level backgrounds are absolutely beautiful in this game. They look like paintings, and I wonder if any high quality, non-GBA-compressed versions exist. The light blue Peppermint Palace background is my favorite (it's also my header.) Let me know what your favorite level and/or level background is as well. I'm gonna wrap this up because I've went on for too long blurting my guts out over a GBA game. I still feel like I've barely scratched the surface about all I love about this game. I will not be making this kind of long-winded rambling a habit though lol.

Ah, the classic. Meta Knight and Dark Meta Knight have big sibling energy to me, and as an elder sibling myself, I would flip off my younger brother from my mirror prison too. Of the four redraws I just worked on, this one has changed the least compositionally because I think the original is perfect in that arena. Honestly as nice as it looks when given more than an hour and a half, it's kinda lost it's wonky charm. Well, the original still exists.

Original below: