Author: Rohvannyn

Rohvannyn Shaw, an Arizona author and illustrator, runs the blog Mindflight and also the art site, rohvannynshaw.com. Educated at the University of Washington with a Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Visual arts degree, she comes from a family of writers. She has edited several books, both fiction and non fiction, collaborated on three poetry chapbooks, and illustrates stories and poetry as a sideline. Her recent novels, Rageth and The Dice of Fate, are available on Amazon.com. Her ebook, Quests of the Avatar, is available free on Mind-flight.org. Her new book of comedy, How to P!ss Off The Customers, is out now and available. More to come!

Pronoun’s shutting down and I’m feeling Faint

Tips for Self Publishing

Pronoun was a great self publishing resource that was run by McMillan, the publishing company.  It offered great terms for authors, a top notch interface, and awesome distribution.  I’m sad to see it closing because it worked so well.

It came as something of a shock.  The other day I logged into my email, and there it was – the notification.  I definitely had a sinking feeling when seeing that.  On the bright side, though, I know a lot more about eBooks than I used to.

Now I’ll have to migrate my books over to Amazon or some other service, and also do the same for my father’s stuff that we published together.  I’ll now be dealing with multiple editions as well, since there will be a Pronoun edition as well as an Amazon edition.  I’m sure I’ll find a way with deal with it but it’s still a big pain in the neck.

If anyone out there wants the scoop on what’s happening, here’s a link to the FAQ.  Pronoun is staying open till after the holidays so authors can finish up any sales they might have going.

http://support.pronoun.com/knowledge_base/topics/pronoun-shutdown-faq

It’s too bad, really, and I’ll miss the service.

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/faint/

Peeking Feline

Photography

Nezumi Prepper 1000

Do I peek through the supplies and canned goods at Nezumi-chan?

Prepper Nezui 1200

Or does Nezumi-chan peek back at me?

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Here’s a hole in my backyard I like to peek through… lizards often live there.

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Speaking of backyards, here’s a peek at the mountains through pine trees…

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I peeked through my zoom lens to capture this avian kerfluffle from across the parking lot.

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Here they are again as I peek under this truck.

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This is what they look like when I’m not peeking quite so much.

It seems that for me, at least, peeking leads to lower quality pictures but still I find them interesting to look at.

(Guitar Update:   Guitar Sensei has me working on some basic finger patterns on the fretboard.  I’m still at the getting-to-know-you stage.  I have the self assigned task of learn to get from C to G chord and back again.  My fingers are a lot tougher than they were.  I can do scales pretty well too.  I’m still settling down to my favorite kind of pick, and I find practicing standing up easier than practicing sitting down.)

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/peek/

Ghoulish Painting

Featured Artists, Uncategorized

ghost 900.png

Okay, here’s my idea of a ghoul – done in MyPaint.  He looks like he’s about to go after a grave or two.  Just a simple sketch but sometimes simple is best.  To any readers, have a happy Halloween!

As usual, here is a roundup of everything I drew for InkTober.  This year I didn’t get nearly as much done as last year, but then again last year I wasn’t being trained as a claims analyst!  That takes quite a bit of skull sweat.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/ghoulish/

Did somebody say fluffy?

Jokes and Humor

Ohai.  I, Nezumi, have taken over the blog again.  You see, this is one of my favorite words.  Fluff.  Fluffy.  Or better yet, FLOOFY.

Mom, you see, keeps building up her Guitar Fingers and isn’t typing as much.  She keeps playing with the Twangy Thing.  I help by occupying her chair so she has more practice standing up while playing, and sometimes by sitting on her book so it can stay open to the right page.  She says she can’t read through my butt.  I wonder what she means?  She also keeps making these odd noises with the Twangy Thing and naming them with letters.  C, G, E, F, D, things like that.  I don’t care about letters unless G stands for Gooshy Food.  It helps me stay nice and fluffy!

Today I’ll share with you all my favorite pictures of my own fluffy self.

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See?  Even my paws are fluffy.

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Here is my amazingly fluffy belly.  I’m being Unicorn Cat.

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Now I’m in Super Extra Fluffy Mode.

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Now I’m guarding the house against bugs.  This is my favorite sunbeam.  Still fluffy.

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And now I’ll go back to “helping” Mom with her blog, once her fingers recover.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/fluff/

Wild Orange

Photography

On my recent zoo trip and photo spree, I saw all kinds of orange things.  Flowers, birds, a butterfly, a rather orange camel, the list goes on.  Here’s a break from Inktober, and some of the things I saw.

orange flowers 2 800

The zoo had several bushes of these – I’m unsure what type of flower they are.

Orange Flowers 1000

Let’s play Find The Butterfly…

Tiger 1000

A Malaysian tiger.  “Are you sure you got my good side?”  I have clearer pictures but I love this pose.

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The giraffes were very, very relaxed.  There was a Giraffe Encounter where you could pay a little money to feed them a carrot stick and some lettuce.  I did that and discovered giraffe tongues, aside from being very long and dexterous, are also blue!

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/orange/

Surrealist Inktober

Featured Artists

How much of horror art is surrealist?  Quite a bit.  When I try to make a surreal piece of art, I will take some aspect of reality and make it into a metaphor, or take a fairly realistic subject then change an aspect of it in order to make some kind of a statement.

Chair Girl 1000

 

Here are my attempts:

 

I had the idea of combining two graceful shapes, and at the same time making a statement of people becoming display pieces.  At least she seems fairly happy the way she is.

 

The next one is about how I think people often become with their smartphones and tablets.  Perhaps it’s a vision of human evolution?

 

The last picture is of GUITAR FINGERS.  The hand of a well trained guitarist can look pretty surreal as it is.

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/surreal/

 

 

 

 

Modern Youth 800

GUITAR FINGERS 800

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enlightened Art

Uncategorized

I was given a children’s book to read, called “Monument” by Gary Paulsen.  The person who gave it to me said the book reminded them of me – it’s about an adopted girl who meets an artist in a small rural Kansas town.  One of the things the artist focuses on is the light.  And he’s right – if you capture the light and shadow right, everything else follows.  Now, I’m no impressionist, so I’m going to also focus somewhat on detail and make sure all my proportions are correct.  Below, I have my finished elephant.  I promised to show the completed drawing in this post, so here it is.  One of the things I focused on here was light and shadow.  I started by roughing out the proportions, as you can see in the sketch, but also did quite a bit with showing all the wrinkles and where the sunlight is falling.

Elephant Cow 900

(Guitar update: I have two sore fingers.  I can make a couple chords.  I am having so much fun I can’t see straight.  It’s a very good thing for me to have something that doesn’t sound right unless I’m relaxed.)

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/enlighten/

You’d be brave indeed…

Featured Artists, Photography

…to confront this elephant cow on her home turf.  She might be gentle, but she’s so big that you’d have to be careful anyway!  Elephants fascinate me.  They have long distance communication using subsonics, both through rumbles and the pads of their feet.  They communicate across many kilometers, hearing the sounds transmitted up from the foot bones all the way up to their ears.  They do indeed have long memories.  Not only could a calf following her mother across the savanna during a drought remember that same water hole the next time, but she could lead her herd there fifty years later when she hadn’t been there in the interim.  It’s been said that a farmer who hurts an elephant herd will often find his crops destroyed by night-raiding elephants – he himself will be uninjured, and so will be the farms of his neighbors.  I often wonder if elephants are sapient.   This particular lady was seen at my local zoo this weekend.  She kept putting branches on her back and carrying them around.

Elephant 950.JPG

My sketch is going up first, then later I’ll upload the finished ink.  So if you like this sketch, check back!

Elephant Sketch 700

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/brave/