Folktale Week 2024

October 21, 2024

It’s been way too long. (Sorry, but honestly all I can say is it’s been one of those years)

But… I’m back and here to talk about one of my favorite yearly happenings…FOLKTALE WEEK.

I so am excited to once again be co-host of this amazing Instagram art challenge...This will be our 7th year of Folktale Week, and I am happy to be part it again. Here's this years prompts if you want to join along.

More info: https://www.instagram.com/folktaleweek/

https://www.instagram.com/debrastyer/

I’ll be adding a bit more in the next few weeks as I work on the illustrations for the project stay tuned for some dark, but fun, folktale art.

I hope you can join along.

I’m joining Folktale Week by Debra Styer

Thoughts on 2023…and getting ready for 2024

January 9, 2024

The Mushroom Wanderer (detail) by Debra Styer, 2023

Well it was a pretty tough year, yet again. The war in Ukraine continues and the Hamas War is terrifying on incredibly sad. As for this year, I’m very worried that the U.S. will become a chaotic mess with the upcoming election and I hope we all remain peaceful as we vote for the next president. (Praying we finally say goodbye to Trump).

As an artist, it can be really difficult to focus on work when so there much is going on in the world, but I think it is something we must do.

Even though it was a tough year, I did mange to get bunch of new work done. I was in 3 art shows at City Art Gallery, participated in a few illustration classes and I was happy to be one of hosts of Folktale Week for the 6th year. I am working on adding my recent work to my Etsy shop and on here so stay tuned….

So…Here’s to 2024!

I’m hoping for another art filled year!

My goals for this year will be focusing on learning hand lettering, working on some new some editorial projects, and trying to get into a few more galleries. My main focus will be creating portraits of inspiring historical women. I starting working on some of these paintings last year and look forward to creating more.

On a personal note, over the last 5 years or so, I have been really working towards getting myself out there in the real art world. I have been steadily growing as an artist but something always stops me from taking the leap and showing my work to publishers and art agents. Well, this seems like a good year to take that next step and get over this crazy shyness.

Praying for a peaceful year and world.

How are you feeling about 2024?

New Paintings at City Art Gallery, July 2021

July 8, 2021

I don’t believe 2021 is already halfway over! Can you? I’ve been really busy with classes, new projects, and a brand new show at City Art Gallery in San Francisco. Here’s a look at the new pieces.

It was fun show to do with a little less Pandemic worries than my show in the fall. I definitely feel a bit lighter this time around. Things seem like they are going back to normal (well kinda…maybe …). The gallery had our first art opening since Covid-19 hit 15 months ago and I was happy to see some familiar faces and finally talk to my fellow artists and friends in person. It makes such a huge difference to really connect to people.

As for the pieces themselves, I created a small series of taxidermy-inspired pieces. I am super inspired by history, nature, and animals so what better way to pay tribute to that than taxidermy? Well, there is the death part which I’m not a huge fan of but I loved painting these creatures as if they existed in my very dark and gothic haunted house. Here they are:

Debra Styer, The Owl and the Greenman, 2021

Debra Styer, The Domed Jay, 2021 — Debra Styer, *The Domed Jay*, 2021

The larger paintings were inspired by the loveliness and lightness of nature and the darkness that can follow. The Goth Girl in me went a little crazy this time but I had a wonderful time telling these little stories.

“Blossoms” is my ode to my kitties who truly helped me through the craziness of the pandemic and life. I don’t have kids so they are indeed my furbabies.

“From the Underneath” was inspired by a recent camping trip where there was so much seaweed (pondweed?), that I questioned there must be something or someone hiding underneath.

This one, “The Gift”, was a a little ode to folktales and little tiny people that are found in the forest.

And this last one, “A Gothic Tale”, was my favorite to illustrate. I tend to live in a bit of a dream world and this one got a little too close for comfort. And I am sure these sweet little ravens, will do nothing but Squawk and wake up our dear reader just in time for her lovely dinner and glass of wine that’s waiting for her, right?

This world pandemic has been just so awful, but there has to be something we can find positive in all the craziness. I think it has made everyone stop and look around at their lives and really see how they have been living. I suppose this year, I was given a little gift of time with my artist self to see where I wanted to go. Although, I am still working things out, by direction feel a little more clear. Does it feel that way to you, too? I feel like the world has been shaken up and now we need to put ourselves upright again, I hope we are all able to stand up stronger, whatever we do.

Thank you for reading, I hope you like the new paintings. They will be on view at the gallery from July 2nd to August 1st, 2021 at City Art Gallery (828 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA).

Ode to 2021

January 26, 2021

Well, let’s just say that 2020 was indeed memorable. Between the insanely awful worldwide Pandemic (in which COVID-19 continues on), the crazy election and the insurrection, we are in a world where I still can’t sleep at night and the skies turned red from fires in San Francisco. It been one of the scariest years of my life.

Highgate Cemetery Portraits

October 26, 2018

In August, I was lucky enough to visit the incredible Highgate Cemetery during the London Letterheads Conference. I was so inspired by my walk around the the gorgeous graveyard, I decided to dedicate my next gallery show to it. It is truly a dream world for any Victorian Goth lover.

To me, Highgate is kind of a living city to the dead. Although, it is still a working cemetery, I loved exploring the darkest of the lost paths. Highgate was built in the 19th century as one of the London Cemeteries that were on the outskirts of town. It housed the bodies of people could no longer be buried within the churches of London. As time wore on, it now has wild vines wrapping around the graves, showcasing some, while burying others, it is filled with birds and animals as well as a spooky legend or two. I loved it.

There is something that is so wonderful about visiting old graveyards that seems to be missing these days. Victorians were surrounded by so much death everyday, that they sort of embraced death, now we seem to be are more afraid of it.

Here are some of my illustrations (and a few photos I took) inspired by my trip to this legendary cemetery in London.

I thought these portraits would be a perfect countdown to Halloween.

I hope you like them!

My October gallery wall at City Art Gallery in San Francisco

Graves rearranged by time at Highgate Cemetery.

Georgina in the Sun (City Art Gallery October).jpg

Debra Styer, Georgina in the Sun, 2018

Debra Styer, A Sacred Magpie, 2018

In a Disused Graveyard

“The living come with grassy tread
To read the gravestones on the hill;
The graveyard draws the living still,
But never anymore the dead.
The verses in it say and say:
”The ones who living come today
To read the stones and go away
Tomorrow dead will come to stay.”
So sure of death the marbles rhyme,
Yet can’t help marking all the time
How no one dead will seem to come.
A Disused Graveyard

What is it men are shrinking from?
It would be easy to be clever
And tell the stones: Men hate to die
And have stopped dying now forever.
I think they would believe the lie.

Robert Frost”