Magic Card Art: Shadow Alley Denizen

Card Name: Shadow Alley Denizen
© 2013 Wizards of the Coast

Gatherer Link: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=366307

Medium: Digital
Original Art Available? No
Artist Proofs Available? Yes

Artist Notes: My first card released in 2013. The year's not over yet as I'm writing this, but 2013 has been a good year for me, and I think this card art kicked it off nicely. It was the start of my putting more detail into my cards- if you go back and compare this next to, say, Scorned Villager, you can see how rough the older art looks in comparison.

The Month of Love: 20 Illustrators, 20 Sketches Every Day in February

Awesome lettering design by Jeanine Henderson

The concept is simple: 20 illustrators create one sketch every day for the month of February, with the overarching theme of LOVE. I'm so excited to be a part of this amazing team of artists, and to see what kind of awesome work is generated here.

Visit the Month of Love Blog: http://monthoflove.blogspot.com/

Meet the Artists:

• Scott Bakal
• Scott Brundage
• Kristina Carroll
• Narciso Espiritu Jr.
• Kate Feirtag
• Sarah Gay
• Jeanine Henderson
• Tara Jacoby
• Jeffrey Alan Love
• Carly Mazur
• Scott Murphy
• Terese Nielsen
• Chris O’Neill
• Ricardo Lopez Ortiz
• Tim Paul
• Marc Scheff
• Cynthia Sheppard
• Kyle Smart
• Alice Stanne
• Jaime Zollars

For me, free-form sketching like this is a great way to generate ideas for future paintings. In fact, the very first seed for my painting Omens started as a red pencil sketch on the back of a Magic Card proof (trivia!). And this challenge couldn't have come at a better time— I've been "cocooning" lately. That is, I've been holed up in my studio trying to find a new direction to take my personal work. Imagine the grumpy old writer repeatedly wadding up paper from his typewriter and throwing them in the garbage... soon enough I will emerge, changed.