[art] sticker club designs - a tiger, a moon, and longing
2 hours, 31 minutes
catching up on art posting with some more sticker designs from this year:
sag̱a̱gyemgm duus
title translates to “sunny cat”. really happy with how may’s design turned out.. i had a tiger head formline sketch collecting dust for a very long time, so i was happy to have the inspiration to expand on it and finally finish it. i loved how the colours came together and how i translated various parts of its anatomy into formline visual language.
‘nüüm na waalt
june’s design was inspired by the artemis II mission earlier this year. ‘nüüm na waalt means “it belongs to us all” - this phrase is often used in my language circle to affirm that sm’algyax is something we all have a right to learn. the artemis II mission was the first manned moon operation that many of us today were even alive to see; it was humbling and spiritual. it was a reminder to many of our interconnectedness, seeing anew this giant that all beings are in relationship with. it’s also an inversion of the typical baggage with space technology, which is its pursuit in service of colonial aesthetics or its historical development through imperialist modes of production. in this art, raven is attempting to grab the moon in his beak and wings even though it’s too large.
the colours are inspired by seeing photos circulating on social media supposedly taken during the mission that showed the veins of the moon rendered in rainbow; these were purported to be the “true colours of the moon”, invisible from our usual view. i discovered through research these photos were actually reposted “mineral moons”, which are edited by astrophotographers to highlight the minerals on the moon’s surface. i likened the colours to the moon’s spirit as i drew.
haw’akadi gyaawksu
the name for july’s design means “i never left”. inspired by the life cycle of salmon: born in the river, out to the ocean, and back to the same spot. while drawing this, i dwelled on how i’ve always felt that i struggle especially hard with growing apart from things and people in your youth and the longing that brings. the eggs at the center are close and shrouded in darkness (proximity and safety); the adult salmon however are at the edges, facing away and toward the light (distance and exposure). the adults also have spawning phase colours, which to me makes this a hopeful statement: what is gone can come back. (right?)
suulgm laalt
and finally, this month’s sticker means “fearsome worm”! a bit of a multilingual pun, since worm in english sounds like wyrm which is often used in contemporary fantasy to denote a type of dragon, and its counterpart in sm’algyax, laalt, makes up part of the word for snake: metxalaalt (roughly, “like a worm all over”). this design of course is a dragon. i drew a different draconic design a couple years ago now, but wanted to do a refreshed serpentine take since i thought it would translate better to formline’s use of motion. i’m especially happy with how the horns came out.