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Nikki Edwards |”A Different Sort of Mermaid”

This media file is attached to: Drawing

This is a colorful drawing with a very light watercolor color background, the main subject is a woman who is facing away but she's looking to the right so we see just her brilliant blue right eye and arching eyebrow through her raised arms, she's holding a large white negative space circle meant to represent a hula hoop, she's mostly inside the hoop, atop her head is a purple jellyfish with white polka dots, the jellyfish has long tentacles, two of the tentacles are orange and drape down over her sweater, the rest of the tentacles are white, some reach out and coil around the hoop frame, others coil around each other, where the tentacles overlap is only negative space, there are no overlapping lines, above the hoop are three windows framed with negative space white, the bottom of these frames follows the curve of the hoop, the sides run parallel to each other, and the tops of the frames are curved, in the leftmost frame tucked down in the left side of the frame are three mushrooms with purple caps with white polka dots, orange stems under the caps that come to a bulge point and turn yellow, the base of the mushroom uses the same negative space overlapping with the frame as the jellyfish tentacles in the hoop, in the center frame is another jellyfish with tentacles wrapped around it's frame as well as the frame to the right and the hoop below, the right most frame has three crystals tucked into the right side, the center crystal is a pale green, the other two are orange, there are bubbles randomly throughout each of the frames and the hoop, and crawling across the top of the hoop is a ladybug who's antennae also negative space intersect with the bottom of the center frame above it.

Nikki Edwards, "A Different Sort of Mermaid," Winter 2022, pencil, various pens and inks, watercolor, 24 x 18"

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In this drawing I wanted to create an homage to a dear friend in the art nouveau style of Alphonse Mucha. I intended to use his technique of incorporating his subjects into the negative space of the frame as a way to anchor her to this reality.

The video begins with a panning shot of a 2-D drawing of a woman, she is looking down with a tear in hear eye, there is writing above her, superimposed atop a rainbow, which is the only color in the drawing, the handwriting says "A new story never told before written in letters of DNA, made from nothing but milk and love", the word love is in a comic book speech bubble from the woman, as the camera pans down we see that she has a bare chest and milk is streaming from her nipples and down her empty belly, which she is clutching the sagging skin from, video fades to black, same image is shown again, this time zoomed out, and the words and rainbow are animated, video fades to black, image of just the woman reappears, zoomed in, the sketch has been cleaned up and the drawing is cleaner, the beginning of the milk animation starts, and it streams down her breasts onto her belly, video fades to black, now it's a zoomed out shot of the artist working on the animation on an ipad, the animation runs a few times, and then the artist adjusts the frame rate and the animation slows down, video fades to black, the final cleaned up, zoomed out animation is now shown, the text appears as the milk flows, video fades out to a final slow zoomed in panning shot of the final still that fades out with the music.

Nikki Edwards | “Milk and Love”

This is a pen and ink drawing in greyscale and metallics of a 3/4 top down view of a tree trunk with an abstract slice removed, the removed slice is hexagonal and an optical illusion makes it appear to be the inside of a cube, the negative space-silhouette of a cowboy with the constellation Libra stands on the edge of the cube looking to his right, each side of the cube offering him a different path lined with rocks and cacti, the paths lead up the walls of the cube and become the outer rings of the tree trunk, the cowboy is dreaming and his dream bubble is the center of the tree trunk, in his dream is outer space with the constellations Leo, Virgo, the moon, and the text, "Sometimes through the noise of his thoughts..." Underneath the tree trunk, the text continues, "...He hears the universe."

Nikki Edwards |”Darkness Warshed Over the Dude”