Alex O’Riley has always tried not to fit in.
In his simple life, at his tiny house, he paints quiet masterpieces while living as a hermit.
But with one phone call from a brash New York lawyer, Alex learns he’s inherited Castle Carrick, the grandest fortress in Northern Ireland.
At Carrick, strange and dark events begin to swirl ever closer to Alex, turning his hoped-for quiet life inside out.
Now he must decide: flee from Ireland and give up his inheritance…or embrace the dark power which compels him to paint wondrous, yet terrifying things.
Hi everyone.
I’ve been using Etsy for 7+ years.
I’m not here to tell you that Etsy is perfect or even that it’s the best option out there.
But I did make a video describing ten ways to improve your experience and make the most out of your Etsy shop.
Click the pic below to watch.
Visit ShadowArtFinds (my shop) HERE.
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Perhaps there’s something you love to do.
This activity, this place, or this recurring moment in your life is special to you.
You know it…way deep down.
But…
You may have found yourself drifting away from it.
You’ve been too busy. Or possibly distracted.
And now, with your cards in hand, you’ve decided to get back to what’s important.
So ask your cards:
“How can I revitalize myself and get back to doing what I love?”
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It may be that you already possess all the ingredients in life required for you to be happy.
You might have all the skills, the knowledge, the passion, and the people you need.
But it could be you haven’t yet arranged these things in such a way as to bring you great contentment.
Focus on all the things you currently have in life, and on the things you know you are capable of doing.
Now ask the cards:
“To be happy, how should I put it all together?”
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It’s hard sometimes to know who’s okay and who’s hurting.
The signs are never the same.
Perhaps there’s someone in your life – a friend, a coworker, or a family member who is in need of your help.
Maybe there’s someone who needs more…
…from you.
And maybe they’re not able to express it by themselves.
With an open mind, and with concentration on those who are closest to you, ask the cards whether there might be someone who needs you, and furthermore what you can do to help them.
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To some extent, nearly everyone idealizes things in their life.
We idealize situations.
And we idealize people.
If you’re in a relationship, whether brand new or well-developed, and you’re guilty of idealizing your mate (in other words, you regard them as perfect or better than in reality) you may find yourself needing to temper future expectations.
With a focus on your own perceptions and how they contrast with what you’re really experiencing in love, ask your cards:
“How can I stop idealizing romance and appreciate it for how it truly is?”
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Starting simply, you’d like to know the energy of one single day in your life. You want the vibe, the atmosphere, the general feel of 24-hours of ups and down.
Ask the deck, pull one card, and read today’s feel intuitively.
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Did you enjoy these questions?
If so, we’ve got an entire book of them – 101 Questions to Ask Your Tarot Deck.
Click the pic to grab your copy today!
A full 78-card tarot deck with a surreal, shadowy feline art theme. All the darkest cats packed into one lustrous deck. Featuring the suits of Chalices, Moons, Tombs, & Staves. If you love cats and tarot, this is the deck for you!
Decks are available HERE.
Guidebooks are available HERE.
An intuitive 52-card oracle deck in which card readers divine their own personal meanings from each card. Features colorful, sometimes surreal artwork. Creatures, landscapes, and serene and often shadowy realms. Spirits & Shadows is the very first of J Edward’s card decks.
Decks are available HERE.
Guidebooks are available HERE.
A 52-card deck focused on dream meanings and the archetypes/incarnations we wish to become, Dreams & Incarnations is an intuitive, spiritual deck meant to illuminate our truest selves. Featuring J Edward’s most surreal artwork yet, with plenty of moons, shadowy creatures, and colorful landscapes.
Decks now available HERE.
Guidebooks available HERE.
A deep and serious tarot deck, Shadow Journey echoes the journey we must all take in life. Artistically, it follows the adventures of a lone shadow girl as she wanders through strange, dark, and surreal realms in search of herself. She’ll meet plenty of friends (Skelly) and foes (Cloaks) along her way. This is our newest, deepest tarot deck.
Decks now available HERE.
Guidebooks are HERE.
The darkest cats are our greatest guardians, or so goes this deck. Features 52 cards with more dark feline art. The theme here is protection and empowerment, with each cat urging you to be the most powerful version of yourself. Fearless Familiars is meant to be used in tandem with Haunted Cat Tarot, but can also be used alone.
Decks are HERE.
Guidebooks available HERE.
And of course, all five decks will forever be available at Etsy – ShadowArtFinds. Click the pic below to gets yours tonight!
Five questions.
Five answers.
One verbal flub…which I decided not to edit out. 🙂
Have fun!
Click my face to watch!!
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Available now via Etsy, I’m offering $10 commission reservations for haunted black cat paintings. This is how you land your exclusive spot for a haunted cat commissioned painting.
To get started, head to this shop listing:
After reserving your painting (for only $10) you’ll message me with your request for the following:
Background primary color
Background secondary color
Your choice of background elements, which are limited to: 1-3 Moons, Grass, Tree Roots, Distant Trees, Distant Tombstones, Pedestal
Your choice of canvas size and material (12″ x 16″ or 16″ x 20″) (Cotton Canvas or Hard Gesso Board)
Whether you want your cat to be haunted (no pupils in the eyes) or normal (pupils in the eyes.)
Prices of final customized paintings are HERE.
After choosing from the above options, you’ll send me a single photo of your cat. The painting I complete will have the exact pose you send. Make sure your photo is hi-resolution and is exactly what you want.
ALL the cats I paint will be black. I will not paint any other color of cat. If your cat isn’t black, and you’re ok with me painting it as a black cat, that’s totally fine. 🙂
ALL paintings will be finished in acrylic and coated with two layers of satin varnish.
The back of each painting will be signed by the artist, me.
Each painting will require approx. 1 week to finish, and a few days after shipping to arrive at your door.
IF the painting is to your liking when complete, you’ll go to a separate listing to complete payment. It’ll be here.
IF the painting is NOT to your liking, you have no further obligation. I’ll keep and sell the painting privately. (The $10 reserve fee is non-refundable.)
For a video describing the process fully, please head here.
I reserve the right to refuse any commission reservation. (If I do, I’ll fully refund the $10 reserve fee.)
Hi everyone.
I’m J Edward.
I usually paint surreal, shadowy creatures and dark landscapes.
But over the last week, I’ve painted my annual wintry mansion. It’s been a theme for four years running. I paint one per year, and I hope to continue the tradition forever.
So then…
For Wintermoon Manor (this year’s painting) I photographed the canvas several times along the way.
And now I’d like to share…
It began with a swirly, color-saturated background. Most important here was the snow. I needed it to appear stark beneath the sky. I wasn’t particularly careful with every detail in the sky. I knew the house would block much of it out. The outline sketch above, I made using a soft-tipped charcoal pencil. (Easily painted over. Easy to erase any mistakes.)
The very first portion of the house. Note the snowdrifts collecting on the eaves and in the windows. I aimed for a rustic, medieval feel. Small windows. Big doors.
Now we’re getting somewhere. I caught my palette in this photo. It’s an absolute mess, coated with about a hundred paintings worth of acrylic. In any event, the moonlight is just barely kissing the rooftops here.
When painting this one, I imagined myself living in the house. Preferably with several cats, otherwise alone. Here we can see a big, moon-touched roof. It took about 300-400 brushstrokes just to get the lighting and texture where I wanted them.
At this stage, I still hadn’t added the actual moon. Perhaps it was hidden behind the clouds. See those big circular windows? I imagine they’d be hard to clean, but during sunny days would allow the light to invade the house in a very interesting way.
The right-side tower…complete. While painting this one, I listened to a variety of instrumental soundtracks, particularly Ludwig Goransson’s Oppenheimer. It evoked the kind of stark, lonely mood this painting seemed to require.
The house is almost complete here. Only a few touches of snow and shadow (the fine details) remained. Obviously the foreground needed more texture, and of course the distant background. When I reached this stage, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people would live here. Truthfully, I could live here with just my cat. But then again, cleaning everything would be impossible. 🙂
It may seem hard to believe, but I only used two brushes for the entire painting. The big one (my most trusty companion) for the background, and the knife-edge wedge brush for everything else. I like to keep it simple.
My color selection for Wintermoon Manor was quite simple. A base of grey and titanium, a few touches of soft blue and sienna in the sky, and umber undertones for the house. The key was not to use too much black or white. I wanted those two to show up for deep shadows and bright snowdrifts only.
And now at last…the final painting. The moon, I wanted off-center to break up the relative symmetry of the house. The trees here feel stark and distant. I imagine it was juuuuust about to being snowing. Note the subtle yet important foreground textures. Somewhere under the shallow snowdrifts, ancient stairs lay unused.
On the easel before varnishing. I snapped this photo just after sunrise. Who can sleep when there’s art to be done??
Wintermoon Manor is now available in my shop. It’s the fourth in the series, and my favorite thus far.
Below I’ve included last year’s winterscape (Of Snow and Shadow) for a nice comparison.
Please enjoy…
Of Snow and Shadow
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What mediums do I use for my paintings?
I use mostly acrylic (Liquitex) on cotton canvasses, gesso boards, & wood panels. Every now and then, I’ll work with charcoal & graphite. (They’re not so fun to clean up.) I never use AI programs, NFT’s, or digital tools. They’re just not for me.
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Do I offer tutorials?
Well…sort of. My process is considerably different from most. While I don’t have time-lapse videos just yet, I do have this.
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To what locations do I ship paintings, prints, and card decks?
I ship originals to the USA, Canada, UK, and some parts of the EU. For art prints, I ship only to the US and Canada, as shipping costs overseas are pretty outrageous. To balance that, I offer digital downloads for collectors to buy and download local to them. They’re inexpensive, and available here. Alas, I no longer ship prints or decks to Australia or New Zealand. Too many issues with lost packages.
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Where can all my available original canvas, wood panel, & gesso board paintings be found?
Right here!
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What about prints?
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How do I package prints, decks, and originals, and how quickly do they ship?
I pride myself on very durable packaging. For lustre prints, I ship rolled in a hard cardboard tube. For giclees, usually a flat padded box. For mounted canvasses and original paintings, I ship in bubble-wrapped, double-layered, heavy-duty boxes. For card decks, I ship in lux boxes packaged in bubble mailers. Most prints and originals ship within 1-2 days of ordering. For mounted canvasses, these are custom made, and require 3-4 days to build and ship.
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My shop has a ton of different print options available. What exactly are lustre, velvet giclee, and mounted canvas prints?
I wrote up a special article just for this question. It’s right here.
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Do I create/license art for book covers, album covers, t-shirts, and other products? What about tattoos?
I wrote up a special article just to cover these questions. Get all the details here.
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Do I offer custom/commissioned work?
Alas, never. I find great joy in creating whatever my personal dreams (or my cat) inspire. The rigors of painting someone else’s ideas just don’t appeal to me.
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Why don’t my oracle and tarot decks ship with guidebooks included?
Good question. To save myself and buyers a ton of money, I’ve made the guidebooks available as free PDF’s or on Amazon Prime for a low price. If I were to ship the decks with guidebooks firsthand, the price would be much higher, both for book printing and freight. It’s better this way, trust me.
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What else do I do with my time besides make art?
Before I sank my teeth fully into the painting, I published novels, short stories, philosophy books, and more. I was a full-time author, and I loved it! My books are here.
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Where am I located?
Usually, Athens, GA. But sometimes, Chicago. And other times, New York. I like to stay on the move!
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Do I do art shows?
Yes. Sometimes. Mostly local tattoos shops, Pancakes & Booze tours, Art & Chocolate Tours, and DragonCon.
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Where is the best place to see my latest work and get in touch on social media?
Great question. Right here.
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Still have more questions, or maybe there’s something important I need to add here?
I’m listening. The best place to reach out is here.
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