And Then There Was Rome

I drew during the six months I served in Rome more than I did during any other period of my mission. I'm not quite sure why. I think it was a combination of things: the encouragement of art-appreciating companions for part of my time there, the emotional strain I experienced during other parts of my time there, and of course the sheer amount of artistic inspiration that surrounded us, whether it be Renaissance painting, Roman sculpture, or modern graffiti... There were a lot of factors that contributed to this personal artistic revival I experienced.

Whatever the reasons, here are some of the things I drew during my time as a Roman.

More Lions and Wolves

...from the mission.

And a gryphon, just to keep the BYU animation girl tradition alive.

The Many Faces of Moth and Fiddle

While we were on our missions, Claire Gordon and I wrote letters back and forth to each other almost every week, always including a sketch with our letters. So I ended up drawing our characters Moth (my lion) and Fiddle (her wolf) a lot while I was in Italy.

While I was a missionary...

 ...I drew a lot of lions and wolves.

98, 99, ...

Well, the time's finally come. I'm being set apart as a missionary tonight. So no more blogging till at least April 2012. Ironically, this is my 99th post. I found that strangely appropriate, since this whole pre-mission wait has felt like a slow count to 100, which now I am finally about to finish.

But for all of you who would like to keep in contact, you can write me at:

Sister Chelsea Ann Stebar
MTC Mailbox # 336
ITA-ROM 1201
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

And if you'd like to receive the weekly emails I'll be sending home from the mission, please just send a note with your name and email address to stebarstudio@hotmail.com and we'll get you added to the list.

Thanks everyone! See ya in 2012!

Shiatori X-9

Last Saturday, I went to AWA (Anime Weekend Atlanta) with my friend, Erin. Now, neither of us are really huge anime fans or anything. I'm actually kind of scared of super-anime-kids. I don't understand them. But we thought it would be fun to go observe the craziness of a couple thousand wild fans reveling in their fantasies. And it was.

So I painted myself up like an Avatar. Which took all morning. And Erin wore a completely random anime-esque fox costume of no particular existing character. But just to shake the confidence of some nerds who believed themselves to be the ultimate authority on all things anime, we made up an elaborate lie about how Erin was dressed up as the title character from an obscure series called "Shiatori X-9" which is about a clan of winged fox warriors, but Shiatori is born without wings, so she makes herself little wings out of cardboard and the series follows her attempts to prove herself as a warrior despite her natural disadvantage.

You should have seen those kids' faces when we explained this to them, adding that only truly dedicated fans knew about this obscure anime gem...

And then I went home and designed Shiatori based on Erin's costume. Cause this show should totally exist.

Down to the Wire

My art life has taken sort of a backseat since this whole mission call thing happened...

Some of these things I intend to color one day, but seeing as how I'm down to less than two weeks before I report to the Missionary Training Center, I don't know if that will actually happen before 2012. So for now, here's the roughs.


This dude ran a fantastic little shop in Little Five Points in Atlanta called "Earth Tones" where he sold homemade leather-work and knitted clothes. This caricature doesn't even begin to capture his eccentricity.

My sister, Hannah, with her new giant Skullcandy headphones

Hannah's guinea pig, Meeko

Hogle Zoo trip with Michelle way back in July