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LEILANI BUSTAMANTE

http://murkandmetal.com

🌻🌞Litha🌞🌻

🌻 Midsummer, or summer solstice

🌻 Art By: Lanajay_Art on instagram

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🌞 When Is Litha?

🌻 Northern Hemisphere:

20-24 June

It is typically celebrated on the longest day and the shortest night of the year

🌻 Southern Hemisphere:

20-24 December

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🌞What Is Litha?

🌻 Litha is the celebration of the longest day and the shortest night of the year. The sun god is thriving and at his most vibrant peak, giving warmth to the earth and growth all around. We are celebrating the potential and successes that surround us. From now on the days will begin to become shorter again and darkness will begin to take over. The summer and warmth are still sticking around for a while, though, and it is still a very happy occasion. We are celebrating the pregnancy of the Triple Goddess with the Horned God. The Oak King is currently ruling the waxing half of the year while the Holly King is ruling the waning half of the year. The Holly King and the Oak King are battling with each other and the Holly King will eventually overrule the Oak King. Litha is a time for important magick and major spell work that needs to be put into action; It’s the best time to complete any huge magickal workings that need tackling. Before the darker days return, we must celebrate.

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🌞How To Celebrate It

🌻 Litha comes at such a positive time of year and your celebrations will reflect this.

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🌞Activities

🌻 Tackle the most challenging and most anticipated spells and rituals at midsummer, the ones that require the most energy from you; what better time to do it than when the world’s energies are at their peak! It’s the best time of the year for rituals to do with fire,faery magick, love, passion, energy and luck for the warmer times to come.

🌻 It’s also a good time to renew any tools or create or purchase any extra magickal tools you may require.

🌻Throw a midsummer bonfire or have a fire ritual. Or organize an outside gathering to simply enjoy the sun! There are loads of different ways that you can do this, a traditional midsummer bonfire would (obviously) be outside, although if this is not an option, a wood burner inside would also be fine. Burn pieces of old oak, light them on the evening before midsummer, then let them burn out as they reach the morning. It is also common to scatter herbs on the fire. Some Wiccans also burn the nine sacred types of wood (birch, rowan, ash, alder, willow, hawthorn, oak, holly and hazel) to bring them good luck and a good harvest. During the midsummer bonfire they would jump over the fire, then let the fire burn down completely and sometimes collect ashes from the fire and scatter them on the fields or on their herb garden to bring good fortune in the harvesting season coming in the near future. You could also keep some ashes for luck within spell work or rituals.

🌻 Create a god’s eye: it is typically made from wool or string and its purpose is to give protection and luck for the darker and colder days to come. Hang the god’s eye above your altar or on your door.

🌻 Go for a walk and enjoy the peak of summer! Collect things from the natural world that you need for magickal workings and to place at your altar. Have a picnic or barbecue or even just go to the beach or go for a bike ride.

🌻 If you work with the fae or just like to appreciate them, midsummer is the time for the faery rede. At this time, the fae will be riding magickal animals across the countryside, so hang out, either outside your house or in a nearby field, Bells and offerings such as sparkly decorations and food can be used to create the perfect area for the fae.

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🌞Altar Ideas

🌻 Light green, yellow, gold and red candles to represent the sun god at his peak and the green earth at its fullest.

🌻 Decorate your altar with summer flowers such as sunflowers, carnations,poppies and hydrangeas.

🌻 Place a ring of flowers around your altar or around specific items for protection.

🌻 Pictures of the sun or ornaments symbolizing the sun honour the sun god being at his peak.

🌻 Oak leaves represent the Oak King, who has been ruling for this hald of the year, but will be laid to rest soon. Oak in different forms can be relevant to Litha.

🌻 Gold, yellow and orange ribbons and cloth can be draped at your altar.

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🌞Food And Drink

🌻 Warm-colored vegetables such as butternut squash,sweet potatoes, carrots and tomatoes are all great to eat around this time of the year. They represent warmth and the wonderful produce we receive from the summer.

🌻 Home-grown or locally produced leafy green vegetables

🌻 Spicy foods

🌻 Curries

🌻 Spiced cakes

🌻 Spiced punch and rum

🌻 Anything with honey or as an alternative golden or maple syrup- bees are another representation of Litha, the midsummer full moon is acutally also known as the honey moon!

🌻 Barbecued food or flame-grilled food is good to eat too; once again it represents the heat and the sun’s energy.

🌻 Ice cream- not only is it cooling in the summer months, it also represents the colder days to come.

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🌞Crystals

🌻 Relevant crystals to carry around with you this time of the year, to meditate with, to use in divination and spell work, and to place at your altar are:

Emerald

Sunstone

Citrine

Yellow Tourmaline

Yellow Topaz

Calcite

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🌞HERBS

🌻 Seasonal fresh herbs are great of Litha, as is anything that represents heat, flavour and greenery and ties in with Litha’s celebrations.

Mint

Basil

Rosemary

Sage

Honeysuckle

Carnation

Paprika

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🌞INCENSE

🌻 Good incense to use during casting circles and burning at your altar around Litha time and for cleansing and consecrating, as well as for magickal workings, are:

Lavender

Citrus scents, such as orange and lemon

Musk

Pine

Rose

Summer Flowers

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Dance Macabre - Ghost B.C.

my character: *doing literally anything*

astarion in the background:

Every morning a cat wakes me up. I woke her up today

My favorite Afghan-Uzbek dancer. All I know that he’s from North Afghanistan. Anyway I really admire his skills, his charisma, the way he communicates with audience, his moves, his gaze, his smile — everything is just fascinatingly enchanting. And the way he looks genuinely happy when he dances, it reassures me. He is certainly one of my most favorite beautiful beings and I sincerely wish him health and luck, may God guard him 💙

Same awesome performer in my previous drawing

PS: In case you watch the videos in the second link post, please don’t pay attention to all the negative and hateful comments, many of them are just ignorant about the different culture, which, at least, started to get better. I do not in any way protect any offenses or crimes, however I can’t allow the innocent and talented artists to be confused with some gruesome thing. Let’s just prevent misconceptions and learn to think logically. Thank you.

I've always loved drawing people and especially portraits. Your art is so inspiring! Do you have any advice on drawing portraits with accurate proportion? What aspects are the most important in portraits, do you think? And what are good exercises? I'm sorry for bombarding you with so many questions! :3

Thank you! There’s one thing about drawing portraits that I don’t think I’ve ever touched on, and it’s the technique of constraining features.  Basically, it becomes easier and more intuitive to rotate the face in 3D space once your mind grasps exactly where the features are located and, furthermore, where they can’t be located.  

I use a weird double trapezoid shape that I’ve depicted below in red to keep track of facial feature placement every single time I draw a face.  It follows the top of the eyebrows, touches the corner of the eye, traces down to the corner of the lips, and finally ends at the bottom of the lips.  

The shape of the constraint will change depending on the person’s features, and it works for every angle of the head.  For me it really internalized where each part of the face was, as well as where it started and ended. It kinda helps moderate your drawings; i.e., you’ll stop drawing features that are wildly misplaced or off-sized.  I don’t literally draw this shape out every time I draw a face, but I see it in my mind’s eye 100% of the time.

If you’re still learning proportions, a good exercise is to grab pictures of people and trace this shape over them (either digitally or with a marker or something) to get an idea of what realistic constraints looks like.  Then go back to studying faces, and constantly check your drawing by tracing along the eyebrows and down to the bottom of the lips to make sure that things aren’t off (e.g., the constraint isn’t terribly asymmetric).  It takes a while to get used to, but it might help you get a good feel for portraiture.  

There’s one other unrelated thing I like to do with faces, and if you’ve seen a lot of my pics you’ve already picked up on it.  If you kinda add some shading to the area on the cheek just below the eye and down to the nose, I think it adds a decent amount of depth to a face.  Don’t go overboard of course but there’s another little tip that could be of use.

oK But thisss

European raven

Turkish raven

North African raven

Himalayan raven

Western (American) raven

AUSTRALIAN RAVEN

look at it look at that weird birb it doesn’t know how to raven

“spa-ghetti”