Mag Magazine

Editorials

Long form posts containing more detail, discussion, and in depth analysis

  • Simon of the HMS Amethyst

    Mag Magazine

    Categories: ,
    An illustration of an a tuxedo cat in the Art Nouveau style. There is a blue and green border with swirling waves, a painting of the HMS Amethyst ship, and the text "Simon of the HMS Amethyst: Throughout the Yangtse Incident His behaviour was of the highest order"

    The year was 1948, on Stonecutters Island in Hong Kong when a young seaman of the Royal Navy by the name of George Hickinbottom, who had a penchant for rescuing animals, found a malnourished tuxedo kitten wandering the dockyard. He smuggled him onboard the HMS Amethyst in his coat, named him Simon, and made him the ship’s chief mouser.

    The next year the Amethyst was heading up the Yangtze river to Nanking to guard the British Embassy during the Chinese Civil War. About 100 miles up river they fell under fire by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) when they ignored the warning to stay away. Who was at fault for starting what became known as the Yangtze Incident is not my place to say. I am not a historian, nor am I familiar with the Chinese political landscape and British involvement of the time. What I can say is that many people on the Amethyst were killed or injured and the ship ran aground when trying to escape the gunfire. Attempts of escape or rescue were foiled by the PLA, and they remained stranded for ten weeks.

    (more…)
    Read More: Simon of the HMS Amethyst

    |

    Comment: Simon of the HMS Amethyst

  • 30+ Gift Ideas for Digital Artists

    Mag Magazine

    Categories:

    I’m so bad at getting gifts for people. I have plenty of ideas, but when it comes time to actually buy or make them, my brain is empty. I always intend to write down ideas as they come to me throughout the year, but the ADHD strikes and I move on before I get the chance. I know I’m not alone with this, and I hear people constantly saying they don’t know what to get me either, so I decided to do something about it. There’s tons of gifts tailored to traditional artists, and plenty to people with desk jobs, but there aren’t a lot for people who are artists who work at desks, like myself. If you have a digital artist in your life, I can almost guarantee they’ll like at least a couple of these.

    Disclaimer: I am NOT affiliated with any of these products or brands. These are honest ideas I have had organically through research online and amongst friends, as well as my own experiences and wishlist. I try to link to the original creator of each item and avoid places like Amazon where I can. Shop small and shop local when possible!

    (more…)
    Read More: 30+ Gift Ideas for Digital Artists

    |

    Comment: 30+ Gift Ideas for Digital Artists

  • How I Use Art Nouveau in My Art

    Mag Magazine

    Categories:

    I’ve been implementing Art Nouveau styles into my art for a few years now. I always struggled defining my style, but back in 2023 I did an Alphonse Mucha study and it opened my eyes to all the possibilities. The general concepts of what I recognized as Art Nouveau, like the flowing lines, strong outlines, florals, and the the circle behind the figure, were all present and I wanted to do more. These are the ways I’ve taken those ideas and use them in my art.

    My study of Mucha’s F. Champenois poster
    (more…)
    Read More: How I Use Art Nouveau in My Art

    |

    Comment: How I Use Art Nouveau in My Art

  • What is Art Nouveau?

    Mag Magazine

    Categories: ,

    Art Nouveau as a style is pretty striking. With its flowing lines and abstract shapes, it sometimes looks almost like it’s something out of science fiction. But what is it and where did it come from?

    History

    Art Nouveau began in Europe as a direct response to the Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century. The advent of factories and heavily populated cities created an environment that to many was crowded and oppressive. Work hours were long, industrial waste was polluting the sky and water, and people were becoming more and more separated from nature. By the 1880s some artists and architects began experimenting with a mix of old and new concepts as an answer. They looked to the romantic ethereal nature of the Pre-Raphelites of previous decades, the graphic styles of the newly accessible Japan, and the new possibilities of modern materials. The main goal was to bring nature indoors, to reintroduce the beauty of natural concepts to an increasingly manufactured world, using inexpensive materials such as paper, concrete, iron, and glass.

    (more…)
    Read More: What is Art Nouveau?

    |

    Comment: What is Art Nouveau?

  • A Trial of Dragons and Roses

    Mag Magazine

    Categories:

    I recently rediscovered the joys of reading. Like many gifted and talented undiagnosed neurodivergent kids in the 90s and Naughties, fantasy worlds were my haven from a world that didn’t understand me. I burned through books faster than a furnace set to 451 degrees Fahrenheit, nearly clearing out my local library’s JFIC and YA sections between the ages of 11 and 15. And then as the story goes, college extinguished that one unadulterated joy. The responsibilities of adulthood coupled with coming out as queer in the conservative southern United States left me too exhausted to do much of anything outside of work and surviving. Then the pandemic hit and with the extra time I got a tiny taste of getting lost in a book again. It was Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith, my favorite book as a teen and still one of my favorites today, but it still wasn’t quite enough to break through that wall that had been cultivated over the previous eight years. But then this summer I swallowed my physical book purist pride and got a Kobo e-reader. The wall was destroyed and the furnace rekindled. I reread Crown Duel to get me back into the swing of things, then demolished A Court of Thorns and Roses and Fourth Wing in short order. While neither of those were the most wonderful series ever, I was inspired to add a bit more whimsy to my art.

    (more…)
    Read More: A Trial of Dragons and Roses

    |

    Comment: A Trial of Dragons and Roses

  • Laika

    Mag Magazine

    Categories: ,

    In total the Soviet Union sent seventy-one dogs up to space during the thirty years of 1957 and 1987, in a frantic race with the United States to establish their superiority in space technology. Though public interest began in 1951, it wasn’t until six years later that the Soviets won their first victory, on October 4th of 1957 when they successfully launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite. Buoyed by the success, Premier Nikita Krushchev wanted something even more spectacular only a month later, to celebrate the 40 year anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution on November 7th.

    (more…)
    Read More: Laika

    |

    Comment: Laika

  • The Tower

    Mag Magazine

    Categories: ,

    This piece originally came from an attempt at getting over art block. I’ve found rain frogs just completely cure it and can get me into a new creative groove. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I’ll never be able to top this piece. It is my magnum opus, my pièce de résistance.
    I call it The Tower, partially because it’s literally a tower of three rain frogs stacked on top of each other, and partially as a nod to the tarot card. In tarot, The Tower is one of the scariest cards that can be drawn in a reading, as it symbolizing a time of sudden, potentially violent upheaval and dramatic transformation, whether it’s welcome of not. The original card is also sometimes called “the lightning struck tower,” and it features an ominous tower being struck by lightning as it reaches towards the heavens like the Tower of Babel. The card often features people, usually the figures of a man and a woman, falling to the ground, apparently having jumped from the windows that are now aflame.

    (more…)
    Read More: The Tower

    |

    Comment: The Tower

  • Medusa

    Mag Magazine

    Categories: ,

    The inspiration from this piece comes from the life cycle of jellyfish. They go from egg, to larva, to polyp, ephyra, to the adult medusa phase. After learning this, I had one thing in my mind, to depict the Greek mythological snake woman as jellyfish instead.
    There are numerous version of the story of Medusa, the earliest depicting her simply as a hideous monster that is so ugly any who look at her is turned to stone. The demigod Perseus slays her with the help of the gods and uses her severed head as a weapon, turning enemies to stone. As time progressed, her story morphs into one significantly more human and sympathetic. She becomes a beautiful human priestess of Athena, sworn to purity and celibacy. She then sleeps with Poseidon in Athena’s temple, and is turned into a monster by the goddess in revenge for defiling her temple and breaking her vows. In more modern interpretations and understandings of consent, the narrative changes to Poseidon forcing himself on her, making her a modern feminist symbol.

    (more…)
    Read More: Medusa

    |

    Comment: Medusa

  • Incitatus

    Mag Magazine

    Categories: ,

    When most people hear the name they think of the ruler of Ancient Rome renowned for his cruelty and so insane he appointed his favorite horse to the senate. While this might not be inaccurate, more recently historians have been questioning some of the claims. The majority of these accounts were written well after his death and may have been an attempt to slander the previous ruler to give more credibility to those that came after him.
    Caligula was born in 12 CE to the great general Germanicus and August Ceasar’s granddaughter Agrippina the Elder of the first ruling family in Rome. His full name was Gaius Ceasar Augustus Germanicus, but gained the nickname Caligula, meaning “little boot” or “little sandal” from his father’s soldiers. After political intrigue and ambition lead to the death of nearly every family member, Caligula succeeded his uncle Tiberius and became emperor, though he only ruled for 4 years before being assassinated by his own guard in a conspiracy to restore the Roman Republic, though instead Caligula’s uncle Claudius became emperor.

    (more…)
    Read More: Incitatus

    |

    Comment: Incitatus

  • Cher Ami

    Mag Magazine

    Categories: ,

    Near the end of the first World War, in November of 1917 the U.S. Army Corps’ Pigeon Service was founded. Of the six hundred English bred birds donated to the service was one named Cher Ami, meaning “dear friend” in French.
    In October of 1918, during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, he along with 59 other pigeons assigned to the the 77th Infantry Division, were the desperate last attempt to communicate that the battalion was under friendly fire. After the deaths of human messengers, and also multiple birds, Cher Ami was sent with the message:

    (more…)
    Read More: Cher Ami

    |

    Comment: Cher Ami