About

About Myself:

Margaret Ralston (online/writing: Kestrel Grey, Kes or, more recently, Leo)
Senior, University of Puget Sound
B.A in English (Writing, Rhetoric, and Culture), pending; Japanese minor (completed)
A.A, Skagit Valley College
MIT Certificate: Graphic Design, Skagit Valley College
CELTA certificate, for teaching ESL

CONTACT:

E-mail: mralston@pugetsound.edu (university e-mail); pandahart@gmail.com (personal e-mail)
Cell number: (e-mail with your name, number/contact info, and a short note and I’ll get back to you)

About Graven:

Graven is a fictional island-city I designed and am in the process of illustrating. I originally built the city as a cartographic illustration project, but have since located several short stories

in the city and plan on writing several more stories, and possibly comics, set in Graven. In order to create a believable, living environment I’m not just mapping and illustrating the city. I’m also developing characters, creatures, vehicles, and various other elements. I even have a language in the works, which is just finished enough to start including it in my illustrations. As I continue to develop Graven, I’ll be creating many different illustrations, drawings, sketches, 3D models, and maps. Although not entirely necessary for my stories, I like working out details, and by creating illustrations such as product concept designs, advertisements, posters, banners, store sale signs, logos, and floor plans I can learn all about these various processes. Doing so not only lends a sense of realism to Graven, I also familiarize myself with and practice important graphic design principles.

My portfolio currently includes various works I did for my MIT classes a few years ago, as well as  some illustrations done more recently. The blog is for both unfinished and finished pieces that I’m either currently working on or have just finished. Each month or so I’ll update my portfolio to include finished pieces completed recently; occasionally, I may include pieces not shown on my blog. The blog will focus primarily on illustrations and designs done for Graven.

Archives:
I initially started this blog as a place to work on a fictional world (solar system right down to regional plants and animals). It was a huge undertaking, one which I’ve run through rather quickly in the past but wanted to take a closer, more careful look at again. I wrote several posts and pages about the experience and the various equations and methods I used to create a scientifically accurate world, but ultimately classes and the enormity of the project brought everything to a close. At some point, I may return to the project. If I do, I’ll be moving all the information in the archives to a new blog, and I’ll make a quick post about the change.