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Choose
I painted this image about 14 years ago in my purple and silhouetted people phase. The original was done in watercolor and acrylic on a brown paper shopping bag. Two years ago, I recreated it digitally in order to make a template so I could build a three-dimensional Valentine’s card from it for a small competition (it won). This time, I decided to go back to the rough digital and clean it up to make it available for sale on Greeting Card Universe. Conveniently, it also happens to fit this week’s Illustration Friday theme.
The inside of the card reads, “Of every heart, I choose yours. Be my Valentine!” I realize it’s a bit of an odd image for a Valentine’s Day card, but Happy Valentine’s Day!
Blanket
What is it about February? I had actually finished the pencil sketch for this one when I realized I drew pretty much the same idea a year ago for “crash.” That was posted February 9th of last year if you’re curious. This version is a lot better. I can definitely see myself improving as I go along. Drawing 29 pages of book in the last 2 months helped quite a lot too (4 more pages left to draw and then I get to start coloring it). Incidentally, you may notice both cats have little hearts on their sides. That’s because they’re modeled after our real cat, Char, who really does have a black heart on his left side.
Tales and Legends
How could I resist this topic!?!? Ok the first thought I had for this was to do “Swan Lake” but that required research for me. I wanted to find the original story. Guess what? The Tchaikovsky ballet IS the original story. There are other iterations that it was based on but otherwise, apparently, that’s that. And it has various different options for endings. This got me thinking about writing a version of Swan Lake someday and i just got carried away. So that got shelved.
Instead, I have done a version of Elaine, also known as “The Lady of Shalott.” Here she is looking out her tower window as Launcelot comes, by chance, to Astolat. I was thinking I was going to regret painting it in low-res but there are enough things I’d want to change on it if I were doing it “for real” that I’d have to do a bit of it over anyway (like run her braid down her back instead of over her shoulder and out her armpit. oh well). I started a version of this story about 10 years ago so I didn’t have to do the research. Someday, maybe, I’ll actually finish writing my version of this story, but for now, I leave you with Tennyson:
Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable,Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat,
High in her chamber up a tower to the east
Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot;
–LANCELOT AND ELAINE by ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
Plain
My first thought on this topic was to draw a “plain vanilla” cake. And I, um, went from there. Not totally thrilled with this one but I’m trying not to edit too much and just go with it.
Also, I’m having some trouble with monitor calibration. Can anyone tell me if this illustration looks either too yellow or too red? Thanks!
Stitch
It has been so long since I did Illustration Friday. I’ve been spending almost all of my illustrative energy working on the same book which I hope to have finished as soon as possible. I keep having all these ideas I want to work on but can’t for now. In the meantime, I am having fun playing with weights of B pencils and loosening up my drawing a bit. For a warm-up today, I indulged myself in doing an Illustration Friday assignment because I woke up thinking about it. I was originally only going to post the pencil sketch. I did it all in #2 – no B pencil on this one – and I actually missed the B weights! I’m actually pleased about that! On a whim, I threw a bit of color on it and I think it looks better than just the pencil sketch.
Happy 2008 everyone!