I finally finished what was supposed to have been my holiday card this past year. Yep, I’m still behind in just about everything from 2007. I just uploaded it to GCU for Christmas 2008.
The Filled Heart Parts 1 & 2
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These are scans of the original and the 3d card. I didn’t look at these until after I did the new version. It’s funny how the image has changed a bit.
Choose
I painted this image about 14 years ago in my purple & 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 Shallott.” 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!