I had some leftover watercolor on my palette and added it to some old sketches. This is the Fabriano sketchbook with the red cover. I keep finding it on sale at hobby lobby. It's perfect for using on a plane, or just in general.
Standing on a block (while two men sit up top),
The horse is deep in thought, wondering "Where can we walk?"
He's distraught 'cause he knows that there is nowhere to go,
And it does no good to tell them, they'll just say "I told you so."
Graham's Up the Tree! ("and there's nowhere else he can go!") - my 4 year old ran around the house for weeks misquoting the story with his own interpretation of an Australian accent. Calling it out over, and over, and over again.
(2B Pencil on 170mm x 110mm paper) Nudes are common in art, but I've developed a background with these Spelldancers:
They're witches of The Crimson Moon Coven and exist on an alternate Earth where an "Apocalypse Of Man" took place. A terrible war which nearly wiped-out all life on the planet. From the ashes rose the Crimson Moon Coven who directed a miraculous revival of humanity under a benign matriarchal system. In the space of a single generation, they'd pretty much fixed most things and, in the centuries which followed, their Earth became more peaceful and prosperous than it's ever been, with the men resigned to the fact that their thousands of years of tenure hadn't really worked-out and that the women were actually doing a much better job, if they were being honest. They didn't even mind that, over the space of time, their numbers were reduced to 35% of the population. A much more manageable level, with anything above that seen as dangerous.
Men may protest, at first, but after a while they do get used to sitting on comfy cushions!
The Crimson Moon Coven, with their unique abilities to harness the forces of the universe, then looked into our own reality, didn't like what they saw, and decided to do something about it. With the spell-dance (and my help) they're finding a way through to gain influence in our world to sort things out.
At least, that's what they've told me....
Years back, when I tried drawing different dragons I saw on the internet on a whim. Now that my old sketch book is nearly full and I am getting ready to move onto the next, I went through the whole thing and rediscovered this.
Been some time since I touched the pencil. It wasn't easy to get back to drawing, since I was also distracted by the internet for some time. Lots of things went through my head, while I was out on a trip. Just drew whatever I felt like drawing, and this came alongside some reflections:
I have been stuck on fixing this character concept for a very long time, trying to box it within a classification. Bird, wyvern, dragon, shadow, whatever- I came to a point today, where I felt that it really doesn't matter anymore. This is that sort of character who can be everything.
I spent the entire afternoon trying to arrange all the little ideas and features, following true to creative intuition. Smashing together many of my previous character designs, this appeared. A masked and unnamed figure (???) with traits from many of my previous works.
An avian / draconic / spiritual shapeshifter has always been something with me all this time, even when I tried to create a sona years back (finding it meaningless). True to its nature, it has few lively features except its eyes and requires a mask to display additional signs of life.
Its clear that this character is basically a symbolic self-expression. It wasn't easy to seperate myself from my introjective tendencies, which easily distorts my concept of this figure (took weeks to untangle). Once the confusions loosen, it reappears with noticeably familiar features.
The scribble above still has some room for rearrangement, just limited by the irreversible nature of pencil drawing. The grey markings were too dark, and the feet might look better staying white. The pale golden underbody markings, were actually a surprise.
The European Goldfinch is a striking small finch with a distinctive red face and black-and-white head. Its wings are black with a bright yellow wing bar, while the body is mainly buff or light brown.
During the breeding season, the bill of male and female goldfinches is white, but at other times of the year, it is marked with a black tip.
Female goldfinches are very alike in appearance to males, and visually, it is hard to tell them apart from a distance. At close range, the sexes can be distinguished by the size of the red facial patch, with the females not extending past the eyes as it does in males of the species.
Juvenile goldfinches do not develop adults' red, white and black facial markings until the late summer or autumn after hatching. Until this point, they have streaky buff-brown markings on their heads. Info: Birdfact . com
