Ok, so this is kind of like a follow-up post to the last one. Because what do I do when I obsess about things? (That is, Aside from being all giggly, and talking about them to people who don't care about whatever it is I'm obsessed with AT ALL or, even if they do care about it, I talk about it so much that they get SICK of them or...
Well, yeah. Anyway.)
The answer
is, I DRAW PICTURES.
Aside from my current "obsession", my excuse for drawing these was to learn how to paint in photoshop. Which I'm still kinda figuring out. If you click on them, and then on the little magnifying glass with a plus sign above them, you can see them big. :)
So here they are.
First, we have
Moira From
The Thief, by Megan Whalen Turner
I painted this in less than an hour and a half. For that kind of time, I think it looks alright. I kind of like this idea, I might either keep painting on this one or do another one of basically the same thing, but... better. I was drawing it from my memory of the scene, so when looking back at the actual text it is interesting to see which details I got right and which I didn't.
I was walking up steps into a small room with marble walls. There were no windows, but moonlight came from somewhere to fall on the white hair and dress of a woman waiting there for me. She was wearing the ancient peplos that fell in pleated folds to her feet, like one of the women carved in stone beside old altars. As I entered the room, she nodded as if she'd been expecting me for some time, as if I were late. I had a feeling I should recognise her, but I didn't.
"Who brings you here?" she asked.
"I bring myself."
"Do you come to offer or to take?"
"To take," I whispered, my mouth dry.
"Take what you seek if you find it then, but be cautious. Do not offend the gods." She turned to the tall three-legged table beside her. It held an open scroll and she lifted a stylus and wrote, adding my name at the bottom of a long list and placing a small mark beside it.
When I woke a moment later, Pol had dinner ready.
.....
I had been dreaming again of the lady in the chamber; her hair was held away from her face by a string of dark red stones set in gold. She used a swan feather pen to put a second mark by my name, and she seemed concerned for my sake...
Irene Dancing under the Orange Trees
I really should have planned this out better before starting. As it was, I was moving things around and such halfway through painting and trying to make it work--almost just because I could more than anything. (Hey, if you have layers in your painting, why not use them??)
This is a fanart piece for Megan Whalen Turner's
The Queen of Attolia. AWESOME book, just by the way.
"Before he died, my grandfather used to bring me to your palace so that I could see it for myself. There was a party and dancing one night, and the palace was full of people. I went to the kitchen garden to hide because it should have been empty, but once I was inside, the door opened from the flower gardens, and you came in my yourself. I watched you walking between the rows of cabbages and then dancing under the orange trees. I was above you, in one of the trees."
Attolia stared. She remembered the night she danced under the orange trees. And then for the other Obsession,
The Elusive Pimpernel
This is a fanart piece from a scene of
The Elusive Pimpernel by Baroness Emmuska Orczy. Since I'm still trying to learn to use photoshop, that was one of the main goals of this piece. Notice that the pattern on his coat revolves around a five-petaled flower . I had to look up what a chapeau-bras was in order to draw this--thats the style of hat he's wearing. I'm still learning how to draw expressions and ages, so he looks a bit younger/more feminine than I'd want, but then again... this IS Sir Percy we're talking about.
This is the passage illustrated:
"Dishonour and ridicule! Derision and scorn!" [Chauvlin] murmured, gloating over the very sound of these words, which expressed all that he hoped to accomplish, "utter abjection, then perhaps a suicide's grave. . ."
He loved the silence around him, for he could murmur these words and hear them echoing against the bare stone walls like the whisperings of all the spirits of hate which were waiting to lend him their aid.
How long he had remained thus absorbed in his meditations he could not afterwards have said; a minute or two perhaps at most, whilst he leaned back in his chair with eyes closed, savouring the sweets of his own thoughts, when suddenly the silence was interrupted by a loud and pleasant laugh and a drawly voice speaking in merry accents:
"The Lud love you, Monsieur Chaubertin! and pray how do you propose to accomplish all these pleasant things?"
In a moment Chauvelin was on his feet, and with eyes dilated, lips parted in awed bewilderment, he was gazing towards the open window, where, astride upon the sill, one leg inside the room, the other out, and with the moon shining full on his suit of delicate-coloured cloth, his wide-caped coat and elegant chapeau-bras, sat the imperturbable Sir Percy.
"I heard you muttering such pleasant words, Monsieur," continued Blakeney calmly, "that the temptation seized me to join in the conversation. A man talking to himself is ever in a sorry plight. . . he is either a madman or a fool. . ."
He laughed his own quaint and inane laugh, and added, apologetically:
"Far be it from me, sir, to apply either epithet to you. . . demmed bad form calling another fellow names. . . just when he does not quite feel himself, eh?. . . You don't feel quite yourself, I fancy, just now. . . eh, Monsieur Chaubertin. . . er . . . beg pardon, Chauvelin? . . ."
He sat there quite comfortably, one slender hand resting on the gracefully fashioned hilt of his sword - the sword of Lorenzo Cenci- the other holding up the gold-rimmed eyeglass, through which he was regarding his avowed enemy; he was dressed as for a ball, and his perpetually amiable smile lurked round the corners of his firm lips.
Chauvelin had undoubtedly for the moment lost his presence of mind. He did not think of calling to his picked guard, so completely taken aback was he by this unforeseen move on the part of Sir Percy. Yet, obviously, he should have been ready for this eventuality.....was it not a fact that whenever or wherever the Scarlet Pimpernel was least expected, there and then would he surely appear? ...
Aye! it was all so natural, so simple! Strange that it should have been so unexpected! I'm not sure I want to put these on the "art" blog, because they're not really very professional. I look at them and all that I see is FLAW. FLAW. FLAW.
