Making My Room Like Rivendell part 3: Thoughts on Making Elven Banners

I must make this. applique trees and leaves etc (w/ heat n bond, I have no shame. The elves probably had cool stuff) maybe outlined in silver stem stitch? Definitely do the scrollwork with couched silver cord.

 

Just looked up some more pictures. They totally used paint. Guess that's medieval enough. I guess I will too. Def not puff paint though....

Definitely paint there....

Ok, so just looked at these helpful links of other fellow banner makers on alleyscratch

After looking at various recreations, I realized my favorites were ones done on a sort of matte fabric surface, they somehow looked less costumey to me than the ones done on satin (perhaps this is all the fault of flash camera...)

This was my favorite

Arwen's Banner by Sidhe on Alleyscratch

 Which was done completely with paint on fabric. She did it for her wedding decor, and afterwards hung it up in their room, which I thought was very cool.....

Then there was this one, done with heat n bond and lame applique, and details in a silver paint pen.

Elvish Banner by Sarah (Aranel13) on Alleyscratch

I lover her speckled stars look, it just looks So. Incredibly. Awesome.

 This one's pretty cool too....

(Leah on Alleyscratch)

Done with fabric applique with fusible interfacing.

So I think I shall do fabric paint, with stars cut out of lame and appliqued. Because they are geometrical and easy to cut out :)


I remember than Joan of Arc referred to the making of her banner as hiring someone to "paint" her banner, so it must be authentic.

So paint, here I come....

(Although I know Arwen sewed Aragorn's standard....so there's that....maybe I'll embroider it a little bit....)

So I am planning to probably do a rendition of Arwen's banner.

Although make the trees more like the trees on the gates of Moriah....

And do it on a blue-black matte fabric, with speckled stars on it like Sarah Aranel13's elven banner above....

And a Gondor banner, ofcourse. I need a Gondor banner. I am planning to paint some sort of elaborate medievalish looking border on it, all in silver.
Some mix of the below designs....

I think Tolkien would approve.

Illustrating Children's Books: Some Analysis of the Greats

So I have been thinking about my woefully inadequate attempts at illustrating my children's books, and how I am going to learn how to paint. I decided I have to get an idea of what I am aiming for, and thus rounded up some of my favorite illustrators.

1. Beatrix Potter, whose pictures are somehow so full of wonder....

 

Evidently I am not alone, C.S. Lewis mentioned experiencing wonder from Beatrix Potter's illustrations as a child. There's so much beauty in them. Especially the misty backgrounds, you can feel the morning sun and mist. OK---So practical notes here. It appears to be line (ink?) drawings, on watercolor backgrounds, filled in with watercolor (and maybe gouache?).

2. Brian Wildsmith.

I love his use of color and gold illumination, it also filled me with wonder as a child, how everything in the picture meant something, how there were meaningful secrets tucked into the details of the pictures.

pix from this blog These are from "A Christmas Story" Isaiah's favorite

Note the gold illumiated window, with the cross-beams highlighted...and the position of Baby Jesus' arms as he learns how to walk....

He seems to be using pencil outlines, with watercolor and gouache to fill it out....

3. Ivan Bilibin

He's THE fairy tale illustrator.

Love his use of borders, of dark and light, and his superb line drawings.

Again, he seems to use line drawing (ink?) and fill it in with watercolor (or gouache??). His colors cut off more at the lines than Potter or Wildsmith.

4. Jenny Dolfen
And then there's this absolutely amazing artist my siblings found on the internet, "Gold-Seven" on deviantart, Jenny Dolfen. She draws the most amazing and heart-wrenching pictures of Hannibal's struggle against Rome. Her website is here. Her Tolkien illustrations are pretty amazing too, she is the only artist I have ever seen who really captures Gandalf. Check out her galleries, they are amazing.

She really  makes you care about Hannibal. From her website http://goldseven.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/crossing-the-alps/

She has a lot of helpful tutorials on her blog. She does line art, and then paints it in with watercolors. If I could be one third as good as her, I would be very happy indeed.

5. Trina Schart Hyman

I stumbled across her art as an adult.

Hyman seems to use extensive pencil line drawing (with shading and cross-hatching and all) that is then painted over. There's a lot more pencil than the other 4 illustrators we've looked at so far.
It's very fairy-tale-ish. For me, it has a little less wonder in it than Bilibin, Potter, and Dolfen....but I don't know if that's style or my mental associations with having people fleshed out with pencil so much. Watercolor seems to leave more up to the imagination somehow...



So in conclusion, the kind of illustration style that I really like is some form of line art (ink or pencil, but not too heavy) with watercolor and gouache.
Since the best way to learn from them is to copy them, like the apprentices of yore, one of my goals this year is to mimic them.
This year, I'm going to go over and analyze and try to copy in some small way each of these illustrators in turn. First I need to get one of those "Watercolor 101" type of books from the library.

Some Unfinished Paintings & the Woodcutter's Wife and the Wolf King

Here are a couple paintings I did months ago.
I want to write a children's book "The Woodcutter's Wife and the Wolf-King". I got depressed about finding the right illustrator, as pictures really make or break a children's book. And I haven't got any money or credibility etc. So I decided I'll just have to learn how to paint.
So the first scene, I could see in my head, of the woodcutter after a long day's work, coming into a clearing where he finds the girl and the wolves.

Something about it didn't look right. I had tried to have her on a rock, and it didn't really work. I tried again, with a plain old clearing.

 I think this worked better. Right now, I'm really at the color-scheme, composition stage. The actual trees and wolves and people leave much to be desired.

My weakest point is the faces. First I need to learn how to make them look human. And then to actually show emotions and expressions on them.
I don't know where to start.
Sigh.

Here are are a couple things I've been working on naptimes and snatched in 10 minute segments of the kids happily playing...

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 I was trying to go for a kinda tree-root-looking thing with the blood. Like the fruit of the new Tree...or something.

 Then this is what I worked on in the last few days.

 I think Mary looks a little too cartoonish. I liked how the angel turned out, at least.

A Preview...

Thinking of how to make my house beautiful, a preview of the medieval wall hangings....