Notes About "The Wild Hunt" - Part I, The Three Dogs

Detail of "The Wild Hunt", still in progress.

Almost every year my church here in Houston has a kind of week long art camp.  Kids who have finished Kindergarten through fifth grade come in everyday and do dance, art, music and drama workshops.  It's high stress (for the adults), super crazy and fun and crazy fun (for the kids and the adults).  About a month ago, some of the people on the planning committee asked if I was interested in painting something over the course of the week in front of the camp kids.  The idea being that the kids would get to see the painting change and grow over the week.  

Obviously I said yes.  

The final drawing.

The (very loose) value sketch.

Some of the issues when painting in front of kids are 1) the piece needed to be a size that won't be hidden in front of me as I paint, 2) action oriented, and 3) that it calls for a level of detail that would capture the imagination and interest of the littlest ones.  I spent the two weeks before camp rushing around getting reference and wondering if I was capable of finishing a 20 x 24 inch painting in four days (flash forward to the present: I didn't).

Where the painting was at the end of the camp. 

Thank you to Mandy, Eliana, Tahlia, Lindsay, Jason, Sarah, Storm, Katherine, and Emmet for being so flexible and letting me come over last minute and take reference photos!

The piece grew out of a concept I've been exploring for a couple of years now.  I'm calling it "The Wild Hunt" (yes, it is a very loose reference to Norse mythology) and I've got several ideas and characters that are going to feature in the series of pieces I eventually create.  I felt there were correlations between my concept of "the Wild Hunt" and the camp's theme of "magnificent adventure".  Which means it was more like, "Quick! There's an idea! Grab it and RUN, I mean, DRAW SOMETHING!!"

Over the next week or two, I'll be doing a series of posts that focus on some of the elements, or characters in the painting.  

Some of these characters are in the painting intentionally; they had meaning and purpose beyond looking right in the space.   Some are there because they felt right, or represent things that are important to me.  And then there are a few I added because I needed a shape to fill that space.  But whether or not I intended for all of the pieces of this painting to have meaning, they ended up taking on a life of their own.  The more I thought about the piece and prepared before the camp, the more meaning I saw in all the different characters.  

The Three Dogs

I felt like there should be dogs in the painting; I love dogs.  Once I knew I was doing a painting of a whole host of kids and animals running through a forest, I planned on fitting in a dog somewhere. They feature in more of my work than I'm always aware of.  They weren't the first thing I added, but they were close.  These three are a breed I have never actually interacted with: I'm just in love with the idea of these dogs.  Rhodesian Ridgebacks are the Navy Seals of dogs.  It's true, there's a Dogs 101 clip on YouTube that says so, so it's obviously a real thing.  They're very courageous, strong, tough dogs.  And they look so freaking cool.

I hope you are get the idea: I really like these dogs.  I love the way they move, I love how strong they look, I love their color and I love their history. Get this - they were originally bred to hunt lions. They were trained to track down the lion and then keep it at bay until the hunter could come up and make the kill. I know I might have just lost a few of you.  I can hear your protests: "But Sara, you can't put Aslan-hunters in a painting for a church camp!!" 

Hang in there if you can.  I'm going somewhere with this.  

After I decided to put these dogs in the painting, I started fixating on this story from Genesis in the Old Testament about a man named Jacob, who was one of Isaac's sons.  For those of you who go to church or maybe grew up in Sunday school, you might have heard of this story, but for those who might not  . . .  Here's a recap.  

Jacob's the guy who tricked his older (twin) brother out of his inheritance and then tricked his dad into giving him the eldest son blessing (which was a big deal).  Ran away, fell in love with a girl, worked for her father for seven years so he could marry her, was tricked into marrying her sister and then had to work another seven years for the girl he really wanted to marry.  It's a long story, you can look it up if you want (starts around Genesis 25:19).  After a while (and for a multitude of reasons), Jacob decides to pack up his (now very large) family and move back home.  Where his brother still lives. His older brother, who could be (justifiably) still angry with Jacob.  And in Genesis 32:22, Jacob goes off on his own one night, worried about his upcoming meeting with his brother, Esau.  He ends up wrestling with a man, who turns out to be God, all night long.  And God changes Jacob's name to Israel (always pay attention when God changes someones name in the Bible) "for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed." (Gen. 32:28, ESV).  

So every time I think about these dogs, I think of this story.  Jacob wrestling with God, not letting God go.  And I start to see the correlation between these dogs, and I start seeing them as almost as a representation of a people who are trained to hunt the Lion, to pursue Him without fear, without rest.  Which led me to Isaiah 62:6-7:

On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest,  and give Him no rest until He establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth. 

That word "watchmen" then made me think about the other part of the R.R.'s purpose: to guard the family home.  A guard dog's purpose is to always alert and aware of what's going on around them.

Part of what I wanted to give the kids with this painting was a visual representation or reminder of what I knew they were going to be learning about all week in camp.  It was exciting and humbling to find this piece with the R.R. had meaning and purpose beyond my conscious intention.  This was another piece of what God was speaking over them.  Some of you may not understand, that's okay.

It's really intimidating putting all this out there; I don't usually want to tell everyone the meaning an "story" behind the pictures I create.  And I don't know if I have better words to explain all of what I felt I wanted to give to the kids in this piece.  Maybe I'll get better at this as these post get written.

So that's one of the things that found it's way into the meaning behind the painting - I didn't intend for it to be there.  There are other things that I'll talk about in later posts: things I did research and put in the painting intentionally. But I thought I'd start here with one of the ones that found it's way in on it's own.

From the Prayer Room Week 4

Wait, what happened to week 2 and 3, you say?  Have no fear, they're in the works, too.  I got a bit behind with the whole Spectrum thing.

As you can see, my brain seems to be stuck on the ideas of water and light.  But that's the point of all this: an immediate creative response to whatever was impressed on my heart at that time.  The sketches don't typically illustrate whatever I wrote down, but they try and capture a feeling, an idea, an emotion that I had.  For instance, last week's (which you haven't seen, yet) is directly related to several things that were prayed about and sung, but is a more declarative reaction on my part.  This one is more about where I am right now.  The truth is that for most of these, They feel significant, but I don't necessarily know exactly what they're about every time.  The interpretation doesn't come all at once.  Anyway...

This one's going to take a bit longer, I'm going to experiment with technique and have no intention of finishing by the end of the week. Week 2 should be done by then, though.

Also, check back later on this week to see my overview of SFAL 3!

Spectrum! And an Update

Final painting for this week's From the Prayer Room series is gonna be late.  Sorry if you were looking forward to that, but c'est la vie.  I'm still running around like a headless chicken, trying to get what ducks I have in some semblance of order before Spectrum next weekend . . . 

Beetee dubs, I'm supposed to tell you this:

Spectrum art book comes to LIFE!!! Join me and 200 artists May 9-11 in Kansas City for Spectrum Fantastic Art Live 3 (www.sfalkc.com). Spectrum is a three-day celebration of the best in fantasy, science fiction, horror, and comic art. You will interact with Traditional medium artists, Digital artists working in the Film, Animation, and Video Game fields, Sculptors, Comics Artists, Cover Illustrators, and more. Additionally, there will opportunities to attend workshops, live painting and sculpting demos, panels, meet art directors, conduct portfolio reviews and attend the Spectrum 21 awards ceremonies. If you enjoy my work and would like to experience a wide variety of what the field of fantastic art has to offer I hope you will meet me in Kansas City, May 9-11, 2014. 

Facebook: Spectrum Fantastic Art Live 

Twitter @SFantasticAL  

www.spectrumfantasticartlive.com

Ari's War: The Coming Storm

I've reached one of my deadlines for the first piece in Ari's War and I guess it's time to tell you more of what I am planning for this project.

I posted a rough outline of the story behind this project a while back.  The plan is to refine the story outline a bit and paint four illustrations from the story.  During the whole process of developing the illustrations (which I've already started), I hope to have a bunch of sketches and miscellaneous development work to collect into a sketchbook that I can sell on Etsy.  I'll also sell several different sized prints of the final artwork in the Etsy shop.

Meanwhile, I'll post every week here on the blog, as well as Facebook, Google+, and Tumblr.  I'll be share progress on the work as well as talk a little of  the inspiration behind everything. There may or may not be snapshots of progress on Instagram as well.  

I'll also be using the series as promo material to send to publishers (postcards, brochures, booklets, etc.).

The goal's to have all of the art and the sketchbook layer out by the beginning of April.  I want to take some of the promo pieces to Kansas City with me for Spectrum Live.

Some Preliminary Work for Ari's War

In lieu of a Christmas piece, I give you some prelim work from Ari's War.  Enjoy!  And a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Sara

Remember that piece . . . ?

So, that piece I posted way back in, what was it?  June?  Yeah.  I have been working on it.  So.  It's going to be the first piece in my black and white portion of my portfolio.  This is obviously just the final drawing.  I am putting it on the board today.  Cross your fingers!

I got some pieces of inspiration from SFAL2 back in May.  I jotted then all down in my sketchbook to review later, but 'Bear Attack' jumped out when I asked myself what was an experience I knew about.

It's kinda hard to say how these experiences kind of merged in my head - but they did, and I had all the pieces before I could really trace them back to their source.  So . . .

For those of you who know or have gone back through my blog posts, you know that I spent some time in Alaska at the end of my junior year in college working on my thesis.  It's kinda a long story, but what you need to know is that the school gave me money to go up to Alaska for several months and I ended up getting on board with someone who did outreaches and ended up traveling all over the state, helping out and taking pictures and drawing and painting.  Anyway, I was up there during the summer for part of that when the salmon were running (as in going upstream lay their eggs).  We went fishing or hiking (when we had time, which wasn't often), and one day near the end of our trip, we ended up in the area around where the Russian Kenai Rivers join up.  We had been there all summer, seen almost every kind of wildlife there was to see: moose, caribou, eagles, etc.  You name it, we had seen it.  Except for bears.  And it was salmon season, so that was a little odd.  We had heard the bears were out, we had even been witness to some of the damage they can cause by breaking into storage sheds and garages to get into meat freezers.  But I hadn't seen one.

So we hit the woods, hiking down to the river and the first thing we hear from people hiking up is that there are bears everywhere. And there were.  Like three.  Two huge grizzly cubs and a mother black bear.  None of them were as big as the bear in this piece, obviously, cause this is fantasy, but we had an experience or two that day that I will never forget.

The other piece of this little story is kind of about one of my brothers, Mark.  He's married and off doing army stuff - and that was always one of those things that everyone knew was going to happen because my brother is a warrior through and through.  He's always been that way.  Anyway . . .

When we were little, we would go up to Tennessee a lot; my parents had bought a cabin up there that we rent out and homeschoolers that we were, we would drive up there and stay for months at a time, fixing up the house, pulling weeds, cutting firewood, etc.  Sometimes I think that homeschooling is just and excuse for parents to have ready access to child labor anytime and anywhere - which is why I have every intention of homeschooling my kids whenever I have any.  Anyway . . .

We had two dogs at this point, a golden retriever and a beagle, and even though they had free reign to go off and run all over the mountain, we still occasionally took them on walks (I'm not sure why either).  Which is what we were doing when some giant monstrosity of a dog runs up completely out of the blue and attacks our golden retriever.  Now, all six of us are freaking out - my mom, my two younger brothers and two younger sisters (one of whom was like, three).  One of my sisters is crying, youngest brother is crying, Mom had picked up my littlest sister and is shouting trying to get the owner to come and take care of their dog, I'm trying to keep the beagle out of the fight, and Mark is just mad.  He jumps onto the back of this huge dog (that's bigger than he is, cause he's, like, eight) and starts beating it's back with his fists shouting "Get off my dog!  Get off my dog!" Which, of course, freaks my mom out even more.  But Mark doesn't care, he wraps his little hands around the other dogs collar and just keeps tugging, trying to pull the dog off our golden.

Anyway, I don't remember how we got that thing off our dog - but I'm pretty sure it just got fed up with the little hellion on it's back.  But that's Mark.  Never met a challenge he couldn't beat; throws himself 100% into whatever he's doing.

So all that to say, these are the two main ideas that came together in this piece.  The little kid with the pitchfork doesn't really know what he's going to do with said pitchfork, but he's not gonna stand there and let the giant demon-bear eat his sister and brother.

And Now We Return You to Your Regularly Scheduled Program

Here's what's been happening in my life since I last really posted:

So I went to SFAL 2 and managed to get back home without having been transported to Oz by a tornado, though that might have been interesting.

I have mixed feelings about Kansas City.

I don't know what to write here.  I don't know what I want to say.  I'm working on one or two (or 6) projects. I have a bunch of ideas that I want to experiment with.

I'm trying to get off coffee.  Teacchino has been suggested as a possible substitute, but I think I made it wrong because it both smelled and tasted like paint-thinner.  Or what I imagine what paint thinner would taste like.

One of my brothers came home from college for the summer, so things were a little reminiscent of that Chinese saying around my house: "May you live in interesting times." I know it's usually meant as a curse, but I rather liked the variety.  Of course there's always the possibility of too much of a good thing . . .

My sister got married this summer, too.  Life has been both very stressful and very boring.  And I have no idea what else to say about any of this right now.  So.  If you haven't seen some of what I have been working on through Instagram, here's a quick update:

The Bear Attack

New idea for a piece - more information to come!

Dragon Tamer . . . Again

Housewives didn't kill me last weekend.  But this past week has been really difficult for a number of reasons that I don't want to get into.  Still plugging away at DT.  I have piled masses of color on it in Photoshop and I think I've found something.  I hope.

Where Dragon Tamer is now.  

Where I was going originally.

This is a little too dark, I think.  

But I have a tendency to leave my pieces too light, so . . . 

There are still a lot of aspects that I am struggling with, but I am happy with the overall values and I think that pushing the dragon back a little as far as value goes is going to work.  Hopefully the final wont be the riot of color that you see here.  I'm still not as comfortable with Photoshop as I should be.  But I think I have enough here to make informed decisions about my palette.

As you can see, I am no where near where I wanted to be by the end of last week.

1. Dragon Tamer: new color comps and start on the final again.
2. Clean my room (this is an epic undertaking, I may not survive, so if you don't hear from me again, that's why).
3. Sketches for the New Commission - send them off for approval by the end of the week.
4. Help my mom set things up for the Garage Sale this weekend (Again, I might die . . . or get mauled by housewives.  Whichever comes first).
5. Review and edit my summary of the steampunk Little Red Ridding Hood story and lay it out in the format I am going to print the booklets in.
6. Outline my plans for teaching art classes from home.
7. Continue to revise, edit and research painting for sister and FBIL.
8. Not die cleaning my room or setting up the garage sale or participating in the garage sale.
9. Wash my dog . . .
10. Start assignment for LPG class.
11. Email sample images to art directors.

Some Honesty

As of writing this post I am discouraged.  Dragon Tamer is not going well, still.  Color comps are piling up and nothing's working, I feel remarkably unproductive.

After much procrastination I have finished 2 other projects, which is good.  You saw one of them on this post, the other is my sister's Save the Date.

I am distracted by everything lately.  And none of my distractions feel productive.  I feel rather worthless.

I am at war again - I'm not sure what I am at war with: myself?  The world?  God? I am also not sure what this fight is about.  But I feel anxiety welling up again, I'm entering a state of hyperawareness, analyzing everything, every word, look and action, trying to find some kind of meaning some sign of I don't know what.  I feel dissatisfied  but I don't know what about.  I've jumped and I don't know if I am in the middle of a free-fall or just waiting for my feet to hit the bridge.  Or am I supposed to fly?

Anyway, enough of that.  This was a nice note for my week.  If you don't already know, I am on Tumblr.  I am also on Instagram.

Whenever I get lost with a piece or when I start feeling "off" in my drawing abilities, I like to go back to basics.  So I drew a lot of hands and noses yesterday.  And ears.  Here's a few pictures:

This is for a super secret project I can't tell you about - just in case the person it's intended for visit this blog in the near future.

Anyway, I aim to drink ridiculously dangerous amounts of coffee and get out of this funk by next weeks post.  Sorry this one's a day late, but, that's life.

Have a great rest of the week!

Drive-by Post

Sorry, guys.  Not much more than a drive-by post today.  I am under strict instructions that I cannot show you what I am working on until it is revealed on the 18th.  So you're just gonna have to wait.

Still plugging along on . . . everything.

Remember to check back next week on the 18th to see what all the fuss is about (or don't, it's not that kind of a big deal).

Dragon Tamer: Still a WIP

I imagine sometimes that this stage of painting is not unlike being pregnant.  The vision of the final is so close to being real, but there's still so much time to put in before you see it.

Meanwhile you just feel fat and irritable.  Those of you out there who have been pregnant, let me know.

I did a study over a photo of the Dragon Tamer piece and it was . . . not a pretty sight.  So after aimlessly perusing the internet for "photo night scene" and "moonlit person", trying to remember the name of night paintings I'd seen or come across, and countless other queries, I hit the books.

Which is honestly what I should have done in the first place; I own a copy of "Color and Light" as well as "Imaginative Realism" by James Gurney, after all.  My obsession with books can get me into trouble sometimes; I have so many that I forget or get overwhelmed by too much information.

If I hadn't been so busy looking and reading I would have kicked myself - all the paintings, all the information was there.  At the very least I had a new direction to try and take the color studies.

And as you can see below, take them places I did.

Glowy dragon needs to not make a reappearance. 

Meanwhile I was also working on the final sketches for the Save the Dates.  Simple, I kept telling myself, beautiful color, strong shapes, concentrate on the feeling.

I can't help but think that simple really just means LOTS of work, but maybe I'm doing something wrong . . .

Last year when I went to Tennessee, I went to Cades Cove (possibly one of my favorite places on earth).  We got there before the gates opened and were able to drive through just as the sun was coming up over the mountains.  There was fog and fall trees and deer and it was amazingly beautiful. So when I started working on this piece, that morning is what I was thinking about.

The first one . . . wasn't awesome.  At the very least it didn't get me excited to start the piece.  It didn't recall any of the beauty, any of the feeling I was trying to capture.  There were things I liked, but overall it was just boring.  So I did another one.  It was better, but my struggles with Dragon Tamer have shaken my confidence, so I kept at it, trying to find something that really worked.

I looked up some morning fog, looked up paintings of fog (oh, hello Turner, hello Whistler), trying to just steep myself in the essence of what I was trying to create.

So I made, like, a million color comps.  And then just quit and broke out the watercolor paper and started doing it old school.  I didn't have much more success.

So here's where I am with Dragon Tamer:

Wait, aren't those color comps, you say? Why yes, yes they are . . .

Because this is where it is in real life.  Still.  I still can't seem to find the key.  I've been taking it into my room at night, hoping that by looking at it before I fall asleep, I'll be able to work out the problem in my sleep.

It hasn't worked.

And here's where I am with the Save the Dates:

Color comps everywhere!

Fog doesn't usually drift like this, I am discovering . . . 

I haven't done so many color comps since I was a sophomore in college.  Little Red Cap tricked me with how very easily the steam effect was created and I dived into the color comps here thinking "Fog is like steam, I got this!"

WRONG.

Fog is not like steam.  Especially fog that has light coming through it.  And I can't seem to make up my mind as to what this is going to look like - realistic?  Stylized?  And I'm worried about this nagging voice that's telling me to go make maquettes for the owls so I can light them (shut UP!) correctly.

Both of these were supposed to be DONE by now.  I have a schedule!  Save the Dates were supposed to be a mash up of watercolor-y effects goodness.  In-and-out, easy-peasy.

Freaking owls.  Freaking fog.  Freaking DRAGONS.  Do your worst, you won't win . . .

Working on something for Ten Paces and Draw: check back February 18th to see the final reveal.

Holy crows, I really am a masochist . . .

Dragon Tamer: WIP

Just in case someone out there is wondering what "WIP" means - it stands for "Work In Progress".

Moving along, slowly but surely.  This piece has become infinitely more intricate and complicated than I originally anticipated.  I'm about 22 hours in on the final, way off schedule (I'm supposed to be working on my sister's save the dates, shhhh), and I am now stuck and having to lean heavily on Photoshop to solve some of the color problems I am having.

I had intended to have the final done by next week's post, but I doubt that is going to happen.  So look forward instead to another update on this as well as an update on the Save the Date illustration I will be working on.

It's going to be awesome when it's finished, though!

The sketch for the Save the Date.