YouTube & Stuff

So I'm putting some progress and introspection videos up on YouTube.

Here's the link to the latest video.

https://youtu.be/FpweTGJkIsM

The Wild Hunt

The Wild Hunt is finished!  For those of you who ordered prints, you should be getting them soon!

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.

Drawing Challenge Day 1 - Ship

Ever had those days when nothing seems to go right?  And you started out the day with such high hopes and you just didn't perform?  Day 1/day-2-that-became-day-1 were those kinda day's for me.

I liked the sketch.  It had certain qualities - it had potential.  But I couldn't do it justice.  I ended up overworking everything and getting happy with the grey wash and lost sight of what I wanted to do with the piece.  It didn't have any of the energy, the direct, intentional, and confident expression that I was looking for.  Not a bad idea - just not well executed.

In the end I think I achieved some of the narrative aspects I wanted.  The piece works pretty well compositionally, though there are several tangents that should have been addressed.  But overall, for a piece that I spent about 10 hours on, it could be worse.

Could be better, too.

My thoughts at the close of the "first day", after finishing the first piece: It's hard to go to bed disappointed with yourself.  It's great to be excited and hopeful about learning a bit and training my brain to sit down and work on art everyday and looking forward to improving.  But really, this could turn out to be 29 more days of "wow, I forgot how difficult making good art is (i.e. wow, I think I'm really bad at this)".  What have I gotten myself into?

A Personal 30-Day Drawing Challenge

So after a very long (and unplanned) hiatus, it's time to get back into the groove and make some art.

This summer was rough - actually this whole year's been tough - and I have been questioning everything.  I have been trying to fix everything - especially myself - and have really not fixed anything.  Ambiguous?  Yes, I guess that is.

I have been trying to decide who I am.  I have been asking myself so many questions - What am I doing here?  Am I really an artist?  Do I even have the guts to do art?  What kind of artist do I want to be? And I do not have answers for any of these.

The point is, I need to stop planning to fix what hasn't broken yet and just do.  My goal is to move forward, to find joy in telling stories and making art.  Which may be easier said than done.  Is it weird to say that I'm a little nervous?

Now, I want to develop a black and white illustration method (I'm intentionally not using the word "style", by the way), and because I've been following Jared Muralt, Niroot Puttapipat, and Andrew Mar's ink drawings on Instagram for a while, and because it is Inktober, this challenge will be done in ink.

I have a 1-word prompt assigned to each day with 2 alternates in case of emergency (i.e. the inexplicable absence of a muse).

At the very least, I will be posting pictures of the work on Instagram and Facebook.  I'd like to post the final here everyday, but I don't know how feasible that is.  So, I will say that I will be posting the round up of the previous week's drawings here on the blog every Monday until the challenge is complete.

Parameters

One drawing per day
Medium: Ink
Colors: no more than 3
Size: no smaller than 7" x 8.5"

Goals

Through this challenge, my aim is to build confidence in myself and my capabilities while continuing to develop an creative process.  In each piece, I will be focusing on developing my visual storytelling abilities specifically through composition, contrast, detail and character development.

Start Date

Monday, October 26th

End Date

Tuesday, November 24th


My access to a computer and or Photoshop may be hit or miss for the next week, but again, you can follow the progress on Instagram or Facebook.  Final drawings will be for sale in the store.

I'm Upgrading

I've got a new website!

I've got a new shiny website: sarasilkwood.com where the portfolio will be.  This site will still be here and I'll be blogging, but all the "professional" stuff will be over there.  Let me know what you think!

Truth for today

There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual.  Such are the moments of our greatest happiness.  Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom.  If one could but recall his vision by some sort of sign.  It was in this hope that the arts were invented.  Sign-posts on the way to what may be.  Sign-posts toward greater knowledge.

-Robert Henri

"The Final Catch" by Joy Ang

I just found this hilarious comic by artist Joy Ang.  Though, I should tell you that my brother Matthew thinks it's creepy.  You can "read" the comic here. 

Do you think it's creepy or funny?  Let me know!

Check out this Project on Kickstarter

I missed the first book (dang it!), but I'm very glad I found this one!  There's a link on the page so you can preview the entire book.

Here's the link to see the first book.

EDIT: You can pre-order the first book here for $44.95 plus shipping.

Individual vs. Corporate Art

Everyone's probably already seen this on Muddy Colors, but I thought the ideas in it were important enough that they could stand to be restated by me on this blog.

So whether you've seen this already or not, enjoy!

Newish Portfolio Pieces and Portfolio Editing

Flying Kites on the Dunes

Ruah

Stargazers

I've been working on updating my portfolio - taking out what doesn't mesh with my more recent work and adding some more black and white pieces.  Above are three new pieces I've added.  They're from my drawings from the prayer room; my friend Jen Betton suggested that some of them might work well enough for black and white portfolio pieces with some editing.

My portfolio looks much thinner, now, but I think overall it flows better.  Working on adding some more color pieces, soon! So stay tuned!

I'd love to know what people think!

October the Twenty-Fourth

"'Where am I, and what is the time?' he said aloud to the ceiling. 

'In the house of Elrond, and it is ten o'clock in the morning,' said a voice. 'It is the morning of October the twenty-fourth if you want to know.'"

-J.R.R. Tolkien, 

The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 2, Chapter 1

From the Prayer Room Week 12

So this is the piece for this week.  I've decided to try and color it digitally, as you can see below.  I'm using Wylie Beckert's process that I head about in ImagineFX.  

 

     

We'll see how it goes.  I'm a little discouraged at this point, but, I'm gonna try and push through.

From the Prayer Room Week 10

From the Prayer Room Week 6

I'm catching up, slowly but surely.

Tomie dePaola Award Submission

It's done.  Now I am going to sleep before tackling Heart of Worship Camp prep tomorrow.  Oi.

Sea Gypsy Value Sketch

Here's the value comp for the Sea Gypsy piece I'm doing for the SCBWI scholarship contest.  Any thoughts?  Speak now or forever hold your peace!

An Update

Hello everyone!  Sorry I've been so bad about updating - I'm trying to get back in the swing of things, I promise!

For starters, I don't think I'm going to be able to post the sketch from the prayer room today (shocker, I know), and for the next two or three weeks thinks might be kind of quiet.  Heart of Worship camp starts the 17th and I have lots of stuff to prepare. So, if you want to find out what's going on, you can check out my Instagram.  

For those interested, prints of the Heart of worship artwork will be going on sale next Monday (hopefully)!  If you're interested and you're in Houston, shoot me an email and we can work out a delivery so you won't have to pay shipping.  If you're out of state, you can order in the store and your print will ship out to you in 1-3 days.  

Also, be sure to keep checking back in to see the progress on my first ever sequential piece!  I'm entering the SCBWI Tomie DePaola contest to try and get a trip to the January conference in New York - we'll see!  Either way, I'm excited to try this new format and maybe even a new medium!

If you're on Instagram, you know that this is my sea gypsy character that I wasn't going to feature for a while.  But when this contest came to my attention on Monday (thanks, Jen Betton! :p) I said i already have a full plate, what the heck? I already had an idea for the story - just took some tweaking to fit the parameters of the prompt, so there you go.  It's due June 15th (eesh) so that's why things will be a little hectic around here. 

Coming Storm is on hold until after HoW, so check back in a couple of weeks to see where that is.  

ALSO, I still need to post on Spectrum Fantastic Art Live 3!  I've been sitting on the post - but with everything being so busy, I haven't had time to really edit everything and make it coherent.  

Anyway, lots of stuff in the works, I'll try and post something to let you see a little of what's going on, but no promises!  

TTFN!

Some Truth for Today

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness; but still will keep a bower quiet for us, and a sleep full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

                   John Keats, Endymion

From the Prayer Room Week 5

I know, I know, six weeks and I've only gotten one week finished the way I initially proposed.  Sigh.

Things are a little busy here on my end.  I've decided that For the next few weeks, I'm only going to worry about the sketch portion of this project.  I'll finish "Here be Dragons", "Surrender Unto Hope", and week 3 (which I'm going to call "Ruah"), but after those I'm going to pick and choose the ones I end up painting until my schedule settles a bit.  So . . .

For weeks my mind had been turning over the character of Tulkas - one of the Valar from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion.  Nienna, Tulkas and Orome are have always been my favorite of the Valar, but the explanation of that would take to long.  Anyway, here's some excerpts from The Silmarillion about Tulkas:

But in the midst of the war a spirit of great strength and hardihood came to the aid of the Valar, hearing in the far heaven that there was a battle in the Little Kingdom; and Arda was filled with the sound of his laughter. So came Tulkas the Strong, whose anger passes like a mighty wind, scattering cloud and darkness before it; and Melkor fled before his wrath and his laughter, and forsook Arda, and there was peace for a long age.  And Tulkas remained and became on of the Valar of the Kindom of Arda; but Melkor brooded in the outer darkness, and his hate was given to Tulkas for ever after." 

"Greatest in strength and deeds of prowess is Tulkas, who is surnamed Astaldo, the Valiant.  He came last to Arda, to aid the Valar in the first battles with Melkor.  He delights in wrestling and in contests of strength; and he rides no steed, for he can outrun all things that go on feet, and he is tireless.  His hair and beard are golden, and his flesh ruddy; his weapons are his hands.  He has little heed for either past or the future, and is of no avail as a counsellor, but is a hardy friend . . . Tulkas laughs ever, in sport or in war, and even in the face of Melkor he laughed in battles before the Elves were born." 

So I went into the prayer room and this image of a laughing warrior God had been humming in my head for a few weeks.  At some point, someone read Isaiah 64 (specifically verses 1-4), and I couldn't get the idea of Tulkas out of my head for the rest of the night.  So I went with it.  Psalm 2:1 & 4-6 (thanks Rene!), Psalm 3:3-4 and Psalm 18:28-36 were also read over the course of the evening . . .

So I started trying to draw Tulkas - or the aspect of God that Tulkas embodies: a storm of righteous anger that casts down evil to make way for joy.  So I'm calling this week's sketch "Tulkas Astaldo".

I had this epic idea of what Tulkas would look like - helmet, armor, the works.  A mighty, big picture with a man like figure clothed in everything strong and imposing!

And it wouldn't work.

I nearly shredded the page drawing and redrawing the sketch.

So I went back to Tolkien to reread everything and found myself caught on this concept of Tulkas as a wrestler.  My two brothers wrestled in high school, so I know a few paltry facts about the sport, and I knew that helmet I kept trying to draw would get in the way of any wrestling.  The armor, too. So I went back to the drawing board (so to speak) and tried to put my human imagining aside in favor of the work.  And then, as if by magic, I found the sketch.  Go figure.  Goes to show that simpler is better sometimes.

Initially, I wasn't sure that I liked the final product - there was a lot of struggle even after I found the sketch.  But I think it's growing on me.