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.

Happy New Year!

"Gabriel was not very good at magic.  His parents told him and their friends that he was only "struggling a little".  His older brothers were more blunt (they usually were) and said that there hadn't been a Prendergast so uniformly bad at magic for ten generations."

Next piece in the works.  This is just a sketch - no his arms are not deformed, I just drew them poorly.

Stay tuned for a story summary!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

A very merry Christmas and a warm holiday greeting to you and yours from the studio of Sara Silkwood. May your time this season be blessed and filled with hope.  

Here's the finished Christmas Spirit piece!

The Art of My Youth

I am going to share a piece of my childhood with you.  I'll put together some lists of different things I remember influencing me growing up.  I figure I'll do a kind of series - mostly for myself; I think it's always a good idea to know and understand where you come from.  Not that any real understanding can come from this other than that I'm OCD.

Evaline Ness

Sam, Bangs and Moonshine was the first children's book that I fell in love with as a child.  I couldn't tell you what it was that captured my imagination so completely, but I have vivid memories of this book, of pouring over it for hours.  I know that at least half of it was the story itself, but the pictures . . . It was in the bag that I packed and left just under the foot of my bed in case there was a fire.  All of my favorite things in the world were in that bag.  If there was a fire in the night, all I had to do was grab that bag and everything would be alright.

She's the reason I picked up Llyod Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain - her covers are what drew me to the books (I wasn't smart enough to realize that it was from the same artist).

I still have a copy of this on my bookshelf and I still take it down periodically to read it and look over the illustrations.

Wesley Dennis

I have a confession to make.  I was one of those girls growing up; one of those girls absolutely in love with horses.  And that phase lasted a lot longer for me than for others (to be really honest, it still pops up every now and again . . . or maybe more than that).  And Wesley Dennis fed that obsession.  A lot.

To be fair Marguerite Henry has to take her fair share of the blame.  I think King of the Wind was my favorite book for a couple of years - until my dad started reading the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and Chronicles of Narnia to us.  But I think Wesley Dennis was the only illustrator that they used for her books, so.

He and Holland C. Holland are mainly responsible for my love affair with pencil and charcoal.  I allowed other artists to lead me away from my love of the drawing once I was in college, but I think it's making a resurgence.

Holling C. Holling

I was never impressed with his watercolors, but oh, I was having conniptions over his drawings when I was in middle-school.  And the adventures that happened in his books - oh my gosh!

Darrel K. Sweet

I'm gonna be honest, my dad and I enjoy making fun of this guy.  I know he's dead.  I know it's not very nice, but really his draughtsmanship . . .

I want you to understand - this is a post about art that influenced me growing up, not about my favorite artists, even though some of them have made it in here.  I do not like Sweet's paintings.  I'm not sorry about that - even though the guy's a beast with his paints.

But, I remember my dad reading the Wheel of Time series as I was growing up and I remember this cover.  Dad would leave his books around the house as he was reading them and this illustration was captivating; I would stare at it for the longest time.  This cover is what made me want to read the book.  I couldn't wait until my dad told me I was old enough to read the series - because of this cover.

Chris Van Alsburg

It wasn't until college that I figured out that the covers of my favorite edition of The Chronicles of Narnia and the illustrator of Mark Helprin's trilogy retelling of Swan Lake were one and the same.

Mark Helprin I discovered in a bookshop in College Station, I think.  I picked up the second two books - not realizing that there was a prequel - I finally tracked it down in college, much to my satisfaction.  Sometimes a series just . . . moves me . . . in a way I don't understand.  Diana Wynne Jones and Madeline l'Engle (to some extent: for me she bridges the gap between these two artists and Lewis and Tolkien ) are other authors that do that for me.  They're different from Lewis and Tolkien - their work is . . . I don't know.  I don't want to sound corny but it speaks to the deepest parts of me.  Jones and Helprin . . . reading their work makes me think of what it must feel like to sit and listen to an oracle.  I can't explain it better.  Their books are otherworldly to me.  Anyway, this series was one of those.  And when it was combined with Chris' illustrations - oh, my gosh!

Those covers for Narnia where nothing short of magical.  He is the main reason that I have such a hard time thinking of illustrating these books myself, because they are just so perfect.  And then there's Pauline Banes . . . yeah, I just give up.

Trina Schart Hyman

This was another book I picked up as a kid on the force of the cover alone.  I thought the story was good, but man, I carried this book around for weeks and just stared at the cover in my free time.  I loved her hair, I loved her hands . . . My mom, who was always a big proponent of learning through reading, got Hyman's illustrated version of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.  I forget what we were studying - medieval literature? But I remember reading every story (they're abridged, edited by Barbara Cohen, so it was much easier for a middle-schooler to read, and less my mom had to worry about me reading something not age appropriate, which was always a concern because I was (am) a rather avaricious reader.  After the first few times I came to my mom with questions about things no 8 year-old should know about she made that rule I mentioned above about asking permission before reading a book) and just staring at the pictures.  My favorite was the Franklin's Tale, maybe partially because it had my favorite painting.  But only partially.


Anyway, I think that's enough for now.  This doesn't cover the multitude of other books I read growing up.  I had a ton of animal information books and books without pictures - I got into those at a very young age and always mourned their lack of illustrations - books about pioneers, castles, period cooking, Native Americans, dogs, horses, China, etc.  My mom keeps trying to get rid of some portion of the books we read  - trying to clean house, I guess. But every time I sit down to fill a box for her I'm always coming across an old friend . . . And what kind of person would I be if I just got rid of it like that?

New Work in Progress

Working on the sketch.

1st layers, acrylic on Strathmore 500 Illustration Board Vellum

Sorry, guys, another drive-by post today.  Trying out a new (for this process at least) surface for a painting I'm working on.  It's small, so I am hoping I will be able to meet my deadline for it.  I rushed a little putting the first layers down, so I'm not sure how I feel about it right now.

New stuff in the works for last SmArt School assignment as well.  I'll try and post something on it for next week

Steampunk Little Red - Part 7

I got sick this weekend - that's twice this year.  That's 1.5 times more than I usually get sick over the course of the year.  And it totally threw off my schedule.  I spent most of Saturday afternoon and Sunday in bed NOT sleeping because I couldn't breathe.  Gah!

I know I've said this before, but Little Red is almost done. Honestly it's the best thing I've produced to date as far as finished paintings go.  And as of writing this I have no idea of what to do for the next piece for Eric's class.  Though I am debating between just using the concepts for the girl in the woods or something Narnia related.  Or Robin Hood.  Or Chronicles of Prydain.  Or dragons.  Yeah . . .

I am also slowly, but surely, compiling my list of publishers/art directors to send out my first mailing to.  At Jen Betton's suggestion, I picked up a copy of Children's Writers and Illustrators Market as well as Artist and Graphic Designers Market.  I'm debating about getting an associates membership with the Graphic Artists Guild - does anyone out there have a membership?  Is it worth it?

Steampunk Little Red - Part 6

18 Hours

I just want you to know that I'm not trying to make this painting a bigger deal than it is.  First of all, I'm not all that creative when it comes to blog post titles.  So.  Second, I'm also not trying to be all "look at me, look at me!" even though I know it looks like it.  I am always so curious about how other artists work and the whole process and time and all that stuff.  There's a part of me that wants to show others who may be wondering how that painting came together.  Maybe you'll get some insight or avoid some of the traps that I tend to fall into. And it's good for me to be able to look at my own process and see how my decision making process works.  So I might be a little over-zealous in the sharing department.  But you know what?  This is my blog.  You can deal with it!

I'm sorry, it's late and my brain is fried.  So now that I've got my little disclaimer out there, here's some more updates, and an actual scan!  Aren't y'all proud of me?  I am.

Original Scan

So my new-ish scanner is 9x12 I think.  I've got it in my studio now and it helps to not have to walk all the way across the house to set up a scan, then back to my studio to preview and then back again, etc, etc.  I know.  My life is so hard.  This was scanned in in 4 part and stitched together in Photoshop.  I played with the levels a bit, but I think most of the color was captured pretty well.  It picked up a lot of the paper texture though and that wasn't as cool.  

Edited Scan

I was a little lost with the piece, so I went in with Photoshop and did a paint-over, to see if the changes I was wanting to make would work for the piece.  It did, so then I did that in real life.  My dad came in as I was working on it - he's one of the reasons I pursued art growing up.  That and my mom says she doesn't think I could do anything else.  Anything not creative, I mean.  She doesn't mean it as mean as that sounded, but I can't think of another way to put it right now.  Anyway, Dad came in and called me on my laziness in forgetting/ not wanting to go in and define some detail in her pants the way I was with the rest of her outfit.  So I got down and dirty with my reference and nailed down some details in the pants and WOW, how that helped.  It's so subtle, but it really brought the piece up a notch.

Anyway.  I didn't scan it again.  You'll just have to make do with photos until it's really finished.  Cause aside from the general annoyance that scanning is, un-taping a stretched piece of watercolor paper to scan it and then trying to tape it back down was probably the blondest thing I've done all week.  Maybe all year.  So guess what?  It's staying on the board until Sara's done with it.

21 Hours

Steampunk Little Red - Part 5

Just a quick update this week.  18 hours in, longest I've ever spent on a painting and Eric and Rebecca are talking about spending at least 50.  I cannot even fathom that.

I'm having to be careful, cause I loose steam more quickly and I really don't want to rush here at the end.  Colored pencils have been awesome - not getting lost in the painting nearly as badly.  But one thing is clear about all of this: I need to build up my endurance.

And an idea I am working on for a Christmas card.

Steampunk Little Red - Part 4

At the 10 hour mark.

Owl Calendar

A while ago, I cam across this picture of this impossibly tiny owl and it got stuck in my head.  Stuck bad.  And I didn't really know what to do with this midget-raptor flying around up in the attic, but what can you do?  So I let him stick around for lack of better options.

Then one day, sitting on a beach in Washington, this little girl showed up, too.  Turns out she and the owl were friends and the owl could talk and he had been human once.  Go figure.

Now, because of some bad decisions on both their parts they're on a quest.  It'll probably span several smallish books and they're taking their time in telling me, so . . . Don't hold your breath.

But the reason that I am telling you about them at all is that I was given the opportunity to submit a piece for an owl themed calendar a couple of months ago and midget-owl and the girl nagged me until I did a little piece of them for the project.  So here they are - all hyped up and "bring it" and such.

Here's a link to the site: www.myowlbarn.com

You create your own (FREE) calendar with the art you want for each month.  It's kinda awesome.

A Teaser

I know I skipped last week, so I figure I'd try and give y'all a teaser for tomorrow (if anyone cares ; p).

This is Siegfried from that piece I am working on for my class with Eric Fortune.

Hutchmoot Countdown

Ugh.  The craziness hasn't ended.  Washington was just the beginning.  September starts a whole new gauntlet of personal deadlines - and some "real" ones, too.  I have a post I am still working on about the Washington trip and workshop - but it's not finished.  And this one is.

First off, I am taking an online class with illustrator Eric Fortune, part of the lovely Rebecca Guay's program SmArt School  which is kind of an extension of her Illustration Master Class.  Anyway, I am in it for the long haul - at least until the end of the year.  I am now in a constant state of being super excited and super nervous and also super stressed.  Which one is currently at the level of "super-SUPER" is entirely dependent on whether or not I am caffeinated.

Secondly is Hutchmoot.  I cannot express the level of excitement that is building in me for this conference.  It's an extension of the Rabbit Room, an online site for creative community.  It's awesome.  Just go check it out.  Anyway, Hutchmoot is their yearly meeting; this year it sold out in SEVEN minutes - I was sitting at my computer half an hour before-hand with my mouse hovering over the refresh button, waiting for the tickets to go on sale.  Justin Gerard is going to be there (super-Super-SUPER excited), as well as Phil Vischer, N.D. Wilson, S.D. Smith, Lanier Ivestor, singer/songwriters galore, and oh-my-gosh, have I told you yet that I am really excited?

Now, because of all the awesomeness that is to come, I have a lot to do.  I have made a list:

1. New Website
2. Promotional Pieces and Hand-outs
3. Business Cards
4. UPDATE PORTFOLIO

Website

Ugh. SO overdue.  I still have the domain name (thank you, God), but the actual process of getting it up is an entirely different matter.  Hopefully, my amazingly brilliant designer sister can help me with that . . .

I want the site to be memorable - not as far as complexity of design goes, but the way the work is portrayed and the design itself.  I want it to be story-centered.  Anyway, the idea is there, I'm not quite sure how to express it or if it will even work, but we'll see.  

Promo Pieces/Business Cards

Kind of self explanatory - I have lots of (old) post cards, but there's something about specially designed or handmade promo pieces that's just . . . cool.  But of course ALL of this is dependent upon the . . . . 

UPDATED PORTFOLIO

I'm starting to sound like a broken record (to myself at least).  I'm thinking about it consciously about 20-40% of the time, and subconsciously about 378% of the time (Yes, that is physically possible, you and your logic and your maths can just . . . leave).  And that's just my hours of consciousness.  I'm not even going to start on what my mind has been doing while I'm asleep.  Not that that's been happening a lot.

The Drawing Board

Late night in the studio.  

I was at the store the other night picking up some more tracing paper and other supplies when I was once again tempted by the travel/table top easels.  You know the ones that you can pack up and take with you or put on a tripod and do plein air painting with?  Yeah.  I get tempted every time I pass by or get an ad in my email.  So I was thinking about it and then I saw this table top drawing board (not a bad price and I had a 40% off coupon!).  It sits on your table (or desk) and it has all of these different angles you can set it at.  I'd been bemoaning the price and size of drafting tables and this has met that need so far!  I am going to have to address my lighting situation though next.  Horrible . . . just horrible.

Anyway, this's stuff in progress for "The Chronicles of Prydain".

Next night was the sister-in-law's birthday, so not much work/art got done.

The next day was more sketch refinement and color-comps.  Holy crows, I hate color comps.  I looked at them the next morning - hoping that they were a little better than I remember.  They weren't.

You can see a little bit of Hen Wen here.  She wasn't a complete loss, but I got to a point where I was looking at the board and thinking - "What the hell am I doing?"  I literally had no idea.  Which really just means that I'm not ready to proceed from the comp stage yet, which is a good thing in a way because it tells me where I am in the whole process.  What is it that Edison said?  

"Results? Why, man, I have gotten lots of results! If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward...."

I imagine that that is much easier to say after the fact.

I am always in love at the sketch stage.  This is the fun part for me, the problem solving part.  You'd think that my mind would equate painting with problem solving, too.  But it doesn't.  It's more like conflict; I feel like I'm fighting something the entire time.  And I really hate conflict.

Part of the problem is also that I've started to be able to see a glimpse of the final image in my mind - that hasn't happened before.  Usually I have an idea that I want to illustrate, I do a bunch of thumbs, find ones that work, get the reference, do the drawing, figure out what needs to happen with the color in the comp stage and then paint the final.  I don't usually see the finish before it's sitting in front of me.  But with these I have and it's making my inability to but down even an echo of them on the board absolutely infuriating.

Another part of the problem is that at heart I am not a patient person - especially with myself.  I want things to be done right, and I want them to be done now.  And if I can't make it perfect then it's not worth doing.  Illogical, I know, and with anyone else I would be completely reasonable and understanding.  But it's not anyone else.  It's me.  And it has to be perfect.  I haven't quite figured out why perfect is so important to me, but my life seems to have been defined  in my own mind by it's level of "perfection".  Which isn't really attainable, which means that in my mind my life has not been successful up to this point.  But I think that might be too much honesty for the internet.  So.

Sorry.  I find myself all too often downing in my humanity lately.

I usually work on either cold-press watercolor paper or Strathmore 500 Series Illustration Board (Vellum). But the new-ish Aquaboard by Ampersand has captured my fancy.  I haven't quite "got it" yet, but something about it fascinates me (don't ask me what) and I keep coming back to try it out.  It's absolute murder on your watercolor brushes, though.  My Windsor Newton Series 7 has probably had it even without the abuse of the Aquaboard and gouache (it's . . . 6 years old? Good grief . . . And they're so expensive).  But of all the brushes I've used they are the best.  Dick Blick has a Kolinski Sable that's a decent substitute.

Anyway, I fought with the watercolor for another day, had a couple of emotional breakdowns with both art and life, then of course started to panic with my deadline advancing towards me in a most menacing fashion.  And I couldn't make the watercolor work to save my life.  The next night, I quickly changed gears and broke out my powdered graphite, carbon sticks and pencils and trusty kneaded eraser.  I love graphite.  And while I continued to fight with these, I didn't have the same level of frustration that I did with the watercolor.  These are on Stonehenge.  I also have some BFK Rives waiting for me to get back and experiment with.

I chose to stick with the just the spot illustrations.  I have full page illustrations waiting to be developed, but with my time constraints they just weren't feasible.  I'm finding that it takes me about 6 to 8 hours to finish one of these (starting from the point when I put the drawing on the board to adding the digital color), which is what I usually spend on a painting.  Now, Hen Wen took less time than that, obviously, and Taran and Melyngar are taking longer, so, I think the 6-8 is average.  And that's not including the time I spend finalizing the sketches.  I was hoping that these would be less time intensive since they were spots, but, c'est la vie.

Starting on Eilonwy.

Several hours in. 

Eilonwy nearing completion. 

Final with digital color.

I'm finding more and more that structure is very important for me - which may be why I was struggling so much with the watercolor pieces because I hadn't developed the sketches behind them enough.  Something to think about.  I plan on doing a lot of sketching and painting before and after the workshop, so maybe I can break through this mental block without the pressure of the little perfectionist in my head harassing me every step of the way (I've scheduled a few days before and after to "relax".  I love Seattle - couldn't tell you why, but it's one of my favorite places).

Working on Hen Wen.

Still working.

Hen Wen nearly finished.

Hen Wen final with digital color.

Working on Taran, Eilonwy, and Melyngar.

I wasn't able to finish this one - something was wrong with Melyngar's head, too small I think.  Didn't have time to finish it last night so it's still on the drawing board until I get back.  I'll finish it and post it soon.

Next stop Seattle.  I am so nervous on so many different levels.  I'll let you know how it goes.