Man! It has
been a rough couple of weeks! After submitting my Saint Hildegard for approval with GCU, I began looking at Halloween categories I might have missed, and decided to make some Halloween party invitations. Then I began researching what kind of Christmas theme I wanted to pursue. I wanted to have a theme so I could make a bunch of cards on one subject, kind of like illustrating a story. I decided that since I neglected the faeries for Halloween, it would be neat to have a faerie theme for Christmas.
I noticed it was taking a while for my Hildegard card to get approved, but I had read on the forum that a lady had over two hundred cards pending approval and I figured that this was the hang up. It didn’t occur to why she would have so many pending. Then someone else complained on the forum how long it was taking for their cards to be approved. I should point out at this point that it is rare for someone from GCU proper to respond on the forum unless they are addressed by name; so when someone asks a question, it is usually answered by other artists who have more experience (hopefully) than the questioner. This time the response was that cards were taking a long time for approval because of the holiday season. What?! I thought starting on Christmas cards in Augu
st was being ahead of the game! Well, if you consider Halloween, and Thanksgiving part of the holiday season, I guess I am still ahead of the game; however, I realize that the vast majority of total cards sold are Christmas cards so naturally I began to panic. I went from being ahead to being behind without even noticing it! Crap!
Well, what can I do but proceed? I actually already have a few Christmas Cards posted. My great idea was to have faeries lighting a Christmas tree with their little halos. I know, right? Great idea! Well, I am now on my second attempt. My first attempt was too complicated and too small. I tried to draw each faerie and make their glow different colors on 7″x10″ watercolor block. I used a device of having a closer faerie heading toward the tree to make it more obvious that the tree was lit by faeries. This way I could detail one faerie, and the tree. It was just too 
messy.
My second attempt is on a 8.5″x14″ (10″x15″ cropped). This time the faeries on the tree are shining orbs with a faint faerie silhouette. Also, the glow is uniformly golden. I still have the device of a faerie closer to the viewer to convey that faeries are lighting the tree. Also, in the new version, she looks over her shoulder at the viewer and beckons us in. In each case, I also have faeries topping the tree and they are a little bigger.
I also wanted the trees to be covered with snow. To make the lights seem bright, I had to set the scene at night, right? So, I decided to make the snow a light blue. Trying to make snow look like snow and still have the lights be the lightest part of the painting turned out to be challenging. (when I was a kid, “challenging” meant “motivated one to try harder” now it is applied to every situation that is difficult; some kind of political correctness cross wire.) The trees just looked blue. Luckily, you can add yellow to blue and get green; the color most people expect fir trees to be.
The biggest challenge of the new painting turned out to be the glow of the main faerie. In the first painting, I left the paper white for the faerie glow. This is the recommended way to achieve light in watercolor: use the w
hite of the paper. Using white paint is frowned upon. In the first painting; however, all the halos were too sharp edged, particularly the lead faerie as she appears against the night sky. On the new painting I thought I would try leaving the sky light around the lead faerie but not white. The whole sky came out funky though. Kind of patchy as the paper dried before it could paint the whole sky. On a second pass, I wet the area to be painted first but this created puddly splotches.
When it came time to paint the glow around her; let’s call her Noel so I don’t have to keep calling her the lead faerie, putting yellow on top of purple didn’t work so well. So in with the white paint!
OK, this might be a good point to talk about Christmas music. I thought it might be a good idea to listen to Christmas music while I was working on this project, to help create the proper mood. I listen to Pandora which is usually great. I’m kind of picky about my Christmas music though, and the thing about Pandora if you aren’t familiar with it, is: you set parameters, and they pick music according to those parameters. This way, they get to try to sell you some music you weren’t expecting. First I picked “Christmas music” rather than a genre like “blues Christmas”, “Jazz Christmas,” etc… I wanted some Jewel, some Anonymous4, some Mormon Tabernacle choir, and I put this into the parameters, but Christmas i
s a stronger parameter, and I got Bing Crosby, Dean Martin… like that. That’s fine, but it is August remember? I used to work at a craft store and the manager would put Christmas music on in September (to go through January) and it drove me crazy. Well I switched my station to “Classical Christmas” and put in my parameters. after three straight days of listening like 8 hours a day they have yet to play one specific artist or song I put in, and I doubt they are going to. I like the classical Christmas, but I have a resentment now that they are not playing what I asked them too. They can’t get Sufi music down either, but that’s another story (they keep playing dance music: whirling dervish? I don’t know. there. that’s the story)
Any reader of this blog will quickly come to the conclusion that I have a lot of ideas that I voice and then seem to abandon. Sometimes, it gets put on hold for pursuit of a new idea, and I return to it later. Sometimes I do abandon it because while it might have sounded good in my head, it doesn’t work out in reality. We’ll see what happens to the “Faerie Christmas.” Even if I start doing line drawings of Santa Clause and Nativity scenes (both of which are in the works) I still want to do more faerie Christmas.
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Halloween!
O.K.! I am officially excited about Halloween! I have created a bunch of cards in plenty of time for my favorite holiday! I could just keep going… We will see. I even created a Halloween themed station on Pandora to inspire me, but Pandora hasn’t got the hang of it yet. Anyway, so far, I have a wiccan ceremony in which a chalice is displayed in worship of the mother goddess (this was meant to illustrate the fact that the use of a chalice (the holy grail) predates Christianity. Although in fairness, the Zoroastrians also used it as did the Roman spin off Mithraism, early Hindus (also evolving from the same culture as the Persian Zoroastrians aka the wise men visiting the baby Jesus) as well as the Greeks and basically everyone with a cup and a Deity to worship. But I digress. This is the first painting that I utilised my favorite celestial object the cone nebula; which lends itself nicely to being raiment for the Goddess. The Priestess embodies and becomes the Goddess. That painting is from my student days in days gone by.
Next, I painted specifically for this Halloween, another rendition utilizing the cone nebula, this time as the Goddess herself manifesting over a field where thirteen fires represent a coven of wiccans summoning her. In this piece, I made use of watercolor pencils that I received as an anniversary gift from my girlfriend. I suspect I may have freaked her out a little with my near obsession with witches and witchcraft (in July no less! It’s only Halloween to me!). If I did, she had too much grace to let me see it.
Next, I painted specifically for this Halloween, another rendition utilizing the cone nebula, this time as the Goddess herself manifesting over a field where thirteen fires represent a coven of wiccans summoning her. In this piece, I made use of watercolor pencils that I received as an anniversary gift from my girlfriend. I suspect I may have freaked her out a little with my near obsession with witches and witchcraft (in July no less! It’s only Halloween to me!). If I did, she had too much grace to let me see it.
At this point, I decided to paint a picture of a black cat. I searched the web, the library and the used book stores looking for the right cat. I think I found one that was relaxed, yet stared back at the viewer in a challenging way that may confront the viewer.
Then, continuing my focus on witches (Halloween may mean dress up and Frankenstein, but it was originally a Wiccan holiday; one of several sabots or witches’ Sabbaths – Black Sabbaths. It’s the most important holiday on their calendar, so this has been my focus. I may lighten up a little after this. However, before I lighten up, I painted a picture of a girl in Puritan dress circa 1692 Salem Mass. She is at her hearth where a cauldron hangs. she sits with a black cat at her lap and a giant pumpkin by her. For fun I gave her a corn cob pipe. In one of the cards I created, I included a quote from one of the women executed for witchcraft: Mary Easty. She was later exonerated. “I know not the least thing of witchcraft, therefore cannot, I dare not belie my own soul.”
Then, continuing my focus on witches (Halloween may mean dress up and Frankenstein, but it was originally a Wiccan holiday; one of several sabots or witches’ Sabbaths – Black Sabbaths. It’s the most important holiday on their calendar, so this has been my focus. I may lighten up a little after this. However, before I lighten up, I painted a picture of a girl in Puritan dress circa 1692 Salem Mass. She is at her hearth where a cauldron hangs. she sits with a black cat at her lap and a giant pumpkin by her. For fun I gave her a corn cob pipe. In one of the cards I created, I included a quote from one of the women executed for witchcraft: Mary Easty. She was later exonerated. “I know not the least thing of witchcraft, therefore cannot, I dare not belie my own soul.”
Then, finally relenting to the urge to have a laugh, I made a cartoon of Monster proportions. As I’m going to display it with the others, I won’t describe it as explanations of cartoons tend to diminish any humor they may possess.
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More Weight.
Well, it had to happen; sooner or later I was bound to create another post for my blog. Surprise surprise: I have been painting and creating cards. I painted a cat for Halloween. I think painting may take more out of me than I think, but it’s hard to follow up a painting by coming out of the shoot running. I really like this painting. I call it “Bad Luck.” I went through a lot of scrap looking for the right cat. I bought a book about cats, which is good because I like cats and will probably paint more.
Next I want to paint a witch; but of course I can’t just paint a green skinned, pointy hat wearing, broom riding mother-in-law. No. I want to paint a woman from Salem Mass. circa 1692. I know, I know… these women (and men) were killed for being something they weren’t: witches. At least most modern experts agree they weren’t guilty of “bedeviling” their accusers. But it is precisely their martyrdom that makes me want to paint them. They were the oppressed, the marginalized. They were the easy targets. There are several quotes which illustrate their courage. One man was pressed to death. This means he was placed between heavy stones and unless he would name accomplices (more innocent people to be tortured and killed), he would slowly be crushed to death. His final words were reportedly; “more weight.”
It is really hard to find period costume for the area. I have looked at pictures from “The Crucible,” and books containing colonial art, and realised that the time period is the Baroque, and the clothing is similar to Dutch and lowland costume of the same period. This means Rembrandt and Vermeer. Yay! Rubens was Catholic and the Puritans were Protestant which is what the Baroque means to me. The clothing is still similar.
I painted a mermaid for my friend’s birthday. I’ve also been trying my hand at sanskrit caligraphy. The above is pronounced, “Namaste.” which means; “the holy in me salutes the holy in you.”
