Red Knight slooooooooooowly coming along

Slow (and not terribly steady) progress being made on the red knight painting. It's turning out more purple and gold than I originally had in mind though. But here's to hoping that will make the intended red foreground pop more. It's in that stage where I don't know if I like it or not, but that's when I just need to keep plowing on.




Unfortunately, I'm going to have to take a break on this probably in the next few days. The graphic designer working on my next Dreamscapes book has gotten back to me about cover concepts, and I need to get that one done first. Deadlines have precedence over Personal Projects. Here's the initial rough sketch:

Still waiting on feedback from the designers though, so until then I can keep plugging away at the Red Knight. Generally I like working on only one painting at a time. Dividing my energy just gets me really anxious; especially when I'm right about at a point in a painting when I'm uncertain about the colors and I really need to push past that difficult stage.

Red Knight finalized sketch

Looking forward to getting started on painting it this weekend!

Red Knight sketch

Finally getting around to starting the next piece in this series, Baba Yaga's Red Knight. Pages from my sketchbook a I was working it out:

Started with the thumbnail sketch for the overall composition. From there, worked on sketches for the main figures -- the mounted knight, as well as the hounds. After I had the varied sketches, I scanned and started fiddling around with the composition at larger scale. Moved, rotated, scaled the hounds. Minor bit of lighting roughed as well. The knight's pose was tweaked a little bit too. The angle was difficult for me, and so after it was scanned, I needed to scale his upper body and arm down a bit.

Keyword ACEO cards

A batch of keyword custom ACEO cards. Left to right: dragon, sirius, lemuria, gardener, solace. The dragon will be up on etsy when I have a chance to make the listing. The other 4 were custom ones.

White Knight of Bright Morning

White Knight of Bright Morning
Size: 19.3x21.6 inches
Medium: Watercolors
Original and prints for sale -here-
Detail closeups -here-

Baba Yaga of Slavic folklore: she was wise woman and witch, bestower of gifts and curses, life and death, crone, grandmother, and goddess. "My white knight, bright day. My red knight, round sun. My black knight, dark night," so she names her three servants.

This is the first of what will eventually be three paintings. Red & Black are forthcoming.

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Some of the inspiration for the background:

A birch grove on Manatoulin Island in Canada. Crisp edges and the mottled texture of the bark very striking. The morning sun streaming through the trees on a chill winter day in New York. Shadows and light. Lines and edges and a latticework of fine branches. Though my references may have been a little more close to home, white birch forests are found in Russia as well, and so it made an excellent setting for this piece.