Nocturne: Visitation

Nocturne: Visitation

Size: 15x19 inches

Medium: Mixed

 Prints: 8.5x11 ($16.95) and 11x17 ($26.75) -available here-

Visitation is a companion piece to a painting I did a month ago, Nocturne.

The wanderer's presence has not gone as unnoticed as he presumed. The faerie queen of the woods gazes upon his slumbering defenselessness and muses on what to do with this reckless one who dares to walk the hallowed paths and set eyes upon her.

* * *

Below are the sketches and photos of the piece as it progressed.

Started off initially thinking of a horizontal composition. Later on that changed. Thumbnail of the concept. Grassy circle in the forest, surrounded a stone cairn, and the faerie queen stands over his slumbering form with a lantern in her hand.

Brainstormed sketches for the Faerie queen. Went through many different scribbled sketches trying to find the right attitude.

 And sketch for the wanderer. He came easier, nailed what I had in mind on the first attempt.

At this point I ended up changing my mind on the horizontal composition and moved to a vertical one that matched the proportions of the original Nocturne painting. Cut and pasted the various sketches in photoshop, moved things around, scribbled in a rough approximation of the background.

 Then transferred and refined that onto the final surface.

First washes of color and ink.

 White watercolor ground layered on top, and more washes, and started on some detail on one of the trees.

More details, and some bold red and gold in the foreground

 The wanderer.

 First light glazes on her dress.

Drapery, hair, and face.

The little faeries around her and the lantern.

Picked out the negative space in the tree branches above.

Splatters of gold and red to help tie it back into the lower parts of the painting, as well as some blue/purple glazes.

 More work detailing the trunk textures.

 Gold leafing in the cores of the tree hollows.

And the final result.