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.

White Knight Progress

Making slow and steady progress on my white knight. Had a fun two weeks of flu and cold back to back (one of the hidden joys of motherhood) and so wasn't feeling up to doing a whole lot. But it's shaping up nicely. Many times when I'm working on a painting and finish it over the course of a week, it's too fast to get any perspective and objectivity, and I end up absolutely hating the piece and thinking it's awfulterribad. Only after a week or two of shutting it away in my closet can I look at it and see that I do like it (or not). Working much more slowly like this, I'm having more time to get a clearer opinion of the piece as I go, and what things to change, and what direction to move. So I suppose it's having its benefits as well!

White Knight Sketch

"White Knight of Bright Morning" I think will be the final title, in reference to Baba Yaga's white knight. This is a concept I've had rattling around in my brain for many years now actually, waiting for me to have the time to tackle. There will be three pieces to the series eventually, with the Red Knight of day, and Black Knight of the night to complete the set. This is 18x21 inches. One of the larger pieces that I've done in a while.

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Here were the initial sketches that led up to the final:

From my sketchbook. Focused first on the knight on his horse. Was tempted to make it a unicorn, for the purity and new dawn that the white knight represents, but managed to steer away from that with instead a headpiece on the horse mounted with stag horns; giving it a little of the connotations that a unicorn has, of innocence and sacrifice, but also binds it to some more earthy images and traditions. I wanted the composition to be panned out from the knight a bit, with the sun a looming presence through the trees; perhaps even glowing ghostly through the outlines of the trees. A grove of birches - stark white/grey/blues.



After scanning the initial sketch, I could play around with it in photoshop for the final proportions. Extended the trees up. Added more deer/antelope/stag-ish creatures leaping in shadow forms through the trees. They will be translucent, ghostly. For this mockup, I actually just cut and pasted deer/kierun sketches I had from previous paintings (4 of wands, and sagittarius), using them just as rough shapes to get the concept here; refining and changing them later for the final form.