the Queen & Elise

Here's the first sketch a little further on now. I just wanted to sketch them out really, but this turned into something more. I will try to refine it more later on and figure out where I might incorporate this into the book. For now I'm beginning the planned illustrations; also I'll do more characters to get the looks right.

"the Queen"

"... in the anguish of his heart, the King consented, and the old woman led him to her little hut, where her daughter was sitting by the fire. She received the King as though she had been expecting him, and he saw that she was very beautiful, but still did not please him, and he could not look upon her without secret horror."

Some digital painting with Photoshop, sketching out "the Queen" again. I was thinking of a line from two of the stories, where the childrens' father first sees the daughter of the witch who he is forced to agree to marry in order to find the way out of a forest. This is unfinished at the moment, I will continue to work on it and also paint out some of the other main characters that repeat throughout the stories.

Character sketches...

Although this is not finalised, I have settled at the moment on compiling the original very old Irish myth "the Children of Lir" which from my research appears to be the 'parent' myth of all the ones I have been researching. As this is the oldest of all the tales I think it would be appropriate to perhaps place this as the first one in the book.

I have chosen the the following tales after "The children of Lir" mainly because they most closely resemble the story of the first one. There are many I have read about such as "The Feathery Robe/Hagoromo" which also has many different versions, but the story varies from the generalised "Swan Maiden" one which I have chosen to illustrate. So, to summarise there are in total (so far) six variations of this myth from around the world which I will record and illustrate.

Since the beginning of this unit I have been sketching ideas for the main characters, and also attempting to stylise the swans which are really the main heroine's brothers, put under a curse by their stepmother. (typical fairytale theme here)...

In one of the first tutorial/crits we had with Kit, it was suggested for me to try to stave off the computer for my intial sketches and experiment with traditional media. So, my first efforts were on this brown parcel-paper, with a 6B pencil and white pencil. For some reason they seemed to blend really well together. I like the sketch-like outcome of this... it has more depth than a regular pencil sketch as well, so I may come back to this style when I start finalising my illustrations.

\\ final major project //

After handing in my PPRD unit and really finding it useful to accompany my work, I have decided to start a separate blog within which I will post some digital sketches, experiments and any resources I want to keep track of as sometimes when I'm searching the internet for inspiration and relevant things I tend to lose track of if I'm in a rush or forget to note them down / organise them into my book marks. I like the design aspect of websites also so I will make an effort to design this layout nicely according to the illustrative themes of my book.

As for my Learning Agreement for this unit, I have decided to illustrate and typeset a set of folklore tales that are essentially variations of the same story from around the world. I will resolve this brief in the form of a hardback book, possibly as a blad, however my current aim is to create something more substantial and I would like to achieve that as a finished book.