Art Anyway

[rowyn]

This weekend, having finished the art card project, I found that I kept thinking about doing art anyway. By midday Saturday, I gave up and decided to work on a new picture. During my multiple art supply runs, I'd come across something called "Aquabord™". It's "Claybord™ textured", and appears to be a piece of the kind of board used to make

Comments

[jimmy_hollaman]

you are doing good. keep up the art! (its addictive isn't it, i am enjoying my 1,000 piece art/words project i am doing....)

[rowyn]

I guess it does get addictive. :) I don't know how long I'm gonna keep it up, though. I get frustrated with the problems that I can't figure out how to do better, like fur texture. It's not that I necessarily want to do realistic fur in every picture I ever do, but I'd like it to be an option. I want to know how to do it so that if I don't it's because I decided not to, not because I couldn't. Same with realistic lighting. If I don't figure these things out, I expect I'm gonna quit this art kick.

Oddly, I'd much rather that I'd written something than that I'd painted something, but I'd rather be painting than be writing, it seems.

[jimmy_hollaman]

for fur i have been doing a layering effect, but have found that if i do more than 3 colors one has to be thinner lines than the rest (and oddly enough, usually the darkest color. (good luck on finding what works for you...)

we all need to do the creative thing every once in a while. I write, i do art, if i didn't do this i think i might explode.... :)

[terrycloth]

Oooh, that's a really nice one. n.n Poor bird, though... or do otter-dragons still stick to fish?

As for the background... yeah, it works I think. Someday someone's going to have to draw a picture of the world tree sky as described in the book. I suspect it would look very silly. Or at least busy.

[rowyn]

I was thinking of putting the sun-lantern in, but then thought "that would put my figures in shadow with the sun behind them, and my lighting is unrealistic enough already".

I don't actually remember what the other sky-oddities were -- I'll look them up if I do another World Tree illo. I'm not actually sure the tree should trunk be visible in Kytheria, since the Kytheria branches are all the ones at the top. On the other hand, I seem to recall Sythyry talking about being in the shadow of the trunk from time to time, so maybe.

Or maybe it's still growing! :)

[terrycloth]

I think it said somewhere that it's still growing, and Ketheria is just the top level of branches... for now. One of the branches in the back looks awfully high up, though.

Other oddities I can remember offhand: A moon with a hole in it, a giant floating cani head, and the serpent that swims around polishing the stars.

[rowyn]

Oh, and Lut had the same thought about the bird: "Shouldn't it be more alarmed? You should do a sequel picture, with no bird and a few feathers dangling from the otter-dragon's mouth."

[tuftears]

Great work! Though perhaps give the bird more curve instead of being a straight line next time you draw flying birds? While I don't observe birds flying so much, artwise it seems unnatural for living things to be perfectly straight.

[rowyn]

That makes sense, yeah. The pictures of birds I saw mostly have them flying pretty level, but one doesn't have to draw them that way. :)

[the_vulture]

Very nicely composed! I like the lines of movement. I also like the texture of the paper. :)

[rowyn]

Thank you! I am really trying to have compositions that are more interesting than "this is what I think would be behind this figure". :) The surface is actually textured claybord(tm) instead of paper -- it's a hard rigid board covered in something clay-like.