In the previous post I was replying to friend and fellow BoG brother, Shane Odom, “I’m sad to say that there are no acorns in my ‘Instructions’ illustrations.” But just yesterday I was walking to my ‘other’ studio and picked up a nice little acorn, slipped it into my pocket and then, promptly forgot about it. Today I was reaching for some change and there it was, then inspiration hit!
This ‘other’ studio is a space dedicated to producing a new piece of art, made possible by a promise that I made when IÂ finished ‘Instructions’ on schedule. I gave myself the time to work on anything that I wanted. And THAT ANYTHING, happened to be a scene that I’d had in mind since the Spring, set amongst standing stones, lit by a crescent moon with the King and Queen of Faerie surrounded by a horde of cavorting fairy folk all of which is now being drawn and then painted onto a sheet of 4 x 8ft watercolor paper!
As you can see at the top of this post, the King now wears a bracelet made of small acorns wound about his wrist. and he and his Queen are surrounded by a circle dance of their many and varied subjects.
You’ll have to forgive the odd quality of these scans as this temporary studio doesn’t have much in the way of proper lighting.
And yes, I couldn’t help myself, I placed a Totoro figure amidst the swooping figures.
This is the blurriest of the lot, but it does give you the scope of the piece. I just started applying color this week and continue to have a ball working on this.
I hope to have it ready for display come FaerieCon time. Wish me luck!!
Best,
Charles
17 thoughts on “A Frolic in the midnight midsummer moonlight”
Gadzooks that’s a big beautiful piece! I can’t wait to see it in person! BTW is that a custom easel, or can you buy them that wide?
Marc,
That’s a custom made job for sure!
C.
Wow that’s a huge piece of work! I didn’t know watercolor paper came that large. Really nice artwork, thanks for sharing.
You can purchase rolls of Arches Watercolor paper that are 51 inches high by 30 yards long.Then you just cut it down to whatever your requirements are. It does take my inks beautifully.
But, can you just imagine working on that whole surface!!
Charles
You always draw the most wonderful faeries, and I’m very particular about my faeries 🙂 I envy you your set-up, and can’t wait to see the finished product!
Thank you.
Which other artist’s interpretation of faeries do you like?
I’ll continue to post about my progress painting the piece. So far I’ve spent three day easing into the application of color and I’ve just fallen in love with the Arches paper. There’s probably too much texture for smaller images to work but here and now it’s perfect.
Charles
I’m also partial to Brian Froud’s faeries. In fact, his are some of the first that I was ever exposed to. In writing, I find Tad Williams’ depictions to be exquisite. I think it’s the sense of mischieviousness, a hint of maliciousness and an alltogether non-human morality that I like about (proper) faeries. I can’t abide the universally ‘nice’ interpretations.
I’ve had the pleasure to work with Arches paper a few times at school, and I wish I could afford to work on it more often! Ah well, in time.
Babseth,
If you (or anyone reading this) live any where close to Baltimore, MD you might consider attending FaerieCon, which will be held the weekend of November 6-8. Writer Charles de Lint and I are the GoH and many, many painters of Faerie will be exhibiting: Linda Ravenscroft, Larry Macdougall, Helena Nelson-Reed, Jessie Galbreth as well as LOTS more. In the evenings there are two masquerade balls with live music. A great time is had by all!
Their link: http://www.faeriecon.com/
Charles
Bravo!! charles for doing something for yourself. Good to see you and Karen this afternoon. If the lighting doesn’t work, I do think we can create a new lighting system. Looking good!! david
You might be doing that for yourself as you say, but since you are sharing you wonderful work with us we all win!
Thank you Charles.
Paul
That is going to be one amazing piece of work – I look forwards to your next project, 51 inches by 30 yards………
Wow! That looks fantastic, Charles!
FaerieCon is a little further drive this year than Philly last year, but how can I pass up an opportunity to see Totoro cavorting with the faeries? Are you and Karen going to both balls? I may have to make it a day trip but I hate to miss them.
Gorgeous work Charles, as always!
My goodness! The level of detail in your art (at any scale) always humbles me. Can’t wait to see the finished piece!
I LOVE arches watercolor paper, my paper of choice for sure! If you’d like to try it for your smaller work, you may like the “hot press” Arches. It has little to no texture, but has all the wonderful absorbent qualities of the textured kind.
Just thought I’d pass it along!
Jared Boggess
Charles, this is an epic piece, totally beautiful, Would love to see how this is progressing! Did you get it finished in time for FaerieCon? Your work is inspirational =)
Man, where in the heck do you get watercolor paper that big! Wow! I can see illustration board, but man, this is huge! This reminds of the massive horizontal Burne-Jones piece called “The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon”. Have you ever seen it? You have that same epic quality building in a work of this magnitude. It takes a lot of patience and joy to do detail work at this scale, you are the real deal.
Just got my copy of Realms of Fantasy and saw you were the featured artist. I wasn’t sure that we both had wasted space at Glass until I saw your picture in the previous entry. Browsed your site and it is absolutely fantastic. I look forward to your new book, hopefully as a winter solstice present. Congratulations on your life’s work so far. Making it out of Glass alive as an artist was no mean accomplishment in and of itself (so many didn’t, sigh).