Inks for the Pan and friends

Last year, my sister in law suggested I made a painting for the kids based on Peter Pan. I promised I would do it before going to Italy in September, but well...that didn't really happen. One year later I am finally keeping my word and having a lot of fun with this little project.

The kids are floating somewhat above both Savona (Italy, where my family lives) and Chicago. Even if they are separated most of the time, they can imagine to be and play together. Although they have met for only very short periods of time, they love and miss each other. So it's nice to have them united at least on paper.

Another gift for my little nephews

My two darling nephews, Pit and Giac, just moved to a new home. For the occasion,  I am making them a new fairy tale- inspired drawing. Of course, also Bella and baby L (we haven't decided his name yet, but we are debating between two names that start by L) are in it. Here's what I have so far. I don't know how much you can see of my transparent pencils lines...but I hope you can get an idea of where the project is going.

See you soon!

Oak Spirits finished

I can't believe it! It's done..there was not too much work to do, but I was somewhat stuck...and busy, and stressed, and tired, and then away on vacation (thank goodness), and, for a few months now, pregnant. So I suppose I can console myself for being artistically dead for the whole summer.

I actually don't know that there is a lot of creative life in me right now, either. A hopeful sign is that last Sunday, while Bella and daddy were playing Lego upstairs, I wondered by the table where the dryads drawing had been laying abandoned for weeks and weeks, and I felt like I could maybe touch it up here and there. From there, and in a couple of evening sessions, I had completed it.

As I said in a previous post, the drawing is dedicated to the oak. According to ancient legends, oaks had not one but two resident spirits: a dryad, capable of leaving the tree and roaming into the forest, and an amadryad bound to the plant, united to it in life and death. Whenever a tree was cut, it was customary to call upon priests to perform rituals that would spare the dryad by sending her away. Things were sadly complicated in the case of oaks, whose amadryads could not be saved. Here you see the priests banishing one of the two creatures, while her sister is trapped and about to face the lumberers' axes. Sad, uh? What's with the black doves? That's a representation of another myth surrounding oak trees. Since oaks are sacred to Zeus and represent his power on earth, it was believed that the god would use it sometimes to communicate with humans. According to a greek legend, there once was a particular oak on  which two black doves coming from a far away land had made their nest. These doves would predict their future to pilgrims. Now, were the doves real birds like in this drawing? Hard to tell. One interpretation of the story is that the two black doves could have been priestesses that had reached ancient Greece either through a travel of their own or maybe by having been taken slaves from African shores. They were compared to doves because their sweet voices, as they were learning the local language, sounded strange, maybe difficult to understand, like the song of birds.

I found this tale quite intriguing, too, and gave the dove a central spot in the drawing...a tale of two couples of sisters, really.

Now to the next project, I think it will be the last one between now and the baby's birth, given my current productivity and the fact that I plan it to be a bit bigger than usual (adventure!). I'll keep you posted!

Ciao!

Long long time....

I haven't posted in forever! There are so many things to do at work and home and now that the grass is green and the airs smells of flowers, earth and rain I spend all the available free time outside with Bella. When the sun goes down and Bella retires for the night, my husband and I just crash on the couch for an hour of relax in front of the TV. That would be my drawing time, but of late most evenings we use the TV time to fold our seemingly endless laundry or to finish eating dinner (the amounts of watermelon that we end up swallowing this way is just amazing!).

Bottom line, I haven't finished my oak dryads drawing. I haven't actually touched it in 10 days! Here are some progress photos. 

I want to finish this, because I am curious to see how it will turn out (so far I really like it...strange) and because I need to start working on a gift for my nephews...I am going to see them in September, so I have a bit more than two months to prepare it. Not much, given my current rhythms....well, we'll see...

Anyways, sorry for the long silence. I'll try to be here more often in the next months. :)

Linking to Paper Saturdays. Happy weekend!

Dryads in progress

Had a lovely weekend. What about you?
Here is some progress on my dryads. Keeping the neutral greys going for now. I'll try to keep the focus on the main characters. There was a creeping shadow on my chair this morning as I took this picture. Somehow I like it...it seems to add to the drama of the scene.

Thanks for visiting and commenting.

The oak and its dryads inks

Dedicated to mother Nature, with thanks and apologies....
 
Oak are the only trees that have not one but two spirits inhabiting them, according to Greek mythology. One moves around in the woods, like most dryads do. The other, the amadryad is permanently bound to the tree and never leaves, even if the oak is cut. This drawing tells represents the last moments shared by two sisters dryads, before their oak is taken down by a group of men. They are accompanied by priests that perform a ritual to warn and repel the one dryad that can actually survive away from the tree. She can't help but flee and yet her heart is torn to pieces because she know she will forever be separated from her beloved twin.

Now that I have inked the scene, I wonder, what color should the hair of the dryad be? My husband says green, but I am not certain..the only other time I painted a dryad, she had green hair, I think, and I 'd like to change...

Hope you are enjoying the nice weather and have a lovely Mother's Day.
Ciao, Mamma!

Yggdrasil or the Cosmic Ash

Small everyday life occurrences have delayed my posting of this picture. I am very happy on how this turned out. There are many colors but they are softened by the underlying grays.

I assume the most of you are familiar with the mythology of the Yggdrasil, but I am going to summarize it here just to explain what you see in the drawing. Yggdrasil is the great cosmic ash, three roots support it. Near one of these roots, the residence of the Norns can be found. They are in charge of mankind's destiny and they tend to the giant tree. You can see them here, kind of oversized, as spiritual superhuman entities should be, pouring water from a sacred spring.

Raskator, the squirrel runs up and down the trunk of the tree reporting the angry exchanges of the eagle that leaves on the top branches and the demonic snake that coils at the roots. Four stags also live in the branches and eat the leaves of the Yggdrasil. In the drawing the stags have become part of the tree...you can see just three of them because the fourth is roaming on the other side! ;)

Yggdrasil is the source of cosmic wisdom and that's to acquire such wisdom that. Odin chose to spend nine nights without food or water hanging from its branches. Here he has joined the stags and surveys the universe from the foliage....

Finally, Yggdrasil is considered the only tree capable of surviving the Twilight of the Gods. After the apocalypse, when a new hearth, sky and sun will be generated and life will start over fresh and renovated, from the wooden depths of the tree, two new human beings, Lif and Lifthrasir, will rise. They will eat exclusively morning dew and will be the progenitors of the new human kind.

I guess that covers it all! Enjoy!