My Finished work:

Dancer in the Firelight - image 1 - student project

((Dancer in the Firelight, colour adjusted to counteract the washout from of my phone camera and room light. Non-adjusted version at the bottom))

This piece is mixed media (alcohol marker, colour pencil and guache on blending card). Its only the second artwork I've used marker for, and I've not done much in the way of serious art in 15ish years. This is an attempt to get back into a hobby I love after losing it to life and a PhD :p.

The story behind the picture, in the steps set out in the class:

Concept: the inspiration to do this particular drawing came from, first, making a new character for a Pathfinder campaign. I wanted to make a Bard, but not a bard with instruments. I chose an Undine.

Second, a comment from the GM of said campaign: What would an Undine do in a desert setting? The idea of the watershaping being part of her performance and her carrying her water around in a big jug for that performance.

Finally, I get VERY inspired by particular songs and really want to paint them. This one came from "Golden Coins" by Amberian Dawn.

Brainstorm/ Board: My mood board and brainstorm were fairly intertwined. I went about Googling anything that came to mind: Bedoin tents (which didn't end up making the cut), night desert scenes, folk dancers, ribbon dancers, Indian dancers until I started getting an idea of where I wanted to head. I then took a few of the dancer poses I liked and recreated some in Magic Poser (App) to help with proportions and lighting. Since I am VERY rusty- I gridded the pose and transferred it.

Dancer in the Firelight - image 2 - student project

((Prelim sketches, Magic Poser model, grid transfer))

Illustration: Man this thing was a journey. I put the figure in first, inked her, scanned her, enlarged her and transferred her to the final card. After a light inking (that I actually didn't like), I coloured the thumbnails. I knew I wanted a very heavy light-dark contrast (I wanted to practice with light effects), and unusual skin tone. I wanted to try and have a figure shadowy enough she started to get lost in the night- a bit sinister! I used the marker to carry the tine, primarily.

Dancer in the Firelight - image 6 - student project

((Thumbnails, colour tests, initial colouring and environment trial, full marker coloured work))

I coloured her in full in marker initially, but wasn't a fan of the streaks. I always intended to do the firelight in pencil to get the colour overlay, but also coloured the sand dunes over in pencil. I like that the scrubby texture of the pencil on paper added to the texture of the sand. The sky, to smooth it out and to give it a good depth of colour was overpainted in guache and spattered for stars.

She's not perfect, but I'm proud of her :p I wish I could put more time into her but deadlines (which I probably missed by now!) and work got in the way :p. I'd probably spend more time on sketches etc in future, but I'm impatient and prefer a learn-by-messing-it-up approach!

Dancer in the Firelight - image 10 - student project

(Final image- no adjustment)

I can't say too much about my voice as an artist- I have found I like the environment of my character to hold some weight in the message, and I seem to have a different style for environments than people, which in a way is an interesting juxtoposition. I think I am still a VERY cautious artist- looking at it the dunes in the back and the shadows on the figure could go much deeper. But that's part of the process I guess!

Thank you so much for the class, it (and your channel) has finally inspired me to get back into something I love.

- Cat

Catherine Cook

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