Valentine treats....

Snow White

The Fairest of them All

35x50cm

Graphite pencils, pastels, watercolours.

I have been working on this one for quite a while, and even so I had to simplify my original idea quite a bit to finish it in time ... 

I just decided that the fairest of them all could only conceivably be Danila Kovalev...
It's a mix of many photos... you will understand how much I suffered in the last two weeks, browsing pictures of D. K. in various states of undress to source all the various parts... And then I started drawing from the top of the page, and by the time I reached the bottom of the paper I realized I had to frame the whole thing a bit tighter or end up with a somewhat embarassing picture. Ahem.

Those who read Woman as a Foreign Language will find more than a few echoes of Julia/n's in this.

May I remind you, on this Valentine occasion, that Woman as a Foreign Language is the most beautiful love story I ever wrote?  

Give it a go: it's for offer at Evernight at 25% off 

with the coupon code WINNER2017

Gildor, a pencil drawing

 

It’s been raining non-stop ALL day, a rather depressing business, but at least by working my eyes blind in the watery gloom, I managed to finish my new Tolkien illustration, starring the stunningly beautiful Paul Boche as Gildor Inglorion.

Gildor plays only a small part in the book and none at all in the movie (bah!), but he is the first elf that you encounter in the ‘real’ story, and not even meeting La Grande Dame Galadriel in the heart of the Golden Wood packs anywhere near as much magic as Gildor appearing out of the blue dusk in the homely woods of the Shire (chasing off a snuffling Black Rider in the process, I might add, so there!).

 

When Gildor and his companions take the hobbits on their nightly walk into the forest and a late banquet, “Sam walked along at Frodo’s side, as if in a dream, with an expression on his face half of fear and half of astonished joy… Pippin afterwards recalled little of either food or drink, for his mind was filled with the light upon the elf-faces, and the sound of voices so various and so beautiful that he felt in a waking dream…”

I always loved this, and hope I have captured some of the magic… The background is very freely copied from an ivy-overgrown tree in the forest just outside my garden. The moths are Smerinthus ocellatus, the eyed hawk-moth, a good totem I think for a far-wandering nocturnal elf.

 

 

“Elen sila lumen omentielvo” is the High Elven line that Frodo speaks to Gildor, “A star shines on the hour of our meeting.” 

With many thanks to Paul Boche for allowing me to use his picture(s) (three different photos went into this... he has a a challenging face!). 

 

Faber Castell Graphite Pure, from B to 9B

(it was COLD at my table these last couple of days)

In other news, I'll be posting book related stuff tomorrow :)

Cernunnos - a pencil drawing

 "Cernunnos"

35x50cm

Ⓒ Katherine Wyvern 2018

Lately we have been binge-watching Hannibal, of which we liked the first season (with some reserve at first), but not so much the rest (despite the uber-sexy Mads Mikkelsen, eh!), and the antlers imagery has been rather present in my mind…

So I drew this, not so much for Hannibal, but as Cernunnos.

It hints to Herne in the old Robin Hood series, and even Harry Potter’s patronus, but it’s none of these things really, or not only. It’s also not really the Celtic or even Wiccan Cernunnos for me, but an altogether earthier and more elemental being ... a personification of the life of the forest.

Like all natural spirits, I believe that despite the antlers, it should not be quite male or female, but both, or above it…

I added all the things that are brightest in my garden/forest now (those were copied from life), hellebores and arum leaves, and ivy, and pale lichen, which is at its brightest celadon now… Its lovely fractal shapes are the essence of all life forms, trees and lungs and veins and roots…

It’s the things I could draw from life at this time of year, but also, maybe, this is the time of year when we (or I, at least) most need to remember that the forest still lives, and will be green again.

There was to be a stag skull on Cernunnos’ head, but alas the paper was not large enough (that cramped my style a little),  so I had to be content with an eagle skull. A skull for mortality, but an eagle is a finely odinic animal, and Odin himself a good omen that life will come back from darkness, stronger, stranger and wiser.

The runes are Norse runes too. Ogham lettering is so ugly.

And it's an homage, once more, most of all,  to Danila Kovalev’s 

otherworldly beauty, and unique intensity.

Thank you!

 Faber-Castell Graphite Pure pencils, from B to 9B!