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Tag: myths and fairytales
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Wasp fairy
It’s been one of those evenings where the planned drawing just didn’t work and so I just ended up drawing whatever came into my head, which just happened to be […]
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The sword in the stone
I should stop referring to this sword as ‘Excalibur’ as the majority of the re-tellings feature Arthur breaking this sword in his fight with Pellinore and later recieves Excalibur from […]
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Find that sword!
This was one of a pair for another SCBWI competition. I didn’t win but I enjoyed revisiting Arthur’s Britain for a little while. This was designed as a double-page spread […]
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Mermaid
I’m not sure why I got the inspiration to draw mermaids – I was doodling before a training session at work and found myself drawing tails on characters.
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Merlin imprisoned
This was a return to a more symbolic piece rather than a literal scene similar to the ones I’ve been working on recently. I decided to have Nimue rather than […]
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King Pellinore and Arthur
Arthur is given a much-needed lesson in humility by King Pellinore. This was quite a tricky composition – I had considered drawing them mid fight with Arthur’s sword breaking, but […]
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Field of battle
I had intended to take a break from the Arthurian drawings, but here we are again. I think I’ll just keep going while I’m feeling inspired. I imagined this as […]
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Into battle (colour)
A colour re-working of an earlier silhouette piece in the style of my digital watercolours using Rebelle3. This composition translated well – I’m not sure how some of the more […]
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The Sword in the Stone
“No one shall wield Excalibur… But me.” The scene from Boorman’s Excalibur where Uther – wounded and dying – thrusts the sword into the stone is a memorable one. I […]
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Arthur
I’m in two minds whether this is the onset of winter, or a bleak spring at the beginning of Arthur’s tale. The great thing about silhouettes is that it’s so […]
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Merlin and Nimue
Fairly bleak autumnal overtones going on here, though it’s about this time that Nimue betrays the wizard. The mist reminds me of the design of ‘Drawing Excalibur’ with the […]
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Yellow king
Not intended to be the The King in Yellow – I’m working my way through the colour wheel in Rebelle3 and reached the yellow palette. My original intention with the […]
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Uther
High King Uther, in his prime, but close to his fall. This was another digital sketch that inspired me to create another series of portraits from the Arthurian saga.
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Nimue
A Rebelle 3 sketch that I later realised fitted in well witsome of the Arthurian myth pieces I’d been working on. I felt that this made a rather intriguing Nimue, […]
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Winter temple
My new year’s resolution is to bring some more colour to my work. I’ve found that just adding colour to my black and white drawings really doesn’t work and so […]
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The Phoenix and the witch
There’s a story in here somewhere… Now that I’ve finally got a new laptop, I made a point of giving digital colouring another go – this time on a pencil […]
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Into battle
I’d never intended to follow the medieval romantic aesthetic of the Arthurian tales – at least in terms of costume design. Certainly arthur wouldn’t have worn plate armour. I really […]
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Arthur and Mordred
I’d already drawn the aftermath of Camlann but really wanted to draw a scene from the battle itself. I’ve been developing my style a bit – incorporating more stippling […]
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Tristan and Iseult
The classic Arthurian tragedy, though not originally part of the saga. I wanted this to be anunpleasant, tragic romance, but not brutally explicit, even though our hero is about to […]
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Guinevere and Lancelot
Certainly a bit more YA than my usual illustrations, but myths and legends are all sex ‘n’ violence. The sword symbolism and guinevere’s headdress are a combination of influences from […]
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Drawing Excalibur
I’ll be writing a longer blog post in regards to Undiscovered Voices, but this is the work that got me to the final. I’d stumbled into this style by chance, […]
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Camlann
I completed two pictures from the Arthurian legends for Undiscovered Voices 2018, and this was the companion piece to my competition entry. I’d visualised the book travelling through the seasons […]
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Red Riding Hood sets out
My final Red Riding Hood piece for now. This is close in composition (though it has fewer frames) to the drawing that started my whole ‘silhouette phase’ – a one […]
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Perseus and Medusa
Intended as an interior book illustration, my intention with this was to play around with perspective using silhouettes. The scene shows Perseus watching Medusa’s reflection in his shield, standing amongst […]
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Theseus and the Minotaur
Preparing for the 2017/18 Undiscovered Voices Competition (yes, I’m giving it another go), I decided to move my work in a new direction and decided that silhouettes were a good […]
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Baba Yaga
One of the last of my Inktober works, I used my ‘Once upon a time’ poster as the jumping off point as I liked the rendering of Baba Yaga on […]
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Little Red and the wolf
My final Red Riding Hood ink drawing for the time being. This was my experiment with coloured inks that I’d forgotten I’d bought and that had been hidden away in […]
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Red Riding Hood Revisited
I revisited the Red Riding Hood story after completing my previous pen and ink drawing from the story. I much prefer the way that the softer brush work lends itself […]
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The soggy bad wolf
I was inspired by ‘Inktober’ last year, and started to work on a series of brush and ink illustrations. This was one of my ‘unconventional wolf’ designs – I quite […]
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Witch
One of my Inktober fairytale sketches. I was exploring ways of adapting the style that I’d been playing around with for …don’t let the dragons bite and also my Once […]
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Red Riding Hood
My entry for the Tommie Depaola 2016 award. I wanted Red Riding Hood to have an eastern European look to her. The wolf is deliberately scrawny – it’s been lean […]
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Broomsticks are so middle-ages
I probably shouldn’t have got my hopes up too high in regards to the SCWBI Undiscovered Voices competition, but of all my work, I thought that I’d at least be […]
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Bringing down the moon
Scattering is the working title for a series of illustrations exploring magical and mythological creatures inhabiting modern cities. Aside from being a project that I’ve always wanted to work on, […]