Elf Blood

As part of my constant drive to develop my personal skills, I’ve been exploring forms of artistic expression other than comics illustration and writing!

Over the last few years, I’ve focused mostly on my lineart. Obviously this is mainly due to the requirements of the comic artform, but it has rather had a knock-on effect on the rest of my art. I tend to think of scenes as collections of outlines first, and fill in the colors later on. While this is fine for pencil or ink work, it has its limitations when dealing with painted media. My first forays into acrylic (which I chose for its ability to convey highly saturated colors) were absolute messes, adhering rather slavishly to depicting the edges and outlines of the scenes.

I started experimenting with acrylics occurred about three years ago, when the notion of becoming a ‘proper artist’ (yes, I know how ridiculous that sounds) popped into my head. As I mentioned, I did have a go for a while, but poor results and a general lack of theoretical knowledge led to me abondoning it for a while. It’s only been recently that I ventured to pick it up again; this time, armed with a better general understanding of art principles, and a more accurate idea of how acrylic functions. What follows is what I achieved in this most recent run:

Sakura

Sakura was the first of the new paintings. It actually originally began life as an emotional abstract; I had gotten interested in doing some kind of abstract painting because much of what I illustrate is very literal, that lives within the bounds of the physical world. What I had originally wanted to do with this was to express a heightened emotion that I was feeling at the time (which, thanks to rude people in Piccadilly Gardens, was frustrated anger). However, a while into working on the painting I started to see something forming in it. Because of the shades of light magenta that I had mixed with dappled whites, I eventually started shaping the image into that of a cherry tree shedding its blossom. Hence, the title of the painting: Sakura.

Sprite Forest

After Sakura received a warm reception from my friends and family, I was encouraged to take my acrylic work further by creating Sprite Forest. Realising that I would always come back to illustrating physical objects in my art, I decided to find other ways to make my art interesting. I referenced a number of photographs taken deep in forests, and decided that it would be a good exercise if I were to try reversing some of the key colors found in these scenes. That is to say, I replaced the green of the foliage and the brown of the bark with crimson and blue, respectively. I had always intended for the painting to contain ‘sprites’, but I had some difficulty based in inexperience with actually depicting these mysterious beings. That this painting actually got finished is somewhat surprising, as I’d managed to ruin the thing by painting a massive, horrible white blotch in the top-left corner. I did the only thing that could be done: I left it for a day, and tackled the repair job the following night when I was in a better mood. I must admit to liking this painting rather a lot!

The good news, if you like these paintings, is that I’ll definitely be creating more! And what’s even better is that I’m planning on filming the works as the progress, and sharing them with everyone! Keep your eyes peeled for more information!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed today’s page, and the paintings! Have a great weekend everyone, and I’ll see you on Monday for an Elf Blood Extra!

Toodles!

M.