Art & Illustration
"Folktale"
A story without a story...
Earlier this year, I had a dream of a young woman being rescued by a white reindeer somewhere in the snowy mountains. The image of a cold, tired, mysterious character looking over the hill at a cozy little village below stuck with me, and I quickly sketched it down the next day. I printed it out and did an ink drawing over that, but I still wasn't happy... Frustrated, I put it in my "Works in Progress" folder on my hard drive and resolved to pick it up again soon.
Well, 10 months later, I had a business trip in Ireland for a week, and I figured I'd have some time to give it another try. As frustrating as it is to do sometimes, I decided to re-draw the main characters all over again. This time I chose the same pencil tool I'd used for my Halloween card last month. It has a soft, hand-drawn look that I've been liking in conjunction with my watercolor brushes, and I thought perhaps the characters would be more successful if I started again. Within 15 minutes, I was already happier with the reindeer's face (which was the key to the whole drawing, in my mind), and the details were cleaner and a bit simplified.
Then, it was time for the painting. As you can see in the video below, I started with the furthest items first: the sky, the moon, the mountains, the village, the stone, and then the characters. I painted over a number of sittings, so I didn't do a real time-lapse video, but I thought I'd do a layer progression so you can roughly see the order in which I approached each element of the painting...
Well, that's about it! I've had a lot of requests to know the story behind this scene, but I'm afraid there's not much more to tell. Do you have an idea for a story to go along with this illustration? Feel free to write your ideas below! I look forward to hearing what you think :)