Thursday, April 3, 2014

Fairy paintings


“Back, you cur.” 11”x14” pen & ink drawing on Bristol Vellum.

I’ve been thinking about fairy paintings (and drawings) since the Charles Vess workshop a few weeks ago. After some contemplation, I decided to try my hand at a children’s book illustration in my favorite pen & ink style.

The story here involves a pet dog finding a fairy colony in the woods. The resident fairies are not pleased by the intruder and scold the dog for disturbing them. At first, I thought to add an owl to the picture, but truth to tell, I prefer hawks. So I added a kestrel to the tree, instead of an owl.

This is the style of illustration you will see in my novels, very old-fashioned, but to me, also very magical.