Lamp Post Guild - Thumbnails

Lamp Post Guild update!

The course that I'm taking is all about developing personal work and the course consists of creating a series of illustrations, which can be tied together by a story or theme.

The illustration series that I've embarked upon is based off of George MacDonald's collected fairy tales. For the uninitiated, MacDonald was a writer who may not be terribly known these days, but who greatly influenced C.S. Lewis. A number of times while reading MacDonald's fairy tales, I was reminded strongly of the way that Lewis wrote "The Great Divorce", "The Screwtape Letters" and The Chronicles of Narnia.

MacDonald wrote eight fairy tales, which are now compiled into a single book. So for my series, I've decided to illustrate a single scene from each story. I tried to pick scenes that, while magical and narrative, do not spoil the entirety of the plot or the conclusion. Rather, most of the imagery is pulled from junctures in the stories during what you might call a "fateful encounter".

Below are the thumbnails that I've done for the eight tales.

Next up - rough sketches!

Shaking off the cobwebs

Hello! *listens for echoes*

It's unfortunate. I've hardly posted anything for the entirety of 2013 thus far. Sad, sad, sad... Truth is, I've been so busy trying to hold down my current illustration gig that for a while it was all I could do to hang in there with it, let alone making personal art on the side.

Which brings me to the good news: I'm beginning to make more personal art on the side.

I signed up recently to take a Lamp Post Guild course by Cory Godbey concerning personal projects. It's a 10 week class that focuses on creating sustainable personal projects. So over the next few weeks, I plan on posting some of my progress here. Doing the work will be my first priority, so while I'll try to post things up here regularly, I'm making no promises on how often or how much I'll post. I know myself too well for that. :)

In an effort to get in the groove of creating personal pieces, here's something I worked up over the past couple days.