Tuesday, August 13, 2013

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!