The Star

I've been working on a new digital piece this week, inspired by the Illustration Friday prompt last week, "Stargazing." I finished it too late to submit it, and anyway I'm not sure it's admissible, since IF recommends avoiding linking to "inappropriate material that may offend viewers." Having lived in Nevada most of my life (where I could throw a stone and probably hit someone who'd be offended by a handsome, naked man), I decided not to link to it from IF. Anyway, it wasn't quite done. But now it is!















It was inspired by the Oscar Wilde fairy tale, "The Star-Child." The title character is a beautiful but arrogant young man who wanders the world until he learns humility (greatly over-simplified retelling, feel free to check it out at http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/StaChi.shtml. It's wonderful, like all Wilde's fairy tales). I wanted to draw a beautiful and ethereal man, as untouchable as a star. I don't know how well I succeeded, but I enjoyed trying. I'm getting much better at making my digital art look like my pencil work. The hardest part is still getting the printer and the screen to show the same image.

The Firebird in the Golden Cage

This is a piece I did years ago, but it fits this week's Illustration Friday topic so well ("Caged"). The medium was colored pencils and the inspiration was a combination of the allegory of the firebird and the fairy tale "The Golden Bird." The fairy tale always made me angry because the "hero" was some prince who got a happy ending through luck, even though he took absolutely none of the good advice he was given until it was too late. Repeatedly. The title character, the golden bird, was just another piece of treasure that the prince ended up with by the end, even though it was the bird that really started the whole story when it stole a golden apple.