On Art and Faeries
I like fairies, in the larger and darker sense of the term. I describe my personal work as falling somewhere between Oz and the Dreamlands. I think I've painted some pretty monsters with fairy-like aspects but I continue to look for the thing that makes fairies magical on the page. Last month I joined in the JuneFae artist challenge to create a new and original fairy artwork every day of June; I could draw, paint, work traditionally or digitally, but every day I’d post a new work to my social media pages before noon. Counting up my sketches, I posted a fairy, fae or spirit on 30 of June's 31 days.
I started June drawing in pencil. I'm familiar with pencil, and that gave me standards to worry about -- technique and theme and the technical side of my daily post. I began thinking as I worked about what I would draw next, and whether today's fairy was appropriately fairy compared to other people's fairies, and whether my degree of finish was impressive enough, and my fairies became hard-edged and staid.
So, I began to experiment. My fairies were too firmly drawn? I let myself sketch lightly if I wanted. My favorite fairy artists -- John Bauer, Arthur Rackham -- used water color? I’d completed one piece in watercolor, but I broke out my starter set and began to mess around. I put some sepia (the color that brown would be if it thought brown was too exciting) on a sketch and posted it. And a few people liked it, and if it was reprehensible that I was experimenting in public, the world did not end.
Over 20 of the 30 pieces I worked up included watercolor. Some made me happy, some didn't quite come together. Some were dashed off quickly, some were carefully worked up. Here’s what I learned about my own fairies and fairy art.
The most magical fairies, to me, were the ones with lost edges. The more I polished the drawing and firmly penciled the edges and details, the more the emerging fairy turned into a prosaic insect-alien. The most magical fairies were the ones that skittered lightly onto the paper, some aspects detailed but others barely suggested or merging back into the paper. To me, they gained magic from simplicity.
I've seen this before in cartoons — pretty faces and children are also easy to overwork, as if details grind the prettiness away. A simple, abstracted face lets the viewer project onto and identify with the character, while a detailed portrait of someone specific blocks off projection. I think this works for the magic of fairies, too. A loose or gentle rendering can let the viewer project their own magic into the picture.
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