Name of Piece: Fairy Forest
Title: Fairy Forest
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Title: Fairy Forest
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In this lithograph of F. Champenois Imprimeur- Éditeur (France) Mucha used a metal sheet and applied ink carefully with a brush to create an intricate design. While looking at this drawing I was drawn to the use of this pattern-like ring in the background using flowers and this use of bold lines to make the figure stand out. They also use lines to give weight to the figure and clothes. For example, the clothes have thicker lines where the clothes weigh more and have smaller lines to show the bending of the fabric in the dress. This lithograph overall has this warm tone to the entire piece which gives it this unit despite all the different lines outlining the plants and figure.
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Planning for my final Image I did a few thumbnails to get an idea of what pose I wanted to do as well as the color scheme. I used Alphonse's work as a reference while I could try to create a new pose for the figure. I thought Alphonse's composition and placement of figures were better. For the fairy, I based the figure on the image of the fairy in Anderson's painting. At the beginning of the project, I was aiming for this idea of an older idea of a cruel and mysterious figure but as I went along I wanted to lean more into the mischief side which is why I gave the fairy curly red hair as it gives this more unruly and wild person. For my pages, I did draw images of Alphonse work mostly to understand the composition of them. They were also the images that I found within his work which I thought the composition was interesting. I did experiment with watercolor mostly because I was unsure if the watercolor would affect the ink I was using. I tested this and it did work. Most of the drawings here are ideas I had while developing the illustrations. Such as the type of wings they would have. I looked into different insect wings, but I ended up liking the longer insect wings as it has a more pointed end and comes off as more magical compared to butterfly wings that come off more innocently.
I did have a few ideas I scraped like adding foxglove plants to the illustration. Foxglove is associated with fairies so it would have been fitting and would have added more plant motifs but in the end, I left it out. Mostly because I didn't know how to fit in but also I had a different flower in mind. Though looking back I could have incorporated both though I am not sure how success that would have worked out. Another thing I scraped was adding a mushroom pattern to the ring or halo around the figure to symbolize the fairy rings. I also did not use this idea. I could not figure out a way to incorporate them without looking awkward or out of place in the composition. |
I finished outlining the rest of the image using the micron pens. There was a change as can be seen by the addition of a single flower in the middle of the leaf arches as well as the change to the leaves in the corner and at the bottom of the illustration. In the beginning, I had no idea exactly what I wanted to put in the empty corner but seeing as I wanted to go into a more green theme I decided to leave branches on the corner to fill the space. I also changed the bottom leaves to be more consistent with each other but looking back I liked the previous sketch on the board for its variety of different plants. I was trying to draw plants that would see forests such as shoes leaving bushes but in the end, I feel that they look more like corn stocks in shape. |
At this stage, I finished putting down the colors for the majority of the piece. I was starting with the smaller details such as the leaves inside the rings. At this stage, I also added a light green to the background of the piece. I also started adding a gradient to a darker green at the bottom of the piece so as to not leave it as just a solid color. Another thing I did was adding some darker oranges to some pieces of the hair to give it some light and shadow giving it more depth. Same with part of the dress and skin I started adding some shadows to more areas of the dress.
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