Medusa

 

The sketch for this multi-media piece was drawn from Chris Achilleos' Medusa. I've always loved it and would like to do my own series of women in fantasy settings. Doing pieces like this helps me think through an idea.

The mandala behind the drawing was originally done in ink, I've just copied the image and changed the colour each time. I have a whole series of mandalas that I use on greeting cards and prints. They're fun to colour and embellish. I always feel like a kid with a colouring book when working on them.

The photo in the background was taken on Hwy #2 between Belleville and Trenton in a snowstorm. The snow had just started and the wind was whipping it across the highway, making visibility poor, but the effect with the late afternoon sun was quite impressive. Don't ask who was driving!

The written words are my own handwriting scanned and coloured. This one is just a definition from Wikipedia. As I do the sketches for this series I'll work on poetry to go with each piece as well to express some of the meaning behind them.

Kelowna

This piece is a new idea that has been fairly successful and is full of new possibilities and potential.

Each stage of the creative process is shown in the final design.

• I scanned the initial pencil sketch before adding the ink.
• The ink sketch was then finished and scanned, but I decided not to use it in the final design.
• The watercolour was then added to the ink and scanned.
• The final step was to remove the backgrounds from the digital images and create a layout of the various layers. Here the watercolour and ink layer has been flipped to create a nicer composition.

The finished piece is in fact multi-media but only exists as a digital file. Printed and plaqued it looks amazing. The finished size is 12" x 36". The next time I do something like this I'd like to incorporate a photo as well.