Called to the Ba.

No, that isn't a typo in the title smarty-pants;  it refers to a type of exotic and mythical creature, part of ancient Egyptian religious beliefs.  I mentioned the Ba bird a few blogs ago, and stated that I'd like to have a go at illustrating it.  You may know, or remember from the last blog that the Ba was one of three spiritual entities believed by the Egyptians to inhabit the tomb of a deceased person after the tomb was sealed.

The Ba represented the character of the deceased, the thing that made them who they were.  Oh and did I mention that they're birds with human heads and arms, so, ideal for the average bird watchers notepad.  Ba's could travel around in the real world in any shape if they needed to, possibly putting right the misdeeds of the dead person, or seeing to last minute problems. (was that life insurance policy up to date?)  But they had to return to the tomb to witness the weighing of their masters soul before re-entering the body of the deceased.  A workload like that would ruffle anybodies feathers.

As usual with this digital illustration thing, I start to draw on a layer with a slate grey line as large as I want because I will shrink the drawing down, as I need more room.  This time round I decided to use a layer for a very rough sketch and brought the opacity down to three of four percent so the lines were barely visible.  I then put another layer above and drew the actual lines on this.  It helps you judge better where you really want the lines and the faint lines don't detract from a change of mind.

Beginning of the drawing with paint additions

I began with the head, as most artists do, and if it's a full face I start my line almost always at the point where the bridge of the nose slides into the furthest eye socket.  It's a good point to start, because its very easy to then judge where the tip of the nose and nostril should be, and from that you can then easily judge how much of the furthest side of the face should be visible.  Easier said than done I hear you say?  Well, maybe, it all depends how far down the road you are.  

Close up of the paint, showing the way shadows are placed.

  I probably show all the traits of lack of patience, as I want to start painting at once, and so begin to apply a yellowish base colour onto the same layer as the drawing.  I place in a slightly darker yellow for the first indications of shadows, and a yellowish grey for darker shadows, at all times avoiding true black.  The hair or wig will be a very dark reddish brown.  I use a grey brown and work it around the eyes, covering the eyelids, and fill in the spaces where the eyes will be with the yellow of the skin.

Grey shadows defining the nose, neck and eyes.  The spaces of the eyes are also filled with yellow.

The dark wig will have long trailing pieces hanging down each shoulder, across which the arms will cut.  I have placed a little light on the face, on the nose and cheekbone and around the mouth, but I'm keeping it low for the time being.  Here I have to admit that I'm not sure how the whole picture will look.  This is the basis of many of my failures over the years; I have a vague idea of what I want, but then try to make it up as I go.  However gradually I am getting a clearer idea, I want an image of the full Ba bird, holding a scroll of papyrus, as if showing it to the viewer.

Faint grey lines used to work out positioning of the arms and scroll.

This means showing the whole bird body, with its tail feathers and long legs.  I wondered at this stage how the Egyptians themselves depicted the particular birds they used in their drawings and sculptures of the Ba.  Were they one definite bird, and was that bird still around, or had it gone extinct, as I believe some of the animals of ancient Egypt have?   I was curious, as I wanted a guide for the feathers of the bird.  The Egyptians seemed to depict the birds in many different ways, sometimes as hawks, sometimes as stalks or cranes.  I looked online and found a common Egyptian bird that I liked and which seemed to resemble some of the ancient depictions - a yellow wagtail.  I'm less worried that this isn't authentic than I'm happy to have something to use as a reference. 

But I now see something more worrying than a bad choice of Egyptian bird.  The figure is becoming unbalanced, too elongated.  I need to concentrate on making the body smaller.  To make this work the bird should have a big head and a petite little bird body, with quite long legs and arms.  It's going wrong, but when that happens you have to fight it until it goes right.

Lets see what we have next week.

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'For you have supped your last Grendal...'

The words of the title of this blog were written by Eleanor Farjeon, and it comes from a book she wrote in two volumes for children in the 1920’s called ‘Mighty Men’.  The book is an introduction to the stories of the great heroes of history and legend, the first in the second volume being the story of Beowulf, which Farjeon entitles ‘Grendal the Monster’.

Eleanor Farjeon.  1881 - 1965    Public domain.

 In this story Farjeon gives a simplified retelling and ends as with all the other stories in the book with a short poem, which sums up all that has previously been told.

The last verse:

Grendal fled from Heorot
With golden splinters strewn,
But the fair hall stood without a blot
Before the next night’s moon.
Now clear and strong rose sounds of song
Instead of sounds of wrath -

“For you have supped your last, Grendal!”
Said Beowulf the Goth.

Thrilling stuff when you’re six or seven years old.  In the book there were illustrations by an artist unknown to me named Huge Chesterman, and the one showing Grendal seriously put the frighteners on me when I was small.  I remember I used to turn two pages over to avoid seeing it.  Here it is in all its scary glory.

 

Drawing by Hugh Chesterman.  Public domain.

 Well, as an adult I’ve stopped trembling now and can look at it in a more subjective way as a picture and an illustration.  It was certainly effective on children, but now I don’t think it’s a particularly good image of Grendal.  Why?

Well its too Greek for one start, too classic.  Grendal is shown as a satyr or Pan like figure which has nothing to do with the norse tradition, and he looks altogether too spindly, as if a strong wind would knock him over.  (I felt the same thing about the 2007 animated films depiction of the monster – too flimsy.)  Also, the background of Chesterman’s picture is reminiscent of a Greek or Roman setting with its classical temple buildings and tall cypress trees.

In the poem Grendal is obviously huge.  I quote from Michael Alexander’s 1973 translation of the poem: 

‘…he grasped on their pallets

thirty warriors…’ 

and these are not ‘take aways’, he doesn’t charter a bus to take them back to his home to eat, he eats them there and then.  Respect.  I vote Grendal top monster.

And later as Beowulf waits to ambush Grendal – Grendal bursts into the hall, snatching up a warrior and immediately eats him; the poem states that he chews on the bone joints, sucks on the veins, swallows huge gobbets of flesh and completely consumes the man – hands and feet.Now that’s what I call a monster.

You knew this was leading up to something, and yes, it’s my chance to show off – showcase is what I meant to say, work I’ve been doing on the theme of Beowulf.  I picture the hero in a sort of ‘selfie’ moment, posing near the door of an outhouse where the head of Grendal is being displayed to the people.  Its digital, and one of my more finished images, the original drawing was made large on paper with pencil and scanned before being digitally coloured.

 

Development of the Grendal head from drawing on extreme left to overlays of colour in middle to full colour.

The background needs a complete rethink (that's why there isn't any) as you start off thinking you have a plan, and then you change your mind.  The main figures are okay so I'll leave them, but I need to better think out interior details, and other figures that I had initially intended to put in. 

Beowulf drawing details.

 
 Yes, I accept it’s a work in progress, and the background is almost non-existent, and the sword is only a place saver for want of a better one.  But it gives me incentive, if I undertake to show the more finished work – to actually do that work at some time in the future.

Work so far.  The wood in the background is just to give him something to pose against.

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Wings, teeth and claws Part 2.

Last week, I drew a dragon, as an exploration of the thought processes that go into creating an image of a mythical beast.  When an image is drawn using lots of cross-hatching and lines for shading, then an artist has to decide if they want the lines to be part of the finished image, or if they will act only as guide lines in the painting procedure.  With a water based medium such as watercolour or gouache, its possible to place a thin covering of paint over the lines, and if those lines are indelible such as ink then this works well.    

Even with a pencil its possible to do this as long as you don't overdo it.  You have to be careful though, and be aware of how these materials effect each other.  Charcoal for example will mix badly with paint and make the colours dirty, this can also happen with a soft pencil.

I have also noticed it affecting the colours of oils and acrylic when these paints are used thinly over soft and dirty lines.

Last week I showed an old drawing of a dragon from about five years ago, and here is the image as I finally finished it.  It's changed somewhat in position (I believe I actually laboriously redrew the dragon on paper which was large and in sections taped together!  I replaced sections that didn't work anymore.) and I took the decision to use solid colour which completely overpainted the original lines.  It was scanned and coloured digitally, and there are, just like real paints and drawing implements two ways to go with digital colour.  You can set individual layers with colour options that make the colours behave like those watercolours I mentioned earlier.  These options have different properties one of which is to allow lines to be seen through the colour.

Here the drawings lines show through the base yellow layer.

Different layers can be added on to this with different layer properties and a 'ink on paper' effect is achieved very like that seen in comic books.

The other option is to paint with solid colour and lose those lines.  Digitally this can be done exactly as an artist might do it with conventional material, they can just paint on to the lined surface with paint, but then you lose your guides immediately the paint goes on.  This was the way painters worked for centuries however, so it's not wrong, just skilled.

Even when I regularly painted with traditional media, for some reason I always favoured yellow ochre as a ground colour, and I still usually start off an image by flooding the whole drawing area in this colour.  Digitally it is possible to have your cake and eat it by placing a floating layer of paint over the drawing, and then by reducing the opacity of the paint, you are then able to see the drawing through the now semi-transparent paint.

Here the paint has been laid over the drawing, and is still at full strength.

As the image progresses the opacity can be brought back up to full strength so the effect of the work can be seen and understood, and so that colours can be chosen at their full strength, and then the opacity slider can be taken down again, so that the lines of the drawing are visible.


This takes place less and less as the picture nears its completion, and as most of the important lines are placed onto the paint layer.

Here the opacity of the paint layer has been reduced so that the lines beneath are visible.

This sounds as if it might be irritating or that it might slow down the painting process, but it's as easy as reaching for paint tubes or sharpening pencils.  Then the normal process of painting a picture comes to the fore, darkening and lightening areas, texture, tone and so on.

Comparison stages from painting in reduced opacity to paint with normal opacity.

I won't finish the full picture here, but have worked up the dragons head in the manner I would use for completion and so here it is.  As to whether I shall finish the complete image, I can't say - maybe.

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