Saturday, May 24, 2014

Victorious Night

Lately I've been feeling very inspired to make a bunch of drawings featuring the silhouetted little girl from "Tornado Girl". I've sort of fallen in love with the concept of this mysterious girl who seems to control nature and the elements. Back in September I wrote about the first one, Tornado Girl, and I loved getting to share my thoughts and my process. Since then, I've created five more images that I'm equally eager to share. So beginning with this post, I'm going to share with you, dear readers, the other images and the thoughts behind them.

Prints of two drawings in the series, Victorious Night and Lightning Girl, are available for purchase on Etsy. However, three are entirely new pictures that have only been seen by my family and close friends, so that's exciting. I can't wait to show them to you!

I'm going in the order that I made them, so today I'm going to share "Victorious Night" with you.


Though I titled this as "Victorious Night" for Etsy, it's real title is not really established. I still can't decide if she's raising her first in victory or defiance, and the fact that I made it in the middle of finals week last semester could support either interpretation.

If you've taken any art classes, you might have been taught to establish the background of a drawing and work forward. Confession: I break that "rule" all the time. This drawing is no exception; I started by drawing the tree and bushes. I sketched in the girl, colored in the sky, then drew in the girl with the same ink I used for the tree. Finally I put in the moon, almost as an afterthought.

I hadn't drawn a winter tree in pen and ink since drawing Peaceful Tree a couple of years ago, and so I had a lot of fun with the tree in this picture. I also had fun with the sky. It was inspired by many night skies I saw around that time. Night after night, the city lights reflecting on the clouds turned the sky into lovely shades of pink, purple, mauve and warm grey. I couldn't get enough of it, and I knew I had to include it in a drawing. Then it only seemed right for the silhouette girl to join the picture, and the moon brought the whole picture into balance.

Whether you think she's celebrating or rebelling, I hope you like "Victorious Night" as much as I liked drawing it!
-Cailey

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