Wood Elves Returning to the Undying Lands for Illustration Friday

Here is a quick image of Tolkien's wood elves returning to the undying lands. 

Here it is in Black and White.

And just for fun I made it available as a print, laptop skin, or iphone cover at society6. 

 

Love this art? Buy Prints or Cards and Gifts illustrated by Manelle.

A Note on Fairy Tales

Little Mermaid

I love fairy tales. I remember sitting down with my family every Sunday night to watch Shelly Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre on our pbs station.



My brother and I loved them. My favorite was the "Six Dancing Princesses" (I think because they had pretty dresses). But we all loved "The Princess Who Never Laughed" and "The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers" We still quote them to this day.

("e=mc not squared" So. Funny.)

Anyway... I think Faerie Tale Theatre + Disney started my love for fairy tales.

In high school I loved going to the library and checking out books from the J398's I loved reading the fairy tales and looking at the beautiful illustrations.

Three of my favorite fairy tale illustrators happen to be: P.J. Lynch, Trina Hyman, and Lisbeth Zwerger (I think I've mentioned this before but it never hurts to do so again. :)


My art is heavily influenced by them.

Now when I need info about fairy tales I always go to surlalunefairytales.com. It has so much fairy tale info I don't think I'll ever get sick of it. Here is the annotated Little Mermaid. On the site you can find not only text of the tale but illustrations, histories, similar tales across cultures and current retellings of the tales. It's so fabulous.

And just in case you were wondering, my current favorite is The Three Spinners , a tale similar to Rumpelstiltskin. 

What are some of your fairy tale memories. When was the first time you ever remember hearing a classic fairy tale?

Love this art? Buy Prints or Cards and Gifts illustrated by Manelle.

Why NOT to steal ideas.

Two weeks ago I wrote a blog post about being inspired by other artists. Something I love to do. This week I'm going to tell you how it can sometimes be taken too far.

A couple days ago I came across this video interview with Iain McCaig. A very amazing illustrator and concept artist. It's kinda long but I highly recommend watching it all.

One part that really got me thinking was when he talked about taking books with illustrations by his heroes and putting them away. It is at about 8:30 on the video.

When I watched this video I was working on some dwarf character designs for a Snow-white eBook. It was being a real struggle and I just wasn't making headway.  I saw the video and realized I was guilty of exactly what he was describing. I had various books around me with drawing of dwarves by other people and was checking them out for ideas about clothes or beards, or gesture, etc. But I wasn't having any fun. (and BTW fun is the whole point of drawing a fairy tale eBook)

After watching the video I put the books away and have tried to be super conscious not to have anything like that in front of me while I am drawing. It's been a freeing experience.

I still love looking at great art I'm just not going to to it while I'm drawing any more.

Here are a couple of the drawings I did. They are not yet the finished designs but they feel more alive than my first attempts.

 

Love this art? Buy Prints or Cards and Gifts illustrated by Manelle.

Stealing People's ideas

Artists steal from each other all the time.

I love looking at other artists work to get ideas. Sometimes I copy part, or all, of a painting or drawing so I can learn how artists better than me do things.  This type of stuff no one sees but me, but it's in my brain somewhere.

Other times I look at other artists just to get inspired. Ask, how do they draw, expressions, wrinkles, shoes, or compose a picture?

PJ Lynch, and artist I am often inspired by, had a really great example on his blog a while back called "Inspired by Dulac".  I really enjoy seeing how he incorporated another artists way of using space into his image.

When I created the Little Match Girl, and Cinderella illustrations I wanted it to be an exercise on using space the way Lisbeth Zwerger does. She creates paintings with beautiful areas of empty space. I really enjoyed working that way and hope I can incorporate more of that in my work in the future. Here is a link to an interview she gave about her art.

How are you inspired by other artists?



The winner of last week's giveaway is...
... Camilla!
(winner was chosen completely at random by drawing numbers from a bowl)
please email me at illustration(at)manelleoliphant(dot)com with your name and mailing address, and I will send you your prize 

So if you didn't win there is one more chance. (once you have won you are no longer eligible to enter again but feel free to spread the word. ;)
Or, if you don't want to wait check out my print shop or card shop to get your own Manelle art right away.

Here is what you can win.

Three illustrated art prints. They are printed on Epson Velvet fin art paper and signed by me.
They are in two sizes one 5.75x8.5 and two 13x8.5 prints.  (not standard frame sizes)

To enter this contest here is what you need to do.

1. Comment below before Midnight MST on January 2, 2012 (p.s Happy New Year)

You can comment anything but if you need a jump start I'd love to hear about ways art inspires you in any way.

2. Tweet or Facebook status a link back to this blog post.

I'll announce the winner next Thursday.
Good luck everyone. 


Love this art? Buy Prints or Cards and Gifts illustrated by Manelle.

Introducing... new stuff, and giving things away.

Hello my friends.
I've been pondering (probably not what you've been pondering pinky) about what to do with my blog, and I've come up with something.

The plan is this:
My new sketch blog is now here on tumblr. I will be posting on it at least 4 times a week until otherwise noted.  My sketch theme for December is "my sketchbook idea generator".

What does that mean you ask? I'll let you know next Thursday, here on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.

In Fact, I will be posting on this blog on every Thursday, also until otherwise noted.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL (I know the all caps are annoying but sometimes I just can't help it)

I also want to introduce to you my new card shop and print shop. And to celebrate the fun I'm having my first ever blog giveaway.

(I kinda love giveaways, even though I've never won anything.)

Here is what you can win.

Yes it's true, three whole signed Manelle Oliphant Illustration prints. They are in two sizes one 5.75x8.5 and two 13x8.5 prints.  (not standard frame sizes, nor are they the new and improved prints you can find in the shop.)

To enter here is what you have to do.
1. Comment on this post before midnight on Monday December 5)
2. Tweet or Facebook status a link to this blog post.

Easy!

Then I'll pick the winner randomly by putting your comment number in a hat. Then we'll have some kind of email get together where in get some into and mail the prints. (awesome!)

I'll announce the winner next Thursday here on this blog.

Ok one more thing.
I just happen to have more than one of those lovely little prints up there so I'm planning on having this give away each week for the next five. So if you keep checking back you have five chances to win. (Why not make it big, we are launching a whole new thing here?)

AND NOW THAT'S ALL for today. Don't forget to check out the shops (cards, prints), my new sketch blog , and start commenting.

Melwick Page 26

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Melwick Page 25

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Melwick Page 24

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Bet some of you wondered if I was really going to get this done today. Well, yes, yes I am, and here you go. Thanks for indulging my break. There are a lot of things to get done. But I believe I can safely say that from now until the end of the story I will have a new page every Tuesday, no battle.

Melwick Page 23

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Here is the new Melwick page.
So I just realized online the resolution isn't good enough for  you to read the papers flying out of Wizard Ren's pocket. So FYI they are all spells to mess up good ol' Melwick including "Spell 2, Castle Blockage" and "Spell 3 Melwick's Downfall"

Gerber is holding the castle blocking spell.

Hope you like it.

Manelle

Melwick page 21

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If you are wondering where Gerber came from check the last page again. :) Although it might be too small to see on the computer at the low resolution. Sorry if that's the case.

P.S. I'm getting Married. Yea!

Melwick page 19

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Here is out angry king and court. He ended up looking a little like that monkey ninja from that one movie. You know the one with Jackie Chan and the kid from Sky High. But than I gave him a mustache and changed his hair color. I think he is a little better now. Poor Melwick.

On a totally different note, here is a quote that I like.

"The work of a master reeks not of the sweat of the brow – suggests no effort – and is finished from its beginning." James Abbot McNeill Whistler

Sometimes I forget why I really wanted to be an illustrator. Usually it's when I'm so worried about living (eat, sleep, pay for stuff, etc) I stop actually doing it. It's those time I get worried about the deadline and what not then don't enjoy the work. But when I get in the right mode. Work is easy fun and fast. The deadline doesn't matter. It turns out great.

That's I remember why I do it.
Normally I produce good work, (I hope) in those moments I produce great work.

What are some things you all do to get in that zone more often?

Melwick page 18

It's the middle of the night. Lame of me. But here is Melwick. Not so lame of me.
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Wizard Melwick page 17 and Reminiscing

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I was listening to The Grey King by Susan Cooper and I got to feeling a little nostalgic about some of the other books I enjoyed as a child but haven't read recently. Of course besides Susan cooper I loved Trina Schart Hyman's beautiful illustrations. I used to check out her books from the library by the bucket load and then just stare at them.

One of my other absolute favorite childhood authors is Lloyd Alexander. I found this on YouTube today and it reminded me of how much I love his books. It took me a great long time to get through the Prydain Cronicles the first time, but really loved them. After those I read everyone of his books I could get my hands on. My eighth grade Halloween costume was a Town Cat, and I remember being in college and still getting excited about new books he had coming out.

It's good to be reminded of some of these things that inspired me to create art, and books for children.

Wizard Melwick page 16

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Wizard Melwick page 15

Here you go, Wednesday as promised. it's not even the middle of the night yet for me. Sweet!

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Wizard Melwick page 14

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Wizard Melwick page 13

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Wizard Melwick page 12

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Wizard Melwick page 11

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Wizard Melwick page 10

I love letting the watercolor do what it wants. I think it worked well in this piece.

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