Gnome

The mythical creature I thought of based on the element of earth is a gnome. I had researched images of gnomes online and they were surprisingly difficult to find (possibly because they don't exist), but found some I liked eventually. I wanted to continue with the use of unusual and innovative materials so chose to use twig and ink because they're relevant to earth and are also interesting to use. Below is the outcome of this drawing.

Outcome of gnome drawing

The Little Mermaid

Continuing with my development of the water section and influences from my mythical research, I thought an appropriate thing to draw would be a mermaid as that's the first mythical creature that comes to mind when I think of water. I firstly prepared the background of the page with bleach and ink.

Background in bleach and ink

Then using an image I'd found in my research as inspiration I drew out the mermaid outline in pencil, before adding in all the details in blue fineliner. The fineliner was just a really cheap one from Asda, so I think it's quite good how well the drawing has turned out and shows you don't always need expensive equipment.

Outcome of the mermaid drawing

One thing I'm quite proud of in this drawing is the detail in the detail, especially since it took forever to sit there crosshatching it all! Something I'm less pleased with though is the outcome of the face as I've drawn on too many lines, making the mermaid look old/weathered.

Under the Sea

Moving back onto the water section now... and back to the use of the unusual materials of bleach, ink and wax.  I started by drawing out jellyfish shapes onto the page and rubbing over them with a white wax candle to use it as a resist against the ink, followed by covering the whole page with blue Quink ink. Below is a photo of how it looked at this stage. It was difficult to see where on the page I'd put the wax as it's the same colour as the paper so I missed some areas, meaning some of the jellyfish had blue areas when they should have been white all over.

I painted out the blue areas within the jellyfish with bleach and then also used the bleach to add in more tentacles for the jellyfish and to add some detail to the background. As the bleach soaks into the page it creates an almost luminescent effect, which I feel is relevant for the jellyfish.

Before the bleach soaked in

Final outcome

I'm pleased with this piece of work and like its abstract nature as it's different in style from a lot of my other pieces of artwork.

Dragon

I messed around with the order a bit again and this piece of work is something I went back to at the end once I had spare time but is relevant to the fire section of the development. It is one of the pieces of work that I'm most proud of from during this project. I had planned in my timetable to do a drawing of a dragon and/or lion and since I had the time thought I may as well do the drawing of the dragon too.

I'd been looking into buying Letraset Promarkers for a while but was always put off due to their high price. Fortunately I'd recently bought a large selection of colours of Sharpie markers and a good price and learnt that they could be blended in a similar way to the Promarkers. Before using them for my dragon drawing I wanted to experiment first and drew a couple of daffodils with them to try out the technique.

Daffodil drawing

Once I was confident with the technique needed I begun work on the dragon drawing. I drew the outline in fineliner and then used a combination of Sharpie pens and charcoal to add the shading and tone.

Outline

Final outcome

I'm particularly proud of the outcome of this, especially since it's in a different style to the rest of my work - much more illustrative - and is done using a medium I have little previous experience with.

Rising from the Ashes

I'd used melted wax previously in my project and felt it was a clever technique with an unusual outcome so wanted to use it again when developing the element of fire. The main thing that comes to mind for me when thinking of the mythical aspects of fire is the phoenix, so I chose to do a painting of a phoenix incorporating the use of wax surface texture.

I melted the wax and spooned it out using two teaspoons and shaped it with my hands and the spoons. Following this I painted over it with oil paints to create a picture of a phoenix.

Wax underlay 

Final outcome of the phoenix painting

The problem with this painting is the markings on the background of it so I will have to find out a way to neaten this out.

EDIT: I've now gone back to this piece of work and edited it to neaten up the background. I originally planned to just paint over the marked areas but really struggled to get the colour exactly right so ended up re-painting the whole background. I think this has made it look so much better and more vibrant in contrast with its background.

Final outcome of phoenix - take two 

Rawr

An animal that I relate to fire is the lion, especially if it is roaring and has a massive mane. I think this is due to the similar colour palette of lions and flames and a lion's fiery personality. Having made the link between fire and lions, I chose to draw a lion as part of the development section of my project using conte crayons.

Final outcome of the lion drawing

Butterfly Flutter By

This wasn't quite the order I did things in, but let's just pretend it was...

After I'd done some printing and stencil work with the butterfly shapes my tutor suggested it might be a good idea to add in some detailed drawings and patterns within the shapes of the butterflies. Not wanting, to get behind on my work and not knowing if I'd get the extension I'd applied for I decided to do some other timetabled work and then go back to this if I had time at the end.

I drew the first designs with sharpie marker pens and then added in a chalk outline to make the shape more obvious.

On the second page of designs, I used three different techniques. I had planned to do a detailed pencil drawing but the print was on the wrong paper for this, so the pencil didn't blend too well and I couldn't get it to a really dark tone as it was on pink sugar paper. I went over the pencil in black sharpie pen and ended up creating a silver colour, which was a pleasant surprise. In the second butterfly I drew a detailed design using a combination of black fineliner pen and black sharpie pen and in the last butterfly, I drew in some patterns with black marker pen and then added in some colour with sharpie pens.