Having a little fun with watercolors. I’ve been seeing a lot of doodley quotes on Pinterest lately and had been itching to make one myself. :) The quote is by Daphne du Maurier.I painted it very lightly with yellow and then went in with the other colors. My surface was a piece of cardstock I’d cut specifically to use for doodling a bookmark—not an ideal surface for watercolor, but the bookmark is just for personal use, and I wasn’t feeling picky. Honestly, it held up better than I expected: no color bleeding through the other side.
More The Secret Garden fandom, drawn with pencil. From 2012.
Also showcases my horrible handwriting! :P The quote I wrote was from page 43, speaking about the robin:
Mary began to laugh, and as he hopped and took little flights along the wall she ran after him. Poor little thin, sallow, ugly Mary—she actually looked almost pretty for a moment.
The other drawing is from when Mary meets Master Colin.
I would love to start doing this with more books I’m particularly fond of. It’s a great way to get practice with illustrating, and there’s something very fulfilling about putting (or attempting to put) characters I’ve been envisioning in my head for years down onto paper.
Little (3 3/4”x4”) sketch study for East of the Sun and West of the Moon, by Kelsey Hamersley. Pencil and colored pencil. March 2013.
Quoting the version of the tale on Surlalune Fairy Tales,
When she awoke in the morning both the Prince and the castle were gone, and she was lying on a small green patch in the midst of a dark, thick wood. By her side lay the self-same bundle of rags which she had brought with her from her own home. So when she had rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, and wept till she was weary, she set out on her way…
I’m working on doing an 8”x10”, detailed pencil drawing based off of this sketch, and then plan on making the final in pen & ink (using dip pen) and watercolor.
Happily, I am pretty much done with the storyboard and spacing the text out! That was the part that really worried me, but—although it was tricky and I had to do a fair amount of rearranging—it wasn’t nearly as intimidating as I imagined. Actually, sort of fun, like a puzzle. :) This whole process has been somewhat of a relief to me, and a revelation. I’ve been labeling myself as “aspiring children’s book illustrator” for that last few years, because that was the venue that really screamed out to me considering my taste and style (not to mention love of books and fairy tales)…but, like other careers, it’s hard to really say whether you’re really meant for it until you try it for yourself. This is my first time doing something like this, and though I was naturally trepidatious going into it, it’s been a wonderful experience thus far. So, yay for that. ;) God has blessed me.
Phoenix by Kelsey Hamersley. Pen. February 2013.
Drawn while in the car (except for a little I drew at the hotel we stopped at) on the long drive back from Oregon to Ohio. Mostly in South Dakota and Iowa. I had such a blast with this one! Detail and linework are my favorite things. :D
…I might go back in and put a little more sky in the upper left corner; it still looks a little bare. This would have been far more effective in color, but it makes for a decent study.
A couple of books fed me the idea, I think. I had just finished The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan, which makes mention of certain beautiful tapestries and made me want to draw something with that texture. I had started reading The Iron Ring by Lloyd Alexander next, which is inspired by Indian folklore and also evokes the idea of rich imagery: Lloyd Alexander’s introduction and the Kirkus Reviews blurb on the back cover (“…that shines with the dusky richness of an oriental tapestry…”) are also to blame. Neither of these mention phoenixes, but the phoenix is one of my favorite mythological creatures…I just think they’re cool. And they are fun to draw. Plus, while I’m on the topic of my book-nerdishness, I had reread Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine on the way out to Oregon (I’ll stick the quote from it at the bottom. And, by the way, if you haven’t read this book, you are missing out. It’s so wonderful), and Tiger’s Destiny by Colleen Houck, which features phoenixes, in the book and even on the cover, not too long ago.
If I wanted to eat my breakfast under a maple tree and watch the day grow between its leaves, I could—and did. If I wanted to skip or hop or run and slide on dew-wet leaves, I could—and did. And when the mood took me, I whistled or recited poems that I made up on the spot.
I spent two glorious days this way, the best since before Mother had died. I saw deer and hares, and once, at twilight, I swear I saw a phoenix rise, trailing smoke.
The Little Mermaid by Kelsey Hamersley. Pen and colored pencil. January 2013.
Quick little doodle—no more than a few inches wide. But I think it fits the mood of the fairy tale, and the little mermaid’s personality, as I see it.
Here she would sit and watch the young prince, who thought himself quite alone in the bright moonlight. She saw him many times of an evening sailing in a pleasant boat, with music playing and flags waving. She peeped out from among the green rushes, and if the wind caught her long silvery-white veil, those who saw it believed it to be a swan, spreading out its wings.
(Quote via SurLaLune Fairy Tales.)
Coaster set by Kelsey Hamersley. Acrylic. December 2012.
A Christmas present for my sister. She just got married in August (I used the wedding colors, yellow and gray), and with her across the country starting her own home with her husband, I thought it’d be neat to put some love-centered quotes on the backs of the coasters. My Pinterest boards have amassed enough quotes by now that I had plenty to choose from. ;) The set was wooden; I mostly freehanded it (also made up a lot of it as I went along!) and sealed it with Mod Podge.
“It was true that there was no one in the bungalow but herself and the little rustling snake.” By Kelsey Hamersley - inspired by The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Watercolor. March, 2012.
I adore The Secret Garden. It’s one of those few books I’ve read countless times—not three or four, exceeding ten. My copy has Tasha Tudor’s illustrations, which are charming and best fit the picture in my head. I keep craving more, though, so that’s what started this piece. Plus I just came across this quote from an Arthur Rackham biography by James Hamilton:
“Rackham describes three main roles of illustration: firstly to say what the author failed to say clearly; secondly to add some fresh aspect of interest to a subject which the author has already treated interestingly from his point of view (‘a partnership that has often been productive of good’); and thirdly and most fascinatingly of all, the expression by the artist of an individual sense of delight or emotion aroused by the accompanying passage of text.”
That’s what I’ve got with The Secret Garden. An individual sense of delight.
