Long long time....

I haven't posted in forever! There are so many things to do at work and home and now that the grass is green and the airs smells of flowers, earth and rain I spend all the available free time outside with Bella. When the sun goes down and Bella retires for the night, my husband and I just crash on the couch for an hour of relax in front of the TV. That would be my drawing time, but of late most evenings we use the TV time to fold our seemingly endless laundry or to finish eating dinner (the amounts of watermelon that we end up swallowing this way is just amazing!).

Bottom line, I haven't finished my oak dryads drawing. I haven't actually touched it in 10 days! Here are some progress photos. 

I want to finish this, because I am curious to see how it will turn out (so far I really like it...strange) and because I need to start working on a gift for my nephews...I am going to see them in September, so I have a bit more than two months to prepare it. Not much, given my current rhythms....well, we'll see...

Anyways, sorry for the long silence. I'll try to be here more often in the next months. :)

Linking to Paper Saturdays. Happy weekend!

Dryads in progress

Had a lovely weekend. What about you?
Here is some progress on my dryads. Keeping the neutral greys going for now. I'll try to keep the focus on the main characters. There was a creeping shadow on my chair this morning as I took this picture. Somehow I like it...it seems to add to the drama of the scene.

Thanks for visiting and commenting.

The oak and its dryads inks

Dedicated to mother Nature, with thanks and apologies....
 
Oak are the only trees that have not one but two spirits inhabiting them, according to Greek mythology. One moves around in the woods, like most dryads do. The other, the amadryad is permanently bound to the tree and never leaves, even if the oak is cut. This drawing tells represents the last moments shared by two sisters dryads, before their oak is taken down by a group of men. They are accompanied by priests that perform a ritual to warn and repel the one dryad that can actually survive away from the tree. She can't help but flee and yet her heart is torn to pieces because she know she will forever be separated from her beloved twin.

Now that I have inked the scene, I wonder, what color should the hair of the dryad be? My husband says green, but I am not certain..the only other time I painted a dryad, she had green hair, I think, and I 'd like to change...

Hope you are enjoying the nice weather and have a lovely Mother's Day.
Ciao, Mamma!

Of oaks...

Still waiting the right light for the final photograph of Yggdrasil...Meanwhile, I started thinking about another cosmic tree, the oak, sacred to Zeus and symbol of strength and endurance. In a sense its role overlaps with that of the ash, as there are many common aspects in the mythology surrounding these two powerful trees. I wanted this new drawing to tap into one peculiar legend distinctive of the oak, that has to do with dryads...I'll explain later...

So here are the preliminary sketches...^^