Thursday Theme: Medieval Fantasy

Hello Pocketeers!  It's been a while.  I've been reading more than I've been arting lately, so I hadn't built up much to show.  I guess I could've shown one project here or there, but I've been so wrapped up in my books that I've forgotten to blog.  For a while, I wasn't even checking other people's blogs.  But finally I've got enough art to fill a theme post, so I'm finally going to share some of what I'm doing.  And most of what I've been doing has been inspired by my reading.  I've really dived (dove?) into fantasy novels again, after a long time of reading mostly mystery and Star Wars books.  Oh man.  I forgot how much I love fantasy.  Maybe it's that most fantasy worlds (real fantasy, not this urban fantasy nonsense that's so popular now) are medievalish, or that fantasy worlds, even the ones that are engulfed in war, are more appealing than ours is sometimes.  There's magic, and mystical creatures, and faeries and elves and stuff.  Maybe it's the medieval flavor, though.  You know I love the medieval sauce.

So, since I have many seasonings for the medieval sauce, I've been blending that with the sort of colors and motifs that stick in my head when I'm reading fantasy.  And here is what I've come up with:

Suddenly I realize that this is before I finished the piece, and I didn't take a picture of the finished piece.  But this is nearly finished, so I'm not going to take another picture right now.  The background, btw, is a gorgeous handmade paper I got at the Queen's Ink.

Also not quite finished, but the composition is done.  It ended up being the lid on a jewelry box.  More on that later.

A couple of ATCs I did because I wanted to play around with Seedless Preserves and Scattered Twigs Distress Inks and white stamping.

Really just an excuse to use that awesome shield stamp.

I didn't photograph these finished until I had them hanging up on my wall at work, hence the unsightly thumbtacks.  The one on the left was originally going to feature my hand-carved mushroom stamps but I didn't like how it came together, so I Finnabair-ed it.  New word!  The one on the right was an experiment with embossing resist over a watercolory background, with Distress Ink rubbed on over it. 

 

I guess it's probably not all that obvious how this stuff relates to fantasy, but it works with the images in my head when I'm reading.  A lot of the stories take place in worlds where the people are close to nature, and the surroundings are beautiful.  Things like roses and herbs and mushrooms take on magical qualities and appear in sometimes impossible places.  These are worlds that are wonderful to get lost in.  And when I come back, I've always got a head full of beautiful images to try to capture.  You may see more of such things soon.

 

Are you avid readers, Pocketeers?  Is  your art often inspired by what you read?  Are there particular worlds you like to lose yourself in?  Please comment and tell me.  I love to have conversations with people about books :)