The Drawing

Good morning!!

So I have this book series that I am absolutely obsessed with. Its called 'Tales of Goldstone Wood' by Anne Elisabeth Stengl. You can read more about the series here at Goodreads, it has all the books that are out so far for you to browse and learn more about!

Anyways! The author Anne Elisabeth has a blog of her own dedicated to the books.  I follow it religiously like the adoring fan girl I am, and what I love the most about it are the little activities she hosts for the fans. There has been a Fan Fiction contest, a Music contest, and.... wait for it... A FAN ART CONTEST!!! Also these are annual things! So if you don't win this year, try again next year!!

But I digress

The Fan Art contest is what I'm all about! I entered last year and sadly did not win, but the experience was exhilarating! Just seeing my art on a website and being able to GOOGLE MYSELF AND SEE MY PIECE COME UP!!! Also! The other followers of the blog comment like crazy on all the beautiful art pieces, saying how amazing they are, how detailed, and how they make them feel, and its personal too! A lot of them write a little encouraging comment for each piece! It's so incredible just being apart of the contest, winning doesn't even seem like a big deal!

But I digress.... once again

I did a big giant drawing for it this year! I wanted it to be different enough from most submissions so it stands out to all the voters. It was a long and hard process but super fun!! Right now I will walk you through my step by step process of creating my Goldstone Wood fan art piece.




So I started out with a sketch of the whole thing. This itself actually took me a while as  I had to decide what I wanted to go where, and how, and what should be here, and well you get the point. I am the type of artist that doesn't like to do a whole lot of crazy planning before actually starting the piece, I believe you just need to go for it and trust your artist instincts.

After the sketch I needed to decide sort of a plan of action of what to fill in first. I started with Halisa, The Sword of Etanun (obviously that sword in the middle sticking out of the rock.) When I finished that I was feeling pretty good so I decided to do the Fallen Child of the Moon (the unicorn) and Bard Eanrin of Rudiobus (The cat with no eyes) as well. 

With those things finished I decided to do all of the animals and creatures first before working on anything else in the sketch. Getting myself on a schedule of sorts so not to get overwhelmed. We have The Wolf Lord in the top left corner, The Dragon under him, The Wood Thrush flying above The Dragon (if you know the stories you will understand the significance of that), and Beana the Nanny Goat right above Bard Eanrin. 

The creatures were DONE! it was time to finish the rock Halisa was in and the Grave stone with the lantern sitting on top of it. 

Now the flowers!! Starflowers and Roses are significant in the Goldstone Wood series. I finished all the starflowers first and then moved on to the roses. This was probably the most tedious because of all the details in the leaves and petals 

ALMOST DONE!! I could just taste the finished product!! With all the flowers finally drawn it was time to do the stone lettering along with filling in any white spots!! Here you see I have the words 'Stone' and 'Wood' completed leaving 'Gold' to be done the next day. 

The day finally came!!! I finished 'Gold' and stood back breathing heavily. My graphite covered hands shaking with excitement. The giant 18x24in drawing was finally done after a long few weeks!! Once I was through taking about A MILLION pictures I submitted it to the contest. 

WHAT A JOURNEY THAT WAS!!!! I have never done a drawing like that before, but I must say, I will definitely want to do it again!! It may not seem like it from my blog posts but I am very picky about what I do fan art for, and Goldstone Wood trumps all!! Best books in the world! And now I feel that much more close to it having my drawn this. 

Check out the contest here to see my drawing a long with many other talented artist's pieces! If you are a fan of the series please follow the steps written on the site to vote for me!! :D 

Thank you so much for reading through my crazy fan girl artist journey!! I hope you have a blessed week filled with lovely Spring freshness!! 

With love:

Beth