Into the West

I believe the lyrics that go with this are:

"What do you see
On the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea
A pale moon rises
The ships have come
To carry you home..."

--Into the West, sung by Annie Lennox.


This is for my grandmother. She loves the beach, so I gave her a gull, and the rear half is an English setter because she's had several as pets and really loves them. (This is not the same grandmother who has the red-tailed hawk/tiger pic, not to be confused with my dad, who is not her son, who also has a hawk/tiger... ugh family trees get complicated with gryphons! )

And no, this is not really what the image looks like. For one thing, it was bigger than the scanner, and thus you don't get the pretty dawn-blue of the sky. I did give you as much of the beach/waves as possible, by combining two scans, but I didn't really bother to edit the line as much as I might have... I stayed up 'till 3 in the morning last night (this morning?) to do this (I've never done such a large project so quickly before! ), and I'm kinda done with it. Also, there is/was a message in the sand under the gryphon's right wing, but you don't get to see that. No 'fense. It was just something along the lines of "love you."

Oh, and this is a combo of Faber-Castell pencils Portfolio pastels and India Inks

Uh, this piece gave me an appreciation of the wonders of white India Ink. White india ink is even cooler than white pastel, which is way cooler than white pencil, and slightly less cool than white gel pen. I've got all my white weapons organized, you see. It is my constant struggle to get things as bright white as I want them, because I have this OCD need to COLOR everything on EVERY picture--I can't bear to leave white space "blank." I have to use some kind of white art supply to cover it. So the waves and the gull, as well as the sky, wound up with a lot of white ink. It was hella fun to paint with.

Also, there's another one of these coming as soon as my mom scans it in (it's on her end, so I can't do anything until she sends me a pic of it.) This is what I get for being a procrastinator and finishing it ON THE CAR RIDE DOWN TO COLLEGE. Ugh. Well, anyways, with any luck it'll be up soon.

Wow, I just wrote a ton. I wonder why. Maybe I'm feeling deprived--I don't have an English class this semester...I could just keep babbling on at you but I'll go away now...

Enjoy! And learn the gospel of white ink, tis THE WAY!!!