Briar Rose

I'm posting this for IF's topic this week, hoard, because this woman hoards herself by staying in a box rather than sharing herself with others.

Intially, the woman in this image was supposed to have thorns all over her, but when I got to the point of adding them, it just didn't seem right. Maybe I'll do another one and put them in this time...

A Recent Dream

Forgotten

I hate to bum anyone out on such a nice spring day, but the IF topic this week is "Forgotten", so this is what I have for it: When my dad died, my mother was completely lost. At the same time, I was reading many stories in which a person's name was a source of their power. It seemed to me that my mother had forgotten herself so much in her grief that she couldn't even remember her own true name, and so had lost her power and her identity. She doesn't physically look like this, but it was how I saw her mental state.

Laundry Day

For IF's Sail:

This piece is pastel on paper. I found working in pastel on such a tiny figure a bit tricky. It makes me have new respect for the artists who can make pastel look like paint, namely, the intrepid Rosalba Carriera and Mary Cassatt. I'll probably try this again as a big sky painting.

Worry

Hands full of worries...

New Growth

Open Door

This is as close to pure fantasy as I usually get. This is an image that popped into my eyes after reading a novel by Charles deLint, one of my favorite authors. One of the minor characters in the story was a very large woman of the forest, who sometimes had the function of a guide of sorts. I am posting this for Illustration Friday's topic of the week, wide.