Sketches for mre upcomming drawings

This is an image out of the Graphic Novel "Marvel 1602" written by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Andy Kubert.The image has given me some great inspiration for Loki as a trickster god. I am considering using a similar pose for Loki.
These are some ideas for Thor and his wife Sif. Loki shaved Sif's head as a prank. Thor had Loki talk the dwarves into forging her new hair out of spun gold. This has always been my favorite norse story, possibly because of the length and blondeness of my own hair.

The two above are drawings for Hel. She is Loki's daughter and the goddess of the dead, specifically those who did not die in battle. Her top half is beautiful while her bottom half is rotting and corpse-like. I am picturing her in a venus-like pose. It is how most people would invision a beautiful goddess, except this time she is part zombie. I plan on have her dead as featureless figures surrounding her. I plan on sticking with black and white for this.

Odin

These top three drawings were some of my sketchbook sketches for Odin. The bottom is my final.
Odin is the All-Father of the gods. He is the god of the hanged (one story has him hanging himself to get ultimate wisdom), god of arcane magic, god of the wild hunt, god of the storm, god of the rain, god of the harvest, god of wisdom, and god of victory. He is the Zeus of Norse mythology in many ways. He collects half of those who die in battle (the other half go to his wife Frigg) where they prepare for Ragnarok in Valhalla where they kill each other every day, only to rise again whole and drink and eat together. Odin is also known for his eight legged horse "Slepiner," having two Ravens symbolizing thought and memory, having two hunting hounds, having a winged helmet, and for having only one eye (he gave it up for wisdom/ to see what would happen at Ragnorak). When he moves around in the mortal relm, Odin disguises himself by wearing a floppy hat to hide his one eye.
I struggled with how to show Odin. As the All-Father he is an impressive being. While he wanders the earth he is a wise old man with a big hat. I decided, having seen to many greek god pieces, that I did not want Odin to be shown on his thrown. An eagle horned norseman seemed to predictable. It would make a more interesting image to represent him in his disgused form. I took the compositional risk and had Odin face forward to make him seem stronger as he stairs straight at the viewer with his single eye. I kept Odin's ravens as the main symbols for what this form of him represents. He is a wise watcher more than a warrior in this image.
I chose to try out a different style with this piece. I tryed an additive style with touches of reduction. Here I also added a hint of blue in Odin's eye to emphasize it.

Heimdall

The two drop drawings are out of my sketch book. These are designs for Heimdall before I made the final piece below.
The bottom image here is the first piece I finished in my Norse series. Upon thinking of the Norse gods, one of the first things I thought of was the Bifrost Bridge. The Bifrost Bridge was a rainbow bridge the connected the world of the gods to our world. Many believe the Norse were looking at the Northern Lights. The guardian of the Bifrost Bridge is Heimdall. He has super hearing and sight, is known as the "white god," and carries a glowing sword. Heimdall is also said to be born of the several waves, one of them who may have been a ram. He also represents the cresent moon. The last and most important thing about Heimdall, is that he blows the magic horn that signals the begining of Ragnorak, the battle between the gods and giants that will end the world and the lives of most of the gods, and kill Loki in the final battle.
I originally wished to place him on the Bifrost bridge, but I decided that was too literal and iconic for him. I wanted to show who he was in a more suddle fashion that emphasised him and not other parts of the Norse mythos. I centered on the symbolism of the horn, cresent moon, and the ram. I wanted the ram horns and horn to have a cresent moon feel and complement each other, moving the viewers eye in the piece. The helm is of viking design based off of the helm found at Sutton Hoo.
I decided to experiment with a reductive style, covering the page in charcoal and erasing away my peice. Black and white seemed the optimal selection for color. I wanted these pieces to not look like the typical fantasy art.

Art From Drawing 3 (Spring 08)

"At the Museum" Acrylic and Pastel on Wood
"At the Mall 2" Acrylic and Pastel on Wood
"At the Mall" Acrylic and Pastel on Wood
"Joe" Acrylic and Pastel on Wood
"Al and Dash" Acrylic and Pastel on Wood
"Matt and Nina" Acrylic and Pastel on Wood
Last semester I was working on a body of work dealing with how we judge people on their clothing. For this I removed the person from the image and left just the clothes. I was experimenting with different surfaces and found I enjoyed using wood. I would paint on the wood, sand and carve away, and then draw my figures atop. These pieces were produced with acrylic and chalk pastel on pine. The bottom three are people I am know, while the top three are random people I snapped in public places.

My Artwork From England

Over the summer of 2007 I studied abroad in England and Scotland. I really enjoyed much of the work I completed well there. I will post some of my more recent work at a later date. The piece above is "On the Thames." This was created with pastel on paper.

"Cathedral" Watercolor on paper

"Untitled" Acrylic on Canvas

This last painting was influenced heavily by the Phantom of the Opera. I am fascinated with masks, wolves, the question of identity, and mans inner beast. These were some of my thoughts while painting this. This piece is closer to the direction I wish to go with my artwork.

Project 1 Learning Using Art

I would like to spend the first half of this semester learning about Norse Mythology. Norse Mythology falls into the group of Theology. I am a big fan of the fantasy genre in books, movies, comics, and games. Much of modern fantasy is influenced by Norse mythology. I have a tendency toward drawing fantasy art and getting to the core of where fantasy came from will be good for me. In the past I have studied Greek mythology and looked into the Egyptian pantheon. With a Norwegian ancestry, I will be looking into my own cultural past by studying Norse mythology as well.
Norse gods as well as Norse monsters tend to have humanoid forms, making the incorporation of life drawing in these pieces easy. I plan to begin with small sketches based off of the myths and stories I read. It will be important for me to get a feel for the personalities of the different mythological figures. As I go I plan to move into larger scale drawings, possibly up to life size. I feel large drawings would fit with the feel and size of the gods. My mediums of choice are charcoal and pastels, although I may dabble in pen and ink. The research for this project will be done out of the library. I will look for books on Norse Mythology as well as artists who have portrayed mythological figures, preferably Norse.

Welcome

Welcome to my Blog. Hi, I'm Miranda. I am a Studio Art/ Art Education Student at UW-Stout. This blog was created as part of my Life Drawing 2 class. Here I will be posting art work from this class and possibly a few others.