Middle-earth Journeys

Here's my latest offering. I wanted it to be more dramatic, but it's turned out rather twee . . .

© marbretherese

Wonderful marbretherese!! I am working on a piece myself and I must be on the 10th revision.


I love the softness and use of color.

thanks Riv! I must admit I don't revise mine (you can probably tell) - I'd never be able to remember what I did in the first place I look forward to seeing yours when you're happy with it - we need as many people as possible to post their work here!

Charming picture, marbretherese! And watercolor is an appropriate medium for the flooding of Isengard!

Riv Res, we await your creation eagerly!

Thanks, Merry! It's not one of my favourites, to be honest. I'm pleased that it does at least look the way I first imagined Merry & Pippin (Merry bears a striking resemlance to the brother of a schoolfriend) - and I created it using only three colours, which was fun as well as a challenge - but the background is a fairly obvious afterthought and it's all way too cutesy! Back to the drawing board for the next one (quite literally) !!

I like it, Mabreterese! For three colours you've done a pretty good job of mixing a lot of subtle shades, and it makes it very harmonious and just like the description in the book where they blend into the rubble . I don't think the background looks as much of an afterthought as you think it does! And I think the barrel, pipe and bowl are particularly good as a little still life in the corner. Nice modelling and shading there. Nice too to see Merry blowing his smoke-rings. Pretty difficult pose to capture!

It's great to see other peoples ideas of what characters look like - that's why I started the Tolkien artists threads - it fascinates me how these stories live individually in each and everyone's imagination. A sort of sub-creation of the sub-creation, if you know what I mean!

thanks Iolanthe - I'm quite pleased with the barrel, pipe and bowl. It bothered me for ages how Merry could be blowing smoke rings with his hands behind his head - where would the pipe be? then I remembered the barrels of Longbottom Leaf . . . I captured the pose by sitting on the floor with my back against the wall and working it out from there. (it's incredibly uncomfortable, by the way ). My sketchbook has several early versions of the picture in which Merry looks more like a contortionist than a hobbit . . .

So . . . who's got something else to show us?

marbretherese wrote:I captured the pose by sitting on the floor with my back against the wall and working it out from there. (it's incredibly uncomfortable, by the way ).

Ah, the mark of a true artist suffering for art .

I would have a picture nearly ready to show - I was going to paint this afternoon after much sketching a few weeks ago, but it has suffered a blow. That bloomin' Alan Lee has got there before me!

I had what I thought was brilliant idea of Gollum reflected in the Ring which I was sure no one had done before, then David Day's 'Tolkien's Ring' turned up on Friday (great book, by the way) and there was a sketch by Alan of the exact same thing .

Of course the angle of mine is different, Gollum is in a different pose and mine would be a painting. But I felt crushed all the same . So I didn't have the will to get on with it today. Ah well.

Get back to Gollum and the Ring, Iolanthe, and let's have a look at it! There's bound to be an overlap of ideas at some point - we're all working off the same text! it's the interpretation that counts. Luckily there's enough Tolkien out there to keep us all going (professionals and amateurs alike) for years and years!

You are right, or course. I suppose it was just painful to discover that Alan had already been there and done it a lot better!

Iolanthe, I would love to see your take on Gollum and the ring! You style is very different from Alan Lee, so I would imagine the pictures would look very different. So please please show us your work!

marbretherese, a little late, but I also wanted to let you know how much I loved your picture. I think it captured the (still relatively) care-free spirit of those two hobbits quite well!

thanks for your kind comments, Airwin!!

Airwin wrote:Iolanthe, I would love to see your take on Gollum and the ring! You style is very different from Alan Lee, so I would imagine the pictures would look very different. So please please show us your work!

I'll have to do quite a bit on it first as it's just drawn ready for painting!

Iolanthe wrote:I'll have to do quite a bit on it first as it's just drawn ready for painting!

Is there any interest in opening a thread for preliminary sketches? I am in that stage of a series on Tolkien poetry.

Let me know.

You could just post them here as 'work in progress' and then post the finished result with a big Taa Daa when it's ready .