Middle-earth Journeys

Then at the risk of shameless promotion...

Me too.

ps: working on the snafu with Europe shipping costs.







Because so many of you have asked for it, just in time for the holidays and the new year, we are delighted to bring you the...

Click on all images to enlarge.


Songs of Middle-earth 2009 Calendar





Twelve months of images inspired by the poetry of J.R.R.Tolkien.








Follow the dates taken from Tolkien's own Great Years Calendar as the Fellowship embarks on theit quest to destroy the One Ring.




To purchase your own copy of this one of a kind, vibrant calendar and take advantage of holiday 20% Off pricing, visit Rabbit Ridge Art today.



Also take advantage of 30% Off on the entire collection of Songs of Middle-earth prints, suitable for framing.




Rabbit Ridge Art

I just ordered my copy!

Thanks!

Away from The Green Hill Country,

Parmastahir

Yes you did! It will ship tomorrow. I hope you like it.

Hi Riv Res -

Your calendar arrived safely today. It was VERY well packaged (for which I am grateful as condition in my collection matters a lot to me.) I showed it to a number of people at work, and they were most complimentary of it. It is well constructed from very good materials. I will add an entry for it on my website soon (as soon as I get take a picture of it for that entry.)

Thanks!

Away from The Green Hill Country,

Parmastahir

I am glad it arrived safely (unbent) Parmastahir. I guess those little green stickers must work. I am also pleased that your co-workers approve. Thanks for the mention at your website. Feel free to download any of the calendar jpegs here in this thread if it helps.

Thanks again.

For those interested, I updated my website today with the seven 2009 calendars that I have been able to catalog/collect (so far!)

Away from The Green Hill Country,

Parmastahir

I just ordered my Rabbit Ridge calendars--one for me and one for a gift--can't wait! There is only one Tolkien calendar in the shops here, and it looked fairly unremarkable.

I've just had an insight! I know why I prefer Alan Lee to Ted Nasmith or John Howe: Lee's art looks like myth while the other's looks like fantasy, at least to me.

It could partly be the medium - most fantasy artists favour gouache or acrylic rather than watercolour (Lee's medium). Everything is more vibrant and more... well... solid whereas watercolour is a bit more misty and mysterious. The muted colours give the faded look of something that happened long ago. That's my theory anyway!

How cool to see Riv's calendar on your site, Parmastahir .

It's a good theory, Iolanthe. Which comes first: the medium or the message?

Hello Iolanthe -

Here is what Alan Lee said about illustrating Tolkien themes in the 2007 Tolkien calendar:

"JRRT's writing sets a great challenge to an illustrator: on the one hand he is summoning up people, places and creatures that are almost immediately familiar because they are based on cultural traditions, and on landscapes so beautifully evoked that you know they are drawn from memories of real places. On the other, the depth and strength of the stories themselves and the elegiac, often transcendental, descriptions place them almost beyond the reach of paint and pencil. Frequently, when I re-read a passage in order to understand the topography of a place I've just been transported to, I find that the descriptions are much less detailed than I'd thought. The rich imagery that the words conjure up is assembled from the memories and imagination of the reader, kept aloft by the lightest of touches from the storyteller.

The illustrations that I enjoy looking at most are those which strengthen, rather than replace, the imagery which the author is creating, and often sketches do this with a greater potency than highly finished paintings. The graphite or charcoal lines suggest, rather than dictate, and the picture is completed in the viewer's mind. The loosenss of a sketch, the fact that it hasn't gone through all the stages of refinement which are usually necessary in completing a finished illustration, often creates a more immediate connection with the viewer. If it is a design for something that will have to be built - a film set or prop - its function will be to communicate all the essential information to the craftspeople who will be working on the finished object. If it is a preparatory drawing for an illustration it will contain traces of the thoughts and feelings - even inconsequential ones - that you had while making it, before being edited out by the process of completing the picutre. In either case the impulse to commnicate or work something out is more important than any desire to produce a beautiful drawing, and this can produce an unself-concious (sic)quality which is more pleasing.

I like pictures which give the impression that they exist in time, that refer back to events leading to that moment in the story, and anticipate what will happen next, and which suggest movement and a sense of fluidity. Drawings have those qualities without effort; each one is a record of a small journey of discovery."

Simply put, nothing can replace the images in your mind of the many scenes in LotR. So Alan provides a simple image upon which you may superimpose your concept of that scene. His are quite different from the illustrations of John Howe and Ted Nasmith. Perhaps I like those two because their paintings often agree closely with with my imagining of the scenes that they have done over the years.

Hello Merry -

If you are looking for something other than the standard, run-of-the-mill calendar, you may wish to order a Heren Istarion/Northeast Tolkien Society calendar. This year's illustrators are Colin Williams, Catherine Chmiel, and Jef Murray (who again provided the cover art.) It is done in Shire Reckoning format with Gregorian dates and dates important to Middle-earth inserted. In addition to each monthly illustration, there are sketches underlying each calendar page. So you wind up with 27 illustrations altogether. In my collection, SR and any format other than standard Gregorian are fairly uncommon (less than 10% of the 286 I have been able to catalog.)

And you will certainly like the Rabbit Ridge calendar. It is very well made, the colors are vibrant, and its concept (stained glass-looking) is certainly unique in my collection.

Away from The Green Hill Country,

Parmastahir

Thanks for posting Alan Lee's thoughts, Parmastahir, he always has such interesting things to say about his craft:

The rich imagery that the words conjure up is assembled from the memories and imagination of the reader, kept aloft by the lightest of touches from the storyteller.

So true! We all see Middle-earth so clearly in our mind's eye and the more I paint Tolkien scenes the more amazed I am how clearly I can visualise it from the descriptions he gives us. I think it's because his descriptions are grounded in reality - it is, after all, a younger, brighter version of our world - rather than pure fantasy.

And I love Lee's drawings more than anything - I guess it's the potential they hold, that our own minds carry one step further when we look at them.

My dear Iolanthe -

I had no idea that you have put brush to canvas and realized your vision of the Master's works! What scenes have you done? Have you posted any in this (or other) thread? If so, please let me know what page they reside on. If not, please consider doing so. I could not draw a glass of water (as "they" say.) So I would love to see anything that you have done. Who knows? You could one day end up in the Heren Istarion calendar!

Away from The Green Hill Country,

Parmastahir

P, you can see Iolanthe's wonderful work, along with Riv's and marbretherese's in the Gallery feature on this website. You are truly in for a tremendous treat!

I have five of Iolanthe's prints on the walls of my living room/home office, and I'm anxiously, anxiously waiting for the opportunity to purchase seven more when they become available through her website.

Io, any chance I can buy Old Man Willow in time for Christmas?

Here's the Gallery link, Parmastahir . We post our paintings and discuss them regularly on this thread:

Member's art and poetry

Lindariel, I'll pm you .

Spirit of the Trees is unlike anything that I have seen before in composition, color, or concept. EXCELLENT!