Faramir Fiction Archive

Dear Draylon!

Thank you so much for your feedback! Wow!
I’m really happy that you like my drawings and watercolours. I’m reading ffiction for some years now but never felt inclined to draw something. Not because they wouldn’t be good enough, but some stories don’t need illustrations and with other stories I didn’t think I can produce something useful. I did these in 2005 and 2006, shortly after I’ve discovered your story. I was really struck by it, for many reasons, (I will comment at ff)! It’s heartbreakingly sweet but with some irony in it, too. Shagrat is just so sweet, also clever, I fell in love with him immediately! But I love your characterisation of Faramir, too.
I also love your style of writing, such a nice flow to the sentences I cannot even express appropriate. There are some nice pictures in your stories that intrigued me to do these drawings.
I thought about contacting you about these but I wasn’t sure if it were appropriate. I’d like to say much more, can I probably contact you on your hotmail address?
It really means much to me that you like them and think of them as a good addition to your stories. I’m glad that you like the shades of grey and brown. With all the rain in it and the darkness and Shagrat’s orcishness, there are really these colours in it. I also like your other Muzluk-Orc stories and these I imagine even more black and greyish because there are just the orc folk in it.
Watercolour is a good medium to create powerful but also transparent shades, I like to experiment with mixing all kind of shades together and get a different shade every time. Working with watercolour is tricky, you need some experience. The wet colour on the paper has a life of it’s own, you can’t control it so easily as oil or tempera and if you don’t add opaque white, you can’t fix or remove anything, I’m really careful with it not to do too much, therefore some things are left somewhat unfinished. But it’s not so much my way to draw things as detailed as a photo.
Thank you also for saying the style is “orcish”! All my drawings are just like that and I’m always trying to explain the way they look like- that’s just it, they are orcish! Yes I think they are pretty rough the way the lines go.
That is some arts teacher ‘s fault, I suppose. He did told us in his arts classes some day (in drawing a nude with a model) just to look at the model when we were drawing and not at all on the paper. I did just that and when I looked back at my paper, I was quite surprised because that was so different from what I used to draw usually. There were the details the swells of the body line much more detailed, closely. It was clear to me soon that I was drawing not what my eyes did see, recognise, but mostly what I thought a picture of a nude should look like, the way I had seen it in the books. After this my ladylike drawing style was spoiled forever! I did also do drawings at the theatre with a Shakespeare Company practising their new plays. I was trying to get the whole scene with costumes on my paper and had to work very fast, there was also the drama and passion in the air. These things had influence to my style of drawing. It’s an automatic passionate act mostly. I do a lot versions of the same composition and I repeat them until I’m satisfied. Then I do another one to put watercolours on. So the drawings you see are made before the watercolours. The first drawing is mostly the most automatic (depends on how relaxed I can work) the more versions I’m doing the more expectations I have in the process the composition/scene is going to become visible on my paper, so then the urge to control is stronger. I also de graphic design and I always say that this is civilized creative work and the drawings are passionate and not civilized, so that fits good with you saying they look “orcish”. They do express my orcish nature.
I hope I didn’t bore you with all my ramblings about these art works. Thanks again for your kind words. It does mean much to me that you like them. And don’t think anything you like to comment on, isn’t appropriate. I’m really happy that you like the look of my Shagrat and his- well, bum. As for his big sword on the second one: really looks more like some sort of phallus symbol than a useful sword- but well, as I said my drawing is an act of passion, I just have to cope with it, don’t I? g Just comment on anything you like here or at ff or with e-mail (you’ll find it in my LJ profile). I’m happy to hear all your thoughts. I’ think there’s probably some more I’d like to tell you with your hotmail E-Mail adress, if that’s ok. There are also probably one or two sketches, that I haven’t yet put up at ff, or here.
Thanks again,
Smirra