The Hobbit: Smaug

I had a difficult time picking which image of Smaug to do.
So many other truly great artists have done such amazing versions of the classic image that Tolkien himself drew:

Among others, Donato Giancola, David Wenzell, Allen Lee and John Howe have all created stunning works which have more or less been crystalized into what everyone now understands Smaug to be. (and no doubt Jackson and Del Toro's forthcoming film will reflect this as Lee and Howe's stunning work has been the template for the major visual aspects of the films thus far)

But in the end it is too tempting a piece and I find that I must get the ideas that were in my head as I read this scene down before the films come out. Del Toro will do a fantastic job on this as he always does with monsters.

The other scene that I was particularly interested in (and that I hope to do in the future) is the scene where the dwarves have to leave their ponies and flee into the mountain just before smaug attacks the cliffs where they had been hiding. The tension of seeing a fire breathing dragon flying towards the dwarves as they are trying to pull their friends up is really appealling to me.

...up he soared blazing into the air and settled on the mountain-top in a spout of green and scarlet flame. The dwarves heard the aweful rumor of his flight, and they crouched against the walls of the grassy terrace cringing under boulders, hoping somehow to escape the frightful eyes of the hunting dragon...
...A red light touched the points of the standing rocks. The dragon came.
They had barely time to fly back to the tunnel, pulling and dragging in their bundles, when Smaug came hurtling from the North, licking the mountain-sides with flame, beating his great wings with a noise like a roaring wind. His hot breath shrivelled the grass before the door...

Smaug: Symbolism

I have always seen Smaug as the great dragon from Beowulf. Tolkien was a Beowulf enthusiast and it was he who first spoke for the merits of the Beowulf poem on its literary quality and narrative elements, as art and not just as a means by which we can learn about Anglo-Saxon history. He writes at length about this in his lecture,"Beowulf: The Monster and the Critics."
In creating Smaug, and in writing of Bilbo's interaction with him, Tolkien drew heavily from Beowulf and the stories reflect one another clearly.
In both stories a thief takes a golden cup from a sleeping dragon. The dragon wakes up and realizes that a piece of his treasure horde has been stolen. He searches everywhere for the cup and cannot find it. He finds the track of the thief and follows it, circling all around his trove. Then when he cannot find him, he returns to his mound and lies in wait, like a cat, eyes slit, murderously alert, for the thief to return.
Then sitting brooding there over how he has been wronged, he is overcome by his fury and wrath. Tolkien said himself that "...The episode of the theft arose naturally (and almost inevitably) from the circumstances. It is difficult to think of any other way of conducting the story at this point. I fancy the author of Beowulf would say much the same."
There is something very human about the dragon's actions and motivations in both stories. They are fascinating because you can relate to them.
John Gardner, in Grendel, which is his adaptation of the story of Beowulf as told from the antagonists point of view, also writes on this same dragon. Gardner takes it further though, and he works down to the character's essentially fatalistic worldview. He deals with what type of human thinking leads to a man becoming what the dragon in these 3 stories is. The Dragon in Gardner's Grendel, is an ancient creature, very much a miserly, mean-spirited old man. He knows everything there is to know. He sees everything from every angle and has determined through the obviousness of existence that there are no absolutes and no basis for truth except what you determine for yourself. The Dragon believes that existence is a chain reaction of accidents. No beliefs or ideoligies can be real. And in the end, after stripping absolutes away, the Dragon is left with nothing but his own immediate greed as the only substantive belief that consistently appeals to him. His last admonition in this story, his last advice to the Grendel, and to the audience is, "to find a pile of gold, and sit on it."
In Grendel, the Dragon becomes archetypical of nihilistic thinking. All the Dragon has left is his immediate greed. His desire for possessions in this, isn't the desire of the collector or the caretaker, that it is the gold's beauty or craftsmanship that appeals to him, but rather that other creatures might want to possess it, it is the far end of greed that wants something for the sake of preventing another from having it.

Another concept that has been put forth on the dragon in The Hobbit is that he could be seen as symbolic of the traditional relationship between evil and metallurgy. Perhaps even of industry, as these were themes that found their way into Tolkien's writing. Originally I was very taken by this idea and I wanted to make the dragon look like he was made of bronze that had patinad and that his scales were of metal that was rusting and flaking away. I like the idea that he literally did eat his gold and metal to give him armor, and that, like all things earthly, it was deteriorating away. His original skin and scales are long since gone, since he started introducing these heavy metals into his system, and now he must eat ever more and more as he ages, to keep his skin armored as the old metal rusts and flakes away faster and faster.

However, as much as this idea made arcs of lightning in my brain for being a cool visual metaphor, it simply wouldn't do for this image. The classic image is of a red dragon and in the end, I preferred a more personal, brooding, hateful greed that I see in the dragon to the more abstract notions of metallurgy or industry as the dragon being symbolic of. I may at some point go back and do a version of the dragon with metal flaking off him, but for now, I will stick with a more classic Smaug who is fascinating enough on his own.

Smaug: Final Digital Steps

Next Up: The Battle of Five Armies!

Fantastic Naturalist Paintings, and The Hobbit Part 8: The Desolation of Tolkien! I mean, Smaug

I think a good fantasy story, (and I mean fantasy as distinct from science fiction or any other category of fiction) should make us want to look at our actual world from a new perspective. While a poor fantasy story will make us bored with, and disinterested in, our actual world. 

There are other elements necessary to good fantasy stories of course, but I feel like this is an integral one.  Good fantasy, wether it is writing, film, artwork, a game, or whatever, should make us want to explore and become more curious about the world we live in.

While the second Hobbit film disappointed me as a Tolkien story, I really enjoyed it as a fantasy story. 

The film, with its amazing landscapes and powerful vistas, made me want to get out and explore the world. The treks over mountains made me want to go backpacking. The barrel-riding scenes made me want to go kayaking. Smaug's lair made me want to hop some fences and do some urban exploring in that old abandoned chemical plant down the highway. 

It reminded me that there are still wonders to explore. (Okay, maybe the chemical plant one isn’t the best idea. But you get what I’m saying right?)

This same idea applies to representational art for me as well.  

There is a great deal of naturalist art, which borders on the fantastic. And it has much the same effect on me.  

Thomas Moran and Albert Beirstadt’s work, while being that of naturalists recording the world around them, also has elements of the fantastic in them. The images are transportive, and they capture something beyond that of photography, something sublime, a momentary glimpse into eternity. 

Their paintings are scenes born in the American wilderness, but they are often an amalgamation of different places and times of day, combined together to capture the essence of a place. They give a sense of the wonder and grandeur found outside our own fences. 

Caspar David Friedrich’s gorgeous and haunting chapel scenes stretch even further. They instill a desire to visit ruins and learn about the people who made them and why their works have fallen.  But Friedrich’s visions take it a step further, somehow making us also consider our own life’s eventual twilight. 

Like the Hobbit film, these naturalist painters put in me a desire to escape my safe, suburban life for a while and see what is out there in the wilderness over the hills.  And I think that is pretty great. 

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NEWS! : Annie and I have launched a new website, blog and gallery. Check it out at:

www.gallerygerard.com

Current Projects

I have recently took on 2 private commissions for some larger format oil paintings and today I'd like to share my initial stages from them with you.

For those of you who have followed along these last few years, you will probably know that finding a good working method in oil (that doesn't turn me into a werewolf or raise the dead) has been somewhat challenging for me these past few years.  I wanted to find a way that would allow me to work quickly, and in many thin layers, somewhat like watercolor; but that did not involve solvents or harm the archival quality of the painting. 

It has only been in the past year that things have finally begun to really make sense to me, and that I have finally become comfortable taking on larger oil paintings. 

The first of these is for Greg O'baugh, and the scene may he is commissioning, may look familiar to some folks...  

 

Yes, this is Smaug. Greg actually purchased the original watercolor of Old Smaug at Illuxcon a few years back.  Since then he has asked if I might be interested in repainting this one, and this time in oil, without the aid of any of my digital trickery.

Usually I would be very apprehensive about something like this. Wether traveling, painting or reading, I usually don't like to retread the same ground twice.  There is still so much to do and explore and learn that seeing a place twice seems like a wasted opportunity.  But this image is different. This one is a challenge, and one that I have always wanted to do as an oil painting.

For many years I have been secretly convinced that I can't do traditionally what I can do digitally.  And no matter how many of you have told me in exasperation to JUST DO IT, I have always had great reservations.  So now this is a chance to finally give this one the treatment it deserves.

I hope to share more of the work-in-progress shots as this develops and I look forward to hearing what you think when you compare the two separate approaches.

The second image is also Tolkien themed and is being commissioned by Dan Perkins.  It is of the Ents marching up to break the dam above Orthanc and will be 30" x 50" on panel. 

If the characters in this digital color comp look familiar, it is because they are mostly from my 2012 Sketchbook.  The 2012 sketchbook was done chiefly as studies for a series of larger oil paintings like this one that I hope to keep producing over the next few years. 

Part of the reason that these scenes are painted so much larger than my other work is because of the lack of solvents. The only medium I will be using with the oil paints, is walnut alkyd oil, (and that only sparingly.)

I hope you will follow along and when these are finished let me know what you think about the conversion from watercolor and digital to oil.

Next: The Color Phase and a no-solvent, fast-drying palette

Smaug: Thumbnails

These thumbnails are for a scene pre-dating the events of The Hobbit, when Smaug first came to the mountain.  I believe I will stick with the classic scene, but I like evaluating the other possibilities.  One of my teachers once told me that often, your first thumbnail will be your best, but you should still do the other 29 just to make sure.  

Illuxcon This Weekend

Hey guys! I'm about to head out to Illuxcon to exhibit at the weekend salon and wanted to give you a quick preview of some work that will be there.  

I love doing small paintings for studies and will be bringing a few odd portraits of knights and dragons. 

Above is one of the brave fellows that will be there.  

Also, a here is a quick primer on how to paint a tiny 5"x7" painting:

Step 1: Draw in the shapes in raw sienna.

 Step 2: Fill in the shadows with burnt and raw sienna.

Step 3. Now just paint the whole dang thing. 

I will be bringing the new 2013 Sketchbooks as well other books and a lot of new prints. 

Also, I will be exhibiting the final oil painting of Smaug for the first time this weekend!  

Stop by and say hi if you happen to be passing through! 

Smaug: A Dragon for a New Year

"There he lay, a vast red-gold dragon, fast asleep; a thrumming came from his jaws and nostrils, and wisps of smoke, but his fires were low in slumber. Beneath him, under all his limbs and his huge coiled tail, and about him on all sides stretching away across unseen floors, lay countless piles of precious things, gold wrought and unwrought, gems and jewels, and silver red-stained in the ruddy light."

Character in Dragons

I have always loved dragons. 

And I have always loved dinosaurs.  

But dragons are not dinosaurs.

While I love studying the creatures of this world for clues on how to make a fantastic creature feel like they could exist in it, I think that by making dinosaurs and dragons altogether interchangeable in our work, we are giving up on all the possibilities which each contains individually and for which they have been historically used in fantasy.


Tolkien makes a compelling case for a distinction between dragons and dinosaurs in his essay, On Faerie Stories:

I was introduced to zoology and palaeontology (“for children’') quite as early as to Faerie. I saw pictures of living beasts and of true (so I was told) prehistoric animals. I liked the “prehistoric” animals best: they had at least lived long ago, and hypothesis (based on somewhat slender evidence) cannot avoid a gleam of fantasy. But I did not like being told that these creatures were “dragons.” I can still re-feel the irritation that I felt in childhood at assertions of instructive relatives (or their gift-books) such as these: “snowflakes are fairy jewels,” or “are more beautiful than fairy jewels”; “the marvels of the ocean depths are more wonderful than fairyland.” 
Children expect the differences they feel but cannot analyse to be explained by their elders, or at least recognized, not to be ignored or denied. I was keenly alive to the beauty of “Real things,” but it seemed to me quibbling to confuse this with the wonder of “Other things.” I was eager to study Nature, actually more eager than I was to read most fairy- stories; but I did not want to be quibbled into Science and cheated out of Faerie by people who seemed to assume that by some kind of original sin I should prefer fairy-tales, but according to some kind of new religion I ought to be induced to like science. Nature is no doubt a life-study, or a study for eternity (for those so gifted); but there is a part of man which is not “Nature,” and which therefore is not obliged to study it, and is, in fact, wholly unsatisfied by it.

-J.R.R Tolkien from On Faerie Stories

In Tolkien's own Smaug, the dragon offers more than just a physical threat of violence, he offers a personification of greed (and a distinctly aristocratic greed, which refuses to share or recirculate wealth, that only consumes and consumes and keeps it in dark halls, leading to the ruin of the nation.)  

In John Gardner's Grendel, the Dragon is even more a philosophical threat over a physical one. The dragon reveals a set of philosophical beliefs to Grendel, and it is these that Grendel wrestles with, and is ultimately overcome by. This leads him to choose to become, and even embrace his position as, the villain in the Shaper's story. The dragon in Grendel personifies a deeply nihilistic view of the world: his final arguments about the purpose of life being that all human values are baseless and that everything we do will be made irrelevant. His best advice to Grendel is to "seek out gold and sit on it."  As nothing really matters anyway.  
Gardner uses the imagery and the archetype of the dragon to convey how coldly-calcuating, threatening and dangerous the idea is, and this is belief is ultimately played out through Grendel's own final meeting with Beowulf.

This type of symbolism in dragons offers something far more than a struggle of man vs. nature. It does what fantasy does best, it offers physical examples of man's internal struggles. And offers us a wealth of other conflicts, both external and internal.  

If we agree that dragons in fantasy should be something more than just animals, that they have an intelligence equal to or greater than humans, then we should seek to imbue them with an equal amount of human personality. 

So consider your dragons.  What is really inside them and how can you show it on the outside?

Current Projects Post #2: Color

I am back with my second post on my recent work, which has primarily consisted of larger-format oil paintings. 

Last week we covered the underpaintings, and this week I want to share some of the color progress shots.  

Also, I promised to deliver on a no-solvent, fast-drying palette for oils. And when I make a promise; I deliver.  Unless it's about those llamas. Just don't worry about those llamas.  

For the Ents Marching painting, I am going to work background to foreground since the blue sky is such a prominent feature of the image. I really like deep blues and for some reason I rarely use them.

  

A while back I emailed Gamblin asking them about a solution for my dilemma of finding a solvent-free, faster-drying palette. They were super helpful and said if I just use their products then all my problems would vanish like refined mineral spirits into the air. I would lose weight, I'd be fun, sexy, and my life would be one long beer commercial.

Then they sent me a super helpful list of the drying rates of all of their oil colors.  I found that I could actually build a palette out of colors that dry faster naturally.  And if I were to add walnut alkyd medium, I could have everything dry overnight, without the aid of solvents or other drying agents.

I also spoke by phone with the elusive M. Graham about his mysterious walnut alkyd medium. He told me it was safe. In fact, it was "salad grade" safe. You could literally eat it. Though he didn't recommend that because it had a "mild laxative effect."

I see.  Haha. Well, Mr. M. Graham, I'm not asking if I can eat your products. I want to paint with them and your little jokes are not very funny."

But so far he has been right (not about the laxative part. I haven't tried that yet. Not saying I haven't snuck some into other people's food, just that I haven't personally consumed any yet.)  But he was right about the overall safety of the product.  I have been using it for about a year now and have had no adverse effects. And surprisingly it works as advertised.

So the secret so far is this:
Build a palette based on colors that all dry in under 4 days, and walnut alkyd medium. The walnut alkyd medium speeds the drying time up a little bit faster than 2x the usual speed, depending on the humidity in the air.
If you want to speed it up further, you can place the paintings under a car windshield, or a heat lamp.  Or light it on fire.  But you need to be careful with all of those.

For sky in the Ents piece, I am using these Gamblin oil colors:
Pthalo blue - (4 days to dry)
Cerulean Blue Hue - (4 days to dry)
Payne's Gray (4 days to dry)
Titanium-Zinc White (3 to 4 days to dry)

With the medium it probably took about 24 hours until it was touch dry.

The reds are a bit more tricky, as most reds are very long drying colors. (Alizarin, the Cads and the Quinacridones are all at least 6 day dryers) Which mean you are stuck with Iron Oxide based reds.  Still, you can get a surprising range with them.  

For Smaug I have used:

Raw Sienna (4 days)
Brown Pink (4 days)
Hansa Yellow Deep (4 days)
Transparent Yellow Earth (3 days)

And these all dried very quickly.  Later on, when I don't need as many layers, I can switch into a broader palette and take advantage of Alizarin's cooler tones. But the above colors, which all dry overnight, are perfect for these early color layers.

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LPG Update: The Lamp Post Guild has just launched Cory Godbey's The Art of Personal Work and Chris Koelle's Graphic Storytelling courses! For more info check out: http://lpg.pathwright.com

A Map of the Mountain: Watercolor

"It may have been secret once," said Thorin, "But how do we know that it is secret any longer? Old Smaug has lived there long enough now to find out anything there is to know about those caves."

Aside from the Hobbit series being awesome and such a great story to work on, I also wanted to do this project as a means to improve my technique. I've been wanting to get back into watercolors for some time now. I have never really had the patience for watercolors and I need to practice and find a method by which I can slow down and patiently, methodically finish a complete, full-size illustration in watercolor. The Hobbit story seems to lend itself to being rendered in a classic medium.
My parents are wonderful people who did their best to make sure that my sisters and I recieved excellent educations. I am forever grateful to them for their efforts. Sadly, I ignored the eductional systems they perscribed for the most part and was instead raised by video games. Video games promised me superior hand-eye coordination, problem-solving skills and quick reflexes. And (like television,) they also promised me vicarious adventures where I could pilot military aircraft and journey to space without ever having to worry about getting shot or losing limbs. School promised me hours of boredom, tedium and an occasional snow day.

So I chose video games, and among many other character deficits, it has left me with an inability to cope with the tedious drying times and baffling mixing qualities of watercolor. (I also blame video games for that car wreck I had 2 years ago, but that is another story.)
Nobody establishes to children WHY they are at school. Children are intellegent, they see through the smokescreens. They may play along, but their minds are sharp and they are seeing through the falacies and unless there is substance there they aren't REALLY going to buy in. For instance, had I been informed that if I excelled in english and literature at school, that years later I would be able to construct my thoughts in a way that would impress girls, that might have had currency. Had I been told that if I stayed dedicated to solving the problems in algebra, even though they were stubborn, obsitanant and went against all the fundamental logic of the universe, that I would later be better able to master classic mediums, I might have bought in. As it was, I was told that I needed to finish school so that I could go to more school later on. Like algebra, this type of logic didn't make any sense to me.

So now, in the uphill treck to correct at least some of my bad habits and life errors, I hope to improve my watercolor technique through practice with this great story.

Smaug: Digital Process

Smaug: Sketches

Merry Christmas! 

Riddles in the Dark: Final Digital Steps

While I am happy with the final piece, I find that it seems to work better cropped as a landscape. I think I may have gotten carried away in my inspiration from caves. In the tall piece the elements of the cave seem to fight for attention with the 2 characters, who are supposed to be the real focus point.

Next up: Smaug...