You might wonder where I got the idea for this drawing. This won’t be particularly helpful, but I’m not sure where the inspiration came from! I think I must just have been thinking about elves, and time, and suddenly thought that I could come up with a strong design for the Reckoning of Rivendell – one of the main Elven calendars.

Materials
To create this picture, I used my favourite wonderful Caran d’Ache “Pablo” colour pencils for the picture, along with a 1mm Faber-Castell pen for the outlining. The gold and silver were done with Pentel Hybrid Ink Metallic pens – a cheat, I know, but quick and easy. The paper I used was Daler-Rowney- Lyndhurst (135 g/m2). Heavyweight (220g/m2) will do fine too.

Colour Combinations
Colour, to me, is everything. I’d much rather get a beautiful combination of colours than create a “perfect” face.
When drawing in colour, the combinations are very important. The picture is based around green, being an Elvish design. So then the colours were quite easy to sort out – light greens for the spring seasons, mid greens for the summer and autumn and dark greens for the winter. I tried quite a few times to work with other colours, as initially I wanted to change the main colour for each season – yellow for spring, green for summer, brown for autumn and dark brown for winter. But it just didn’t work and I realized that a simpler approach would be better, with the other colours just being highlights in the picture. The red, blue and purple dividers between the seasons then separated the seasons and made the greens somehow more intense. Always try different combinations till you are satisfied.

Putting it on paper
The picture took a few days of on-and-off work to execute from concept to final product. It took a similar process to most of my other pictures – create an outline design, photocopy it a few times, try some colour combinations, and then create a final “draft” using just about correct colour combinations and design. Then create the final design and colour it.

I love creating designs, there is something very liberating about creating new patterns, with sweeping and flowing lines. Individuality is important. My individuality comes through in my design sense – my pictures tend to be very geometric and Celtic or Art Nouveau inspired. And most people can tell my pictures from the colours I use – they tend to be very intense, very powerful, very beautiful and jewel-like.
If you want to improve, try, try and try again. Practice. (as if you haven’t heard that from everyone else!) If you can’t get a bit of a picture right and it’s driving you mad, step away from it. Go for a walk, have a drink, whatever, then go back to it when you’ve calmed down. Look at everything – notice how things move, notice shadows, notice perspective. Go to galleries; find out what styles interest you. And *enjoy!* – art is nothing if you’re not enjoying it!

Apply this to other drawings
Here are some other designs that I have drawn, using the same method above. The one on the left is the second part to the Music of the Ainur- the Discord of Melkor.
The one on the right is Nienna’s Symbols. I was looking at Tolkien’s “heraldic symbols” for some the elves in the Silmarillion and couldn’t find any for the Valar – so I decided to start creating some!

*To see the entire Music of the Ainur series, as well as other great drawings by atalante_star, go to her personal gallery in the fan art section.