New Piece: The Fox and the Woodcutter

Lately, I've been trying to create narrative pieces that speak to specific stories. I've done a lot of piece based on fairy tales, and those are delightful yarns that can be both darkly disturbing and postive with hope.

But fables, mostly Aesop's, seem to be speaking to me lately. There are a lot of them, and while they're quite a stretch sometimes to wrap one's head around, sometimes they have truths that are still relevant to today.

I got a piece done on my livestream this last couple weeks that's inspired by Aesop's "The Fox and the Woodcutter", a piece about lying and betrayal, and also saying one thing while doing another.

I thought it was very appropriate to today.

In a nutshell:

• A fox is running from a hunter. He finds a woodcutter and his home, and asks if he can hide inside. The woodcutter says yes.
• The hunter comes by, and asks the woodcutter if he's seen the fox. 
• The woodcutter says "No, I haven't seen it," but at the same time he's pointing ferevently inside his house to where the fox is hiding.
• The hunter doesn't get it and moves on.
• The fox comes out and starts to dash away, but the woodcutter says, "Wait, I saved your life and I get no thanks?"
• The fox replies, "I will not thank someone who tried to kill me with his fingers while his mouth spoke lies. Your actions did not match your words."

And I think that's a really important lesson, especially in today's world of politics, strife, corporate abuse, and the dregs of humanity showing their true colors. It's an important moral to remember.

So I drew this piece to speak to that. 

It took me a long while. Nine hours into it (it took 10h 31m to complete) I completely changed the direction I was struggling with, and ended up with something with the intensity I wanted but wasn't actually getting. I decided to try some portraiture, and I think I got what I needed. The full-frontal stare from both the fox and the woodcutter feels a bit unnerving, and the shilhouette of the woodcutter's perplexed shadow in a doorway cast upon a white dusting of something that might be snow also set a tone. The cool colors and warm winter sunset were challenging--no where in the story is there any indication of time of day or season, but I wanted that doorway shadow and that meant it needed to be logically dark enough for the light to cast that shadow. And I also wanted a setting sun in the distance, so... This whole image was combination of challenges for me!  LOL! I don't normally do fur! I don't normally do portraits! Haha!!

But it was fun doing it in the end. And I'm really happy how it turned out. 

The speedpaint video is embedded below, but here's an actual  link to the speedpaint: https://makertube.net/w/dSqHw7fyPNeuuKGn2TyzvK

I will be adding this to a third set of fairy tale greeting cards I'll be putting out soon. I already have two, which you can purchase here: 
Set 1: https://goimagine.com/art-nouveau-fairytale-boxed-variety-pack-of-greeting-cards-1-5x7-with-envelopes/

Set 2: https://goimagine.com/art-nouveau-fairytale-boxed-variety-pack-greeting-cards-2-5x7-with-envelopes/