Sunday, February 12, 2012

Learning to draw a Fairy

Visiting the Rabbit's Nest

Some time ago I purchased a few books about fairy art. I've enjoyed looking through them many times, but have never actually read them or worked through them. I decided to begin filling a sketch book with fairy lessons...this is my first entry.

I logically chose the most basic book to start with, which is a great find for artists or crafters alike. It contains many patterns of different fairies and different backgrounds that you can use in the learning process or for craft projects. These patterns can be traced, copied or used as inspiration and switched around to make new pictures. I enjoyed reading each section of the book, and carrying out the coinciding learning sessions briefly. The first more entailed exercise I tried was using the fairy from one pattern with the background of another pattern, as suggested by the author. I placed the image of the child fairy with a rabbit that was part of the background of another fairy pattern. And then added my own touches as seen in the pencil sketch above.

 
Great Book of Fairy Patterns by Lora S. Irish


The Great Book of Fairy Patterns includes an interesting short history of fairy lore and pointers on clothing, colors, activities,  and surroundings that would be appropriate for a fairy project. It also has great information on different types of fairy wings and how to draw them, along with patterns for paper fairy manikins that you can construct to help with positioning a fairy for your drawing. I plan on continuing to practice drawing various types of fairy wings and using the manikin to help me in drawing the fairies themselves as these were the more difficult areas for me.

Only a few simple supplies are needed to utilize this book, which I've listed below:

Tracing Paper

Transfer Paper

Drawing Pencils

Heavy Card Stock

Glue Stick

X-acto Knife

Small Hole Punch

Small Brass Plated Fasteners

Paints

Most of these items can also be found at Walmart, Staples, Office Max, Joann.com or Amazon.com
if you don't already have them at home. With the great popularity of anything Fairy there are many other books about fairies and fairy art available as well.

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