A Little Bookmark

A friend of mine had a vision. She saw herself as an Indian maiden on the high plains, pointing beyond the Pleiades constellation at the pink sun that was the center of the solar system of her home planet. When I heard the story, a visual interpretation came to mind almost instantly.

I knew she had a birthday coming up so I thought a personalized bookmark would make a great gift since she's an avid reader. The result is my vision of her vision. The finished piece is 2.25" x 7", rendered in colored pencil.

The challenge was to figure out how to render the prairie grass in the foreground. After some test runs, the best technique for achieving what I wanted was to use a x-acto knife to scrape away the color on the dress and legs. Then, I used goldenrod, yellow ochre, sand and cream in single strokes to get the wind-blown grass effect. I used very little burnishing in this area.

Working on this project was so much fun. As usual, I was in a zone every time I picked up the pencils. And, because of the size, it didn't take very long. But, the best part was the kick I got when I imagined my friend's reaction to getting this gift a month after her birthday had past. I'm looking forward to spreading that kind of joy on a wider scale.