Category Archives: Drawing

the devil’s pack of cards

Posted by Clive Hicks-Jenkins on

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Tonights task has been to draw cards for the game between Joseph and the Devil. These are the last of the ‘props’ to be made for The Soldier’s Tale, and I would have dearly loved to have deleted them from my ‘to do’ list, but they’re essential to the narrative. Moreover tomorrow I’m sure we’ll be getting to that scene, and so after supper tonight I bit the bullet and got working. I’ll set the alarm for 6.30 tomorrow, and finish a couple more before the animation session begins.

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Making these has been fun, even though I was really too tired for the task. Now I’m thinking how entertaining it would be to design a deck of cards, though I’m quite sure it’s  a commission that will never come my way!

building joseph’s village for ‘the soldier’s tale’

Posted by Clive Hicks-Jenkins on

Here are images of the scene in progress. I should get it finished this evening. I’m aiming for a Regency toy theatre feel, though with a European slant. Once again I’ve been plundering my stash of wooden building-blocks as source material for this, and as they’re all made in Germany, they bring their own ‘character’ to the endeavour.

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Oil pastel is pleasingly messy to work with, and gives the interesting sense of being both painted and drawn.

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I start off with the farmyard at left being fenced along its front edge …

… but re-work that when it turns out to be too fussy in detail right where I don’t need it. I replace the fence with a simpler hedge.

Toy theatre sets are always framed by ‘wings’, and so I’ve added architectural foreground  elements at either side to reference that aspect of them. Earlier on I did the same with the scene of the Princess’s garden. (See small image below.)

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Above: a landscape of farm, yard and pond, windmill, church, cottage and distant houses with hills beyond, all viewed as though from the high terrace of a hill-town overlooking it.

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Below: typical Pollocks toy theatre scene, quite naive in style and with bold hand-colouring. It’s this tradition that  I wanted to reference for this project.

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The Soldier returns to the village that was once his home.  His mother lives in that little yellow cottage, but in his absence there have been changes that will surprise poor Joseph.

family likeness

Posted by Clive Hicks-Jenkins on

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The King

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The Princess

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Below: Sketches for the King.

He had long hair in the first sketch…

… but was shorn of his locks for the final version.

Below: oil pastel drawing in progress.

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I love oil pastels and have used them a lot on this project. (They’re sticky and messy and come in vibrant colours, all of which I like!) I used coloured pencils for the maquettes…

… and oil pastels for the portraits and scenery.

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Just four days to photography now, and so the pressure is on! This Soldier’s Tale project has really had me speeding!

the princess beguiles

Posted by Clive Hicks-Jenkins on

Narrator

You must not seek to add
to what you have, what you once had;
You have no right to share
What you are with what you were.
No one can have it all,
That is forbidden.
You must learn to choose between.
One happy thing is every happy thing:
Two, is as if they had never been.
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Reprise of the “Choral.”
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“I have everything,” he thinks. “I always will

Have everything,” he thinks. But one day she,
She says:
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“I know so little about you still,
Tell me about yourself, come on, tell me!”
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 ”Well it all started a long, long time ago.
There was a cottage I used to share
With my mother – I was a soldier then you know -
Far, far away; I’ve almost forgotten where.”
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 ”Suppose, suppose we went there!”
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“No,
It is forbidden.”
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“Suppose we go -
We’d be back before we were missed,
No one would ever know!’
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She looks at him, and smiles and says:
‘You want to, I can see you do,
It isn’t much to ask of you,
Say yes… say yes… say yes…
Why not, you want to, I can see
You do.” He says: Come over here to me.”
“Not until you say yes…”
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And so he thinks, “If we did go
Perhaps this time my mother will know me,
Why not? Just to pay a call,
And she could come and live with us -
“Then I should really have it all.”
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They’re on their way, they’re nearly there,

A scent he knows hangs in the air.
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He has gone on ahead to find
The frontier. She is a little way behind.
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He calls her, he turns back, then changes his mind.
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The Devil appears in front of him, and he has the Soldier’s violin.

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Zoe Blue at Zoe in Wonderland has given a shout for The Soldier’s Tale HERE. She includes a quote from Karl Paulnack, the reading of which should be mandatory for all students of the applied and performing arts.

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