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The Summoner looked up at Irian. Slowly he raised his arms and the white staff in the invocation of a spell, speaking in the tongue that all the wizards and mages of Roke had learned, the language of their art, the Language of Making: "Irian, by your name I summon you and bind you to obey me!"
She hesitated, seeming for a moment to yield, to come to him, and then she cried out, "I am not only Irian!"
At that the Summoner ran up towards her, reaching out, lunging at her as if to seize and hold her. They were both on the hill now. She towered above him impossibly, fire breaking forth between them, a flare of red flame in the dusk air, a gleam of red-gold scales, of vast wings—then that was gone, and there was nothing there but the woman standing on the hill path and the tall man bowing down before her, bowing slowly down to earth, and lying on it.
—Dragonfly, by Ursula K. LeGuin
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Deviousness `anmari has been spreading her infectious positivity throughout our community for over 6 years. Throughout this time Ana has been at the core of all things devious, passionately developing an eclectic gallery, helping organise devmeets, participating in chat events and also recently completed dedicating her time as a Community Volunteer. We are absolutely delighted to bestow the Deviousness Award for May 2013 to `anmari, congratulations! Read More
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Sta.sh
apart from being a very cool illustration for one of my favourite series of books, *and* a scene that doesn't seem to have gotten illustrated a lot...
Well, to me it has an almost medieval feel, like some religious art by Giotto or one of those fellows, which I think is very appropriate to the Earthsea books, especially the later ones (they are entirely spiritual though perhaps not entirely medieval, but still... it seems to fit for a fantasy world) - but at the same time the dramatic choice of colours, and the painting style make me think of modern graffiti.
I think the simple composition is very effective in this case, and really draws the attention to the main action, but there is lots of detail to discover when looking closer. I really like how you can see Irian's dragon face in the flames, while she is still just in her human form, and how the power/light around the wizard seems to bounce back on him. Extra brownie points for great dramatic sky!
Yeah, that's what I think.
This was such a great scene, I felt rather intimidated when I went to paint it… but then I just sort of threw myself into it and tried not to worry. Ah yes, and if you look closely at the sky you may be able to pick out the shape of wings in the clouds. I wanted to give the impression of Irian's dragon half sort of coming to the front, but she's not entirely changed yet. Like her human side is on the surface, and the rest is just beneath and only just becoming visible to the wizards.
I also wanted to make the Knoll very prominent in the piece, since it's such an important place, so I made it almost hyper-real in the way it swells up and frames the action. Because it wasn't just Irian that defeated Thorion, but the Knoll as well.
Once again, thank you!