Dreamkeeper Creations: Faerie Painting in the Works!

FaerieCon Banner

Attending FaerieCon in November was such a special experience. Very inspiring for my artwork, which you'll see a bit below.

FaerieCon is a 3-day event which includes two balls (the Good Faeries Ball and the Bad Faeries Ball) with really great music (sort of Celtic/folk/rock), wonderful panel discussions with artists and writers, and amazing workshop sessions presented by world renown artists, truly talented artist vendors selling beautiful clothing, jewelry, artwork (paintings and prints), dolls, and all manner of gorgeous faerie related merchandise. The attendees dress in costume 24/7, which is highly entertaining, or maybe they sneak in from the bordering wild fields....

Wild Faeries Abound! Or should I say unbound?!

Vendors - If everyone wore a hat like this the world would be much more peaceful I'm sure ; )

Incredibly gorgeous "doll" or more of a decoration really.

So when my husband and I attended a few weeks ago, we had the most marvelous time, and the event is pivotal to my art career. Incredibly inspiring to be around so many others of like mind (the artists) and surrounded by such inspiration (the costumes). They also had a contest for Best Costume - a lot of fun. I couldn't decide which was more fun, watching the contestants, or the audience!

Costume Contest

I got to sit in on a panel discussion session that included Charles Vess, Helena Nelson Reed, Linda Ravenscroft, Brian Froud, Amy Brown, and Robert Gould - world renown artists sharing their artistic and business expertise with us, WOW, that was so SO wonderful.

Excellent Panel Discussion

One morning when I was having coffee outside I chanced upon a little blue faerie sitting on a bench - did you know faeries love coffee too? ; )


Little Blue Faerie Having Coffee - (Love her shadow, don't you?)

Back home in my studio I began a new drawing which will eventually be a beautiful watercolor painting based on "Sacred Law," which is the law of the Universe, or Cosmic law (Great Spirit's Laws), as opposed to human law. Here's a sneak peak (it's not done yet), and not the best scan since it's a bit larger than my scanner accommodates, but it'll give you an idea. The story/meaning behind it follows the image.

Faerie Queen of Sacred Law

This image is a blend of Celtic, Native American, and Faerie world influences. The message of it is based on my favorite material - Jamie Sams' Sacred Path Cards, and illustrates the section about the Crow, who is the keeper of all sacred law. I put a Celtic spin on it because that's my own heritage and it's the way I feel best expressing the teachings of this material. In all my studies of various peoples' beliefs the thing that most fascinates me is the common threads of truth that run through them. There's a lot of basic truth in the foundations of "tribal" and "primitive" beliefs, which are very beautiful and totally applicable to our lives today, with excellent results.

Part of what crow teaches, which is written on the page of the Sacred Law book that the Faerie Queen is holding is that "the past is your teacher, the present your creation, and the future your inspiration." I just LOVE that!

There is a candle on the left, representing the light, or enlightenment, and the candle becomes the word "law." There will be more designs throughout the lettering and when I paint the color into it, it'll pop out so you can read it easily.

The Faerie Queen is sitting on a carved wood throne which is inlaid with sparkling jewels. The interesting thing about her is that I drew her first, not knowing what the rest of the picture was going to be, and when I drew the candle after I had shaded her in, it turned out that her shadows are backwards. In other words, because of where the candle sits, where there should be light, there are shadows, and vice versa. I like that it turned out that way, as it's an apt statement on much of society today (HA!). The story of Crow that Jamie Sams tells lets us know that Crow can "bend the laws of the physical universe and 'shape shift.'"

It'll have a Celtic border around the outside inch (which you can only see a part of in the scan). Drawing this is pretty mind boggling and takes a LOT of concentration, but is very fun too. There will also be a flock of crows flying up between the candle and the Faerie Queen. Do you like her ears? When we were at FaerieCon many of the costumes were so cool, and the people who have been attending for years and are very into it take great pride in their ears - where they got them, who the original artist was who designed them, what they're made of, and how real they look. It's so fun walking around seeing all these people dressed up as woodland faeries.

Per Jamie Sams, the application of Crow's teaching is to "walk your talk, speak your truth, know your life's mission, and balance past, present, and future in the now." She writes, "shape shift that old reality and become your future self."