In my previous post, I talked about my drawing of the Bealtaine fire and how I aimed to capture the spirit of this ancient symbol in a modern and unique way. Today, I want to share with you, my process behind creating this drawing.

So, first things first: I started by making three gouache paintings, two of the background and one of the fire. This helped me work out the colours and composition. Then, I scanned them into my laptop to use them as a starting point for my digital drawing.

I played around with the background. I tried going for a realistic(ish) scene with the light from the fire reflectied on the ground. But it reminded me more of Halloween or Samhain, which is a festival 6 months later and represents the end of the light half of the year instead of the start. So very much the opposite of what I intended!!

So I changed the background colour to a bluey-green to give it a lighter feel and a sense of growth and freshness which is more appropriate for this time of year. I also felt that it represents dusk which is when the fire would have been lit, so that worked well.

One of the things I love about the Bealtaine festival is how it acknowledges the thin veil between the otherworld and ours, which I talked about in my previous blog post. So from the start, I wanted to bring a sense of that magic and wonder into the drawing by adding my abstract swirls and patterns to the flames of the fire.

I reflected this pattern in the background to represent the awareness of ‘the other crowd’ being in whispering distance…giving a feeling of if you look close enough you might see something magical.

I was really pleased with the end result! 😊

Anyway, that's just a little peek into my process. I like to think of this as a journey from gouache to digital art, capturing the magic of this ancient festival in a modern and unique way. I hope you found this interesting.

If you have any questions or comments I’d love to hear from you – don’t hesitate to get in touch.