re-post due to forum-lag made other post no good

[arttorney]

Just curious what, if anything, sucks about this. I paid some attention to composition because I have arranged Alesoun (left) together with a historical reference that had been one piece. I separated the angel and baby away from the duck boat. I don't know what folks outside of me think about such a triangular arrangement.

Except for the tone screen that darkens the ground and the water this is done with one dip pen. Should I have change up my nibs to make variations in line width more. If so, how/where. (Well the sky regions were brush and ink. Anything suck about that area?)

Is this kind of allegorical subject matter totally boring, OK, or ?

[E1EMENT5]

This confuses the shit out of me, but in a good way. The technique is solid, anatomy's pretty good, and all that stuff, but I'm not really sure what the hell is going on. You can bet I'd put it in my house though.

[arttorney]

All right. Thanks. Confusing people seems to be one of my major problems (with the other one being a previous tendency to half-ass things which I've tried to give up on this year).

I guess the historical story this most closely resembles is that of Moses getting stuck in the river by his mom. In that case, though, he was found by an egyptian rather than an angel. I couldn't really put a couple of arrows in Alesoun's back like she was trying to save her baby from raiders (because I like Alesoun and didn't want to draw her in a bad light).

I know it's possible to interpret this as though the angel is bringing the baby. I couldn't really figure out how to clarify whether or not that was what was going on.

[TASmith]

this is a collage where almost all the elements are graphic - the people, grass, water, etc. But then there's a strip of a photograph of a sky, which I suppose represents a reflection in the water? That's what's confusing. If you're going to throw that in the mix, put it up top where we'd understand it. If it's going to be in the water, make it the entire water, and have it mirror the sky above - don't have half the water a photo, and the other half a drawn, gray tone. That's what's confusing.

In addition, it's hard to see what the background represents. Are the white swirly things clouds, or the tops of trees? Are the lines under it tree trunks, or rain coming down from the clouds?

[arttorney]

I understand what you mean about the background stuff. Not much time expended there. The swath of stuff in the middle is probably what you are mistaking for a photograph os a sky. That is some half tone screen I had that seemed the closest pattern in my set to what the ground would look like when I was finishing up the drawing. I guess it looks a little to fluid-like to serve that purpose. Next time I will draw some grass I guess.

[kelly x]

Hi Artorney, I agree with TASmith, you spent a lot of time on the fore front of this, lots of detail, really nice work and the back looks like kind of an after thought, I do this all the time and guilty too... just put more time in, the piece is kind of a visionary style, also your line work is good in parts and the same story when you got to a point of feeling finished, those lines did not have the care taken as the parts that you enjoyed working on?