Work In Progress Stage 1

"The house must have fallen on her. Whatever shall we do?"

With my last piece, I took pictures of the work at various phases of completion and posted them on Facebook for friends and relatives to see. It was interesting to look back in the gallery and see it evolve from under-drawing to finished Watercolour. After that experiment, I thought I would post my WIP here as well. My objective is not so much to demystify the work, but to show that this indeed is a labor of love. Illuminating stories will be my lifes work, and I can think of no better story to begin with than The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

I still have a few more details to add to this before inking, but the under-drawing is pretty much done. There are obviously more details in this than the sketch, some planned and some spontaneous. I wanted to truthfully represent the impact of the house on the Wicked Witch of the East. I imagined it caught her by surprise; smashing into her from the back. It will be more noticeable in the final piece but the holes on her legs are from her stockings and directly beneath her legs are the remnants of her robe. The bricks that are strewn about are from a part of the brick foundation which also took flight along with the clothes line. I am not looking to make it gory since the Witches of OZ all seem to be made of dust or ash and are not so much flesh and bone. My hope is that this comes across as a more honest representation of Dorothy's shock and the intensity of the impact. Apologies for the low quality photograph. The final piece will be a high quality scan.

Next up... inking! :)