Do you take lemon? - Concept

While I certainly enjoy my work in traditional mediums, digital painting is my primary arena.  It’d been a while since I had a new digital piece that I can publicly display, so I decided that I needed to make time for a personal project that I could use in my portfolio. 

I didn’t really know what the image was going to be of, but I had a vague feeling that I wanted to paint something misty or foggy, so a swamp seemed to be a good setting.  I spend a little bit of time brainstorming some scenarios and stories of things that might work in a swamp setting.  Most of them were grim or serious but the last one was a bit of a joke.  It read, ‘A witch in a boat being pulled by a large wading golem or troll’. 

I was being indecisive so I posed the question to a few friends and almost every single person came back liking the sound of the boat idea…  It was a little odd for me as I really was expecting one of the other more ‘serious’ ideas to get the nod as the boat idea was really just me being silly.  Soon enough though I got over that and started treating it like I would an assignment from a client. 

I did a fair amount of sketches, and the idea started evolving.  And the next thing I knew I was working on a picture of a red witch having high tea in a row boat that was being pulled though the swamp by a Bavarian troll servant (Yes, the trolls are indeed wearing lederhosen in the final image).

Next:   Do you take lemon? - Process