Midnight Ice Fairy: A Redoux

I had an old piece of art on the wooden art table this weekend that I wanted to share with you! Back in 2004 I did this piece I called The Ice Fairy, I really liked the pose, she's enchanting sitting up there on her snowy branch blowing ice across the land on a winters day. There were a couple of problems with the Ice Fairy though. One was that there was simply not very much contrast, with so much white from the fairy herself, the overcast sky, and the snow on the branches, she just never really "popped." The other problem was that my vision for her wings, and how they turned out really never really pleased me. At the time, I just left it as is and never really fiddled with it. In my head I visualised her with wings that looked like frost on the window, but what I ended up with looked kind of chunky and really didn't have much grace. But at the time, I just went on to the next and left her as is.

Dan and I were pulling together all of my winter pieces to press onto these sweet little porcelain ornaments that we got to dye sub on when we looked at The Ice Fairy. "Yea, I was never really happy with how that one turned out." I explained. So Dan suggested, "Can you change it, what would you do differently?" When I told him there just isn't enough contrast, so she doesn't stand out, he said, "What if the scene was at night and the sky dark and full of stars?" Epiphany!

So I mocked it up in Photoshop to see how it would look and we both agreed, it was a huge improvement. So I got to work with the pencils and paint this weekend! I really had fun with it, I changed her hair, ears, added more contrast to the entire figure, and added a starry night sky, changed to sun behind the clouds to a moon with a ring around it. I also did away with her old strange chunky ice wings and gave her delicate graceful iced wings that fit in with my original vision. Who says you can never go back? Sometimes you can. I hope you enjoy the before and after pictures of what I'm now calling Midnight Ice Fairy! She'll be available in my etsy store as prints, cards, and ornaments very soon!

~Mickie