Test Valley Tales image 2/6 'Missing You'

Title: 'Missing You'
Artist: Maija Liepins
Test Valley Tale: The White Trout of Stockbridge by Amanda Kane Smith

Before: Work In Progress for Illustrating The White Trout of Stockbridge

After: Artwork for Test Valley Tales titled 'Missing You'

Imagining the story in the landscape at Stockbridge Common, photograph by artist Susan Merrick

Earlier this year I began working on a commission to create artwork for Amanda Kane Smith's Test Valley Tales project. She was writing the stories, and I was creating the artwork alongside another artist Susan Merrick.

We got to read the drafts of the stories and trekked off to the Test Valley locations on research trips to gather photographs and impressions. We knew that the main character in the story The White Trout of Stockbridge was a young albino woman so I wore black with the idea in mind to reverse the imagine and turn everything white. I think the creation of these images which I manipulated in photoshop set the groundwork for my drawing and led to me choosing black paper.

It is actually quite difficult to find a good white ink pen. Luckily I had done some research for an earlier set of drawings but even then I still found it useful to use mixed media for this one as white gel ink pens do not like lines overlapping, it kind of ruins the original lines.

I hope you liked seeing these photoshopped images. Photoshop has become a bit of a dirty word of late referring to fakery of 'too perfect' skin and manipulation to 'fix' bad photographs. But it is also powerfully creative offering all sorts of fun tools that can be used to create deliberately unreal arty effects.

P.S. isn't that just a wonderful grass tuft? In the photographs? When I am exploring in nature I love noticing details like that to form the basis of my creative impulses and playful responses.

further info.

Test Valley Tales Artwork: thedreamforest.maija.co.uk/testvalleytales
Project Website: www.merry-go-roundstorytelling.co.uk/testvalleytales - go here for book and podcast
Instagram: @testvalleytales @maijaliepins
Shop for prints: ​https://ko-fi.com/thedreamforest/shop