Ellie vs the Yaarti

Ellie Pickle ran down the snowy slope, away from the glacial Windeep Valley. A guttural howl rang out higher up in the mountains. She hurried on, ignoring her cold, tired feet, running down the centre of the valley where the snow thinned. The howl echoed out again and she glanced back, squinting up into the snowy mist far behind her. A thin alpine forest began further off on either side of the valley, and Ellie darted towards the trees on her left, looking for cover. She found a spot with a view of where she'd come and waited, hidden. Fifteen minutes passed. Then she saw it. A tall, white furred creature sitting astride what looked like a giant white wolf, its large fangs jutting down the sides of its jaws. She notched an arrow to her bow and aimed. It reached the spot where she'd turned to go towards the trees, and the wolf-like creature sniffed the ground, then looked in her direction and gave a low growl. She fired. Once, twice, three times, four. The mount was dead before its rider had time to react. With an enraged shriek, the white creature leapt from its deceased mount and sprang in her direction. Ellie let fly another couple of arrows, missed, and scrambled back, attempting to hide behind another clump of trees. But it was no use. Within moments the beast was upon her.

Drawings at Moore, Term 1 2017

This year I've been doing occasional small portraits and other sketches in and around my classes at Moore. Towards the start of last term I cut up a lot of paper into A5 pieces for use in a women's chapel I was leading but not many got used, so I thought I'd just draw on them instead. Here are some of the sketches I've done.

Above: Some of the students (and a chaplain in the lowest sketch).

Below: a couple of lecturers.

Easter Fest Portraits

The day after the kids club comics making workshop (see previous post) the church we were involved with (Holy Trinity Kingsford) ran their Easter Fest. Dave the minister asked me to do some portrait sketching, which was quite fun! I enjoy drawing portraits, and at this event discovered that lots of people wanted family portraits, or portraits with their friends - more so than individual ones. Makes sense.

Here are some I did:

Above are Jess and Grace, two girls on our team who I drew first. Their portraits became my 'samples' to give others two colour options.

These two photos were mother-daughter portraits - both girls had been in my comics making workshop the day before. 

A couple of friends - Sandra and Susan.

The largest family I drew that day! So lovely. I got them all to sit together first, sketched the outline of their heads and then drew facial details one person at a time so the others could take a break - a necessary technique with small children!

Cosmic Heros Comic Workshop

The last two years I've been studying at Moore Theological College, and last week our college community divided into groups to go help out various churches for a week. My group went to Kingsford, and on Friday I got to run a comics making workshop during a kids club. We had 'cosmic rescuers' as our theme (with Jesus being the greatest cosmic rescuer of all!), and in the workshop the kids designed their own rescuer and created a one or two page rescue story. Some were pretty clever! I was impressed.

Before the kids club - with inspiration on the walls

After the workshop, with Fiona and Robbie as helpers

    

Some board scribbles - the picture on the right was the joint effort of myself and the kids, as I first sketched Robbie and then got the kids to add things to his outfit on the board. The picture on the left was my own example comic page layout, to give an idea of some stages in a rescue story.