I created this art for @mittensmorgul‘s 2018 Pinefest story, Winchester 275. Read this sweet story on AO3 and reblog the Tumblr masterpost! Here’s the summary:
Seven years after Sam left the family’s ranch to attend Stanford, Dean’s completely transformed the family’s failing cattle business into a growing horse ranch. Sam’s only got one condition for coming back home after graduation– let him have a shot to build something of his own, the same as Dean’s done. The catch? Sam and Eileen, along with their architect friend Hannah, want to turn a tiny corner of Dean’s slice of heaven into a dude ranch.
The land itself might be heaven on earth, but Dean’s invested his entire life into it. He’d made his peace with being alone, until he meets Hannah’s brother. Castiel is a solar astronomer who is reluctantly coerced into helping his sister charm Sam’s gruff and stubborn brother into saying yes to what has become her dream project. He doesn’t imagine he’d have anything in common with a cowboy, but he finds that Dean’s the one who ends up charming him.
Cas won’t do anything to jeopardize Hannah’s shot at her dream, and Dean is reluctant to put Sam’s homecoming at risk. If only Dean and Cas could keep their distance from one another, maybe they could set aside their attraction for the sake of their siblings’ business plans. The heavens seem to have other plans for them…
I was drawn to this story because of the starry skies and the Arizona setting and had a lot of fun experimenting with painting and lighting for these pictures. How can you say no to Astronomer!Cas and Cowboy!Dean? You can’t.
For these pieces I wanted to continue to experiment with silhouettes and backlighting through painted backgrounds. Each picture has a couple of different physical layers to it. I use a thin rice paper because it holds up well to light painting without needing to be stretched (because I’m laaaazy), and thin blades to cut out black paper silhouettes. Everything is backlit using my homemade lightbox and photographed. Materials include rice paper, watercolors, acrylics, sharpie marker, tissue paper, black cardstock, holiday lights, closet lights, and desk lamps.
For the cover image, I was inspired by these starry sky photos. The background swirls are drawn with fine point sharpie marker and then painted over with watercolor. The sign layers are watercolor with sharpie marker outlines or detailing for emphasis. The text effect is done in Photoshop; I used this rad woodburned text tutorial to get that to work.
This next picture was inspired by a NASA photo of The Elements of Cassiopeia A. This image evolved. I started out by creating a painted-and-cut paper collage and little dudes but it was way too busy - particularly when backlit - and I couldn’t figure out the background. I set it aside for a while, then decided to set it in a black frame instead and put pinprick stars and some little lights behind the tub. It’s still busy, I guess, but busy in a way that makes me very happy. The frame is all one piece. I did end up “cheating” and digitally painted in some more stars because my pinpricks were NOT cutting it. (Pun sort of intended.)
The picture of Dean on his rearing horse is inspired by the Horsehead Nebula. I ended up using both acrylics and watercolor for the background. I needed the opacity to darken up those edges and essentially block some more light. This one is pretty fun and might eventually have to be cropped and stuck on my wall. I’m a sucker for bright colors.
The kiss photo really does have a little string of holiday lights backlighting it but man…you can only see a few. I blame the acrylics and the brighter lights I needed to light the sky for washing out those teensy little lights. Live and learn, friends. I ended up digitally adding an outline to the silhouette here because I wanted a little more contrast than the lighting for the photo would allow This image also has some of the swooshy pen drawing in the sky background, but it’s largely overshadowed by the thicker paint so you’d need to squint to see it.
I had a great time working with Mittens! Head on over to AO3, pardner, and read Winchester 275. :)
