This is one of my three drawings inspired in the lovely Scandinavian fairy tale The moon painter (which you can find full at my blog: http://rdt-studio.blogspot.com/2010/12/moon-painter.html ). It is a little old, but I came across it again today and I thought I could share it here now that I have a tumblr.
I am always drawing the Sun, the Moon and the Elder Lights (you may see a pattern on my stuff there...). I need to take some time to finish more of the pieces I start.
This is a fast sketch I did today in an attempt to get “I see fire” by Ed Sheeran (The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug Soundtrack) out of my system. It has been playing non-stop in my head since I listened at it for the first time yesterday, and it has kept me from thinking about anything else but on how beautiful that song is.
I have the personal headcanon that Fili is the one singing that song.
It is not a song for Thorin. It is too… quiet and thoughtful for Kili. And it is too young and tender in its awe about the pain and beauty that reach beyond us to belong to any of the other dwarves, yet fierce with loyalty and devotion. I find this song to be a subtle one, like a narration of unspoken thoughts and feelings after which is worth to make life choices but that remain unspoken.
The approach the movie takes on Fili turns him into that kind of character for me. Despite his youth, lack of experience and an obvious enthusiasm for adventure and fun that is not very different from Kili’s, Fili keeps himself together in a way that makes him a subtle character compared to his relatives. I believe that the reason behind it is that he knows that if anything happens to Thorin (which is not unlikely given the perils in their way) it is up to him to fulfil the quest and claim a lost legacy he has never seen. I am certain that he is aware and understands that weight. That is why I think he tends to keep himself a step behind the main action -unless there is something that needs to get done-, generally quiet, but always paying attention. He acts as Thorin’s right hand without attracting much attention and, if he shares in any way Kili’s need to prove himself to Thorin, he does not let it show. Whenever he speaks he only says reasonable things.
He obviously cares deeply. And I find that throws an interesting light on how fierce his battle gear suggest he is (even when we can only see Fili fight properly twice in the whole movie... and he literally roars before attacking in one), he carries weapons everywhere! And they are all close-range type.
For all this I really think this song suits him. He is the prince of the story, after all. I really can picture it as a song that pours from Fili experiencing all these things he knew with a whole new and unexpected depth after the events that are to take place in the next movie.
I hope you like it even when I did it in a rush and it is my first attempt ever to draw Fili. Now I am seriously tempted to attempt a finished version of this in which I can properly get into all the knotwork of his outfit...
Many blessings,
Dean opens the door with his free hand and, in less than a second, the bags he was carrying fall on the floor with a loud broken sound. The light of the sleepy sun has pierced an opening in the shadows, revealing a body lying on the cheap rug by the bed like a broken doll.
‘Sam! Sammy!’
The hunter rushes in the room, his gun appearing in his hand, and falls on his knees by his little brother. Dean turns Sam´s huge body and a sound he never knew he could make leaves his throat when the eyeless face of his little brother turns to him. It is not that his eyes have been gauged out, they are simply not there, replaced by dark misty holes that ooze a dark dust. Sam´s head looks like a mask nobody is wearing, which given their historial is disturbing at more levels than the fair ones.
Originally posted at RdT Studio: The Little Prince, the rose garden (el siguiente comentario está disponible en español en RdT Studio: El principito, el jardín ), and featured in Fan Art Friday #2 at The Little Prince Official.
But it happened that after walking for a long time through sand, and rocks, and snow, the little prince at last came upon a road. And all roads lead to the abodes of men. (…) He was standing before a garden, all abloom with roses. (…) The little prince gazed at them. They all looked like his flower. (…) And he was overcome with sadness. His flower had told him that she was the only one of her kind in all the universe. And here were five thousand of them, all alike, in one single garden! (…)"I thought that I was rich, with a flower that was unique in all the world; and all I had was a common rose (…) That doesn't make me a very great prince . . .". And he lay down in the grass and cried.
- A. de Saint- Exupèry, The Little Prince, Chapter XX.
I love The Little Prince, and I have always wanted to re-illustrate the story according to the echoes it awakes in me. This sketch came to me while watching an amazing moment of the new series (roughly translated):
Fox: These roses have thorns!
Little prince: It is their way of defending themselves.
(…)
Little prince: What do you want this time?!
Snake: Me? I simply want to invite you to admire these magnificent roses around you. Do you know boy that, if you wished it, all of them could be yours?
Roses: (whispers)
Little prince: But I… But I already have my rose.
Snake: But it is only one! It is too little… isn’t it? Here you have thousands of them.
Little prince: … They are wonderful! Thousands of roses!
Fox: Yes… But your rose is unique! She taught you little prince, and you taught her.
-The little prince, episode 8. The new series are lovely.
The new series are lovely. Weak in some ways, like the simplification of the Snake in a villain or the change of character of the Fox into the comic relief; I feel it forgets about the book sometimes… It has, however, some interesting things, like the inclusion of the Dark Thoughts (I give that same name to the thoughts that push me into hopelessness). This sequence is the best thing from all I have seen so far. It had me stopping the recording and watching it over for three times before going on with the episode. This is why I wanted to start my drawings with this scene.
It refers to the essential conflict of the book, which is showed during chapters XX and XXI.
How I show it?
One could think that it is not that his heart is empty but that it is innocent, but that is a main ingredient of the trap: thinking innocence is an absence, a lacking, instead of a presence.
The rosebush is not really rooted on the ground, it lacks deepness, and it only lies on the floor. It is beautiful, but parts of it don’t really have relation between themselves, they are only juxtaposed. Thorns are not showed on it because the roses are being looked at as objects, defined by what they can provide (what can be taken from them). Therefore, to prefer them above something with thorns seems to be easy… and safe. This roses look like something that would keep you from being vulnerable, something that can make you an owner, a contracting part of a transaction. Because of its lack of roots, the rosebush is connected with the inconsistence of the Dark Thoughts (which confuse what is with what is not).
The Dark Thoughts are raising the little prince. But is a fake rising, with no height, because they are separating him from the floor and keeping him from experiencing the vertical tension of something tall. The way he is being lifted is the cut of the bond with the reality of the place and moment where he stands; such a thing can give the illusion of a state of exception, of the possibility of acting without consequence. Consistent with that, the neckerchief that covers the little prince’s chest takes the colour and shape of the Dark Thoughts.
The little prince is dressed in his princely clothes to show how what is taking place here is of the outmost importance. To show that, in his true character as a prince, he is called to belong to the stars, but that he might betray and lose all that in his answer to this conflict.
The little prince inclines forward, concavely, making the space with the rosebush a closed “inside” (hence, a fake inside), a space reduced to itself. This action makes him lose sight of the actual Height, the Openness, the Exteriority.
He gives his back to the stars and to the image of the Rose -the one that lives in the stars even when she can’t be seen-, appears like a sun composed of a complexity of totalities (circles) that connect things and that are coherently integrated into a shape full of sense. Its presence opens the closeness of the garden and connects the Inside with an Outside that, ultimately, stays out of the scene, mysterious among the starts. And she does all this without needing to be placed in the centre.
The story:
The Little Prince is an awesome story about what is truly essential.
The little prince is not a proper Prince after all. He is little. In the first half of his story this smallness is a smallness of the heart; only in the second half (after the domesticated Fox gives him The Secret) this smallness refers to the immensity of a child. He doesn’t start his voyage being referred to as a child, after all he ran away. He spent the first part of his story running away and the rest of it trying to find the way back. But there’s no way back when you run away and that task is going to claim for his life: he will have to prefer coming back to the Rose over his own life in order to, maybe, achieving it.
This raises serious questions. Why prefer a person? To bond, to create exclusive relationships, is not to somehow become impoverished? Is it not to limit the richness and versatility we are capable of? Isn’t it very inconvenient? It is not to imply the lie that this person is not but another one of many? And, doing it a-conditionally isn’t that way too risky? To give yourself to someone just because that person is that person, and not for all that you can get and receive, the incredible act of trusting being vulnerable to someone… All that requires way too much courage!
The Snake in the episode I talked about before could have very well added things like: “you are too young to compromise yourself that much, you still have plenty of things to see and do, to experiment, before limiting yourself”, “your rose is far away and these ones are here, where you need them”, “why taking only one when you can take all these? Wouldn’t you be a much more magnificent prince, much more authentic, if you had plenty? ”, or “aren’t all of them roses after all? What makes yours better? Are you pretending these uglier or less perfumed than yours? Because you know that’s not true…”
From the other end of this question, when you love truly, deeply, and humbly, when you choose with all intention to need someone, then you ask yourself why this person prefers you above all others. After all, you can’t offer the world, just yourself, and you are nothing but another person (and not the best); moreover, the wholest you give yourself, the less you have, because you lose yourself (in terms of ownership) in the act of giving yourself.
Then… why?
The solving of this is the big question of this story.
