Trees And A City On Her Head - Steem Cartoon Wo-Owl Challenge #1

Here is my entry for the first Steem Cartoon Wo-Owl Challenge. You can see the original post about the challenge here. If you read that post you would know that Steem Cartoon has a new mascot/logo which you can see below.

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This logo was designed by a well-known Malaysian cartoonist, Hive account@cartoonistpandan.

A new art contest was also launched to commemorate the launching of this logo. The theme for this week is FANTASY. I am glad that the contest is open to all art styles and genres. To be honest I feel a little intimidated by the other contestants who submitted super amazing digital artworks. I knew nothing about digital art so I did something I feel confident doing; using paper, watercolors, markers, fine liners, and of course my favorite graphite aquarelle pencils. I also decided to stick to my favorite subject matter - portrait.

The inspiration

So I decided to draw a portrait of a young woman and created a short story about her. If you read my previous posts I love to write about the things that inspired my artworks. I rarely paint or draw without feeling 'moved' about something first. If I created an artwork for the sake of creating it, it usually didn't turn out good. It felt dead and flat to me. It lacked soul. I am pretty sure other artists could relate to my experience.

For this painting, my inspiration came from this old Roxette's song from the early 90's - Watercolors In The Rain. I was a big fan of Roxette during my teenage years and this song was one of my favorites.

I know the video is tacky but it was created 10 years ago for crying out loud LOL! But the song is beautiful...

Her story...

"Going through the motions
Ending up nowhere at all
Can't see the sun on my wall
Going through emotions
Ending up on a frozen morning
With a heart not even broken...
Seems I've been running all my life, all my life
Like watercolors in the rain..." ~ Watercolors In the Rain

Let's call the girl in my portrait, Jane. Jane is a plain girl who lives in a small town. She lives in this town with her parents an 5 siblings all her life and she rarely ventures out of town because her folks are blue-collar workers who hardly have enough money to bring their kids for a nice holiday in the big city.

Jane's life in that small town is humdrum and she longs to travel the world, to leave the place where she doesn't feel truly belong. As the youngest child with parents who are always tired and busy to make ends meet, Jane is just another mouth to feed. Her folks hardly have the time to spend with her, the time where they could really connect and bond. Her older siblings regard her as a pest and often treated her unkindly. Jane grows up as a loner who keeps to herself. With no meaningful bond with her parents and siblings, Jane basically raises herself. She often feels unloved by anybody and she can't wait to finish her schooling so that she can bid farewell to that miserable tiny town, and never to return.

"Find a place to settle down.
Get a job in a city nearby
And watch the trains roll on by.
I'll find the falling star.
I'll fall in love with the eyes of a dreamer
And a dream worth believing..." ~ Watercolors In the Rain

So when the opportunity presents itself, Jane packs her bags and says her farewell and board the bus to the nearest city. Her parents didn't say much, just told her to take good care of herself. She knows her absence is not going to be missed by anybody. She calls her friend who lives in that city and asks if she could stay with her until she could afford to rent a room of her own. Jane doesn't mind the couch as long as she has a place to stay for awhile.

Jane is lucky to find a job as a waitress at a cafe nearby. Her life is still mundane and lacks excitement but at least she is away from home now. She is lonely here, still, but she is just an unknown wide-eyed country girl and at least here, even in her deepest loneliness the lingering sense of rejection doesn't haunt her.

She spends her off days wandering the city streets or people-watching in a train. And that's how one day she notices a quiet guy sitting alone at a corner, a stranger with mesmerizing eyes...

Jane's heart skips a bit, she knows she is being silly but this is THE CITY after all and her whole life stretches in front of her and the possibilities are endless. She has dreams like everybody else and she sees there is no harm in chasing after her dreams, even if that means saying a hi to him and risk looking like a fool...

The painting

I know the story is not a fantasy but I hope this painting qualifies. I decided to draw a portrait of a girl with trees and buildings on her head. The trees represent Jane's old life in the tiny town where she grew up. And the skyscrapers represent the city where she falls in love and living her dreams. Both places are very much a part of her, that no matter how long she stays in the city, whether she will be a successful person (or not) in the future, her root in that small town will always be a part of her, even if she resents it. The tiny green owl represents the new Steem Cartoon logo. One of the contest's requirements is to incorporate that logo in the artwork.

This artwork is a mixed-media painting on watercolor paper.

Here are the progress photos...