Work Text:
When the fic summaries go up, it is always a mad scramble with all the artists working their way through them. I run the Destiel Artists United server on Discord, and we were all online and chatting about the summaries and it was so much fun seeing what caught everybody’s eye and how people went off flailing whenever they found a summary that they just had to put on their list (never mind if there were already twenty fics there). When I read Sparrow’s summary, it felt like somebody had managed to put all my favourite things into one story and onto one list of visual elements - honestly, the fic was pure cat nip for me: The Arctic! Ponds! Wings! WINGS IN A POND! IN THE ARCTIC! I’ve never had the chance to illustrate a fic with wings in it, and I’d been itching to do that for ages, so I obviously circled the number on my sheets of possibles so hard I almost tore the paper. I was lucky enough to get the fic during claims and then had a moment of silent reflection when it turned out that Almaasi had picked my little fic and that I had somehow managed to pick and get NorthernSparrow’s fic. I was very calm and the image of poise and grace for the rest of the day ;)
I’ve been wanting to work on a bigger project in watercolours again for a while now, and right when the summaries were up for artists’ perusal I happened to come across David Bellamy’s “Arctic Light”, which is a wonderful book about painting watercolours in the arctic. Finding that book felt like a sign from above (or the art supplies store, take your pick) to go ahead with picking both the fic and watercolours. I thought everything in the fic would lend itself so well to do in watercolours, and thankfully Sparrow loved the idea. Also thankfully, Sparrow's just as obsessed with anatomy as I am, so that worked out well. And with birds, obviously.
I started reading and I loved it, it was all so good (I mean, of course it was, because, well, NorthernSparrow, so). I remember leaving a comment along the lines of how I loved that climate change and its effects on the tundra play a part in the fic when they are first mentioned, so well before the plan for the new apocalypse was revealed. The furthest north I have been is the North Cape in Norway, and I remember how deeply the landscape moved me and how fascinating I found the tundra exhibit at a museum. It is heart-breaking to imagine that it might well disappear or at least change profoundly within my lifetime. If I ever get the chance to visit the arctic circle for any prolonged amount of time, I'd pack up my painting gear and go in a heartbeat. (Side note: if you intend to paint in temperatures below zero, the trick is to add vodka to the water ;P)
I adored the descriptions of tundra in the fic, all the visuals and the feeling of the wide tundra it conjured, and I kept taking notes and they became more and more, and THERE WERE SO MANY BIRDS. I LOVE birds, they’re right up there with felines as my favourite animals. I was never allowed to keep any birds as pets, partly because we wouldn’t have had the means to keep them in a species-appropriate way, e.g. a big enough cage. So, I drew them instead (and put up an army of bird feeders and home-made fat balls). I have entire sketchbooks full of birds. And then all the landscapes! I am a landscape artist at heart, and there were so, so many. SO MANY. And the birds, obviously.
Nine chapters in, I had notes for twenty illustrations. The obvious, if maybe a teeny tiny tad ill-advised solution was to make small chapter illus, like chapter headings - because this way there were a spectacular 32 birds and landscapes I could do! Inktober was only a month away, so that was a plan right there (and I actually did a couple of the small chapter illus as part of my Inktober, even though it meant that I could’t share them before the fic would be published). The chapter number grew a little, and Sparrow had lots of fantastic ideas for the chapter art as well, so my initial plan of landscapes and birds expanded to include plants, props and few mammals, including a woolly mammoth. I can honestly say that I had not anticipated painting a mammoth and a cave bear, but it was great fun to try! And I also got to paint lots of birds, obviously.
I did end up finishing much later than I had intended - I always think that this will be the year when I avoid the last minute crunch, but alas - because as usual everything takes longer than anticipated, no matter the puffer time, and the “small” illus ended up being a lot more involved than my initial estimate for them had been, but in the end it all worked out and I’m so glad I was bonkers enough to suggest them. I don’t remember how or who came up with adding the image descriptions, but I love them so much. Sparrow went and checked old textbooks in the library and sent me tons of references so we could get everything right. Really, Sparrow was nothing if not incredibly supportive all the way through and I had a blast working on this with her - 10/10, can recommend, would do again in a heartbeat! <3
But without further ado, here is all the art I made for "Under The Midnight Sun":
Bonus: some of the art (the smaller pieces mostly)
