Nightingale part 3 - The Nightmare

The Nightingale Part 1
The Nightingale Part 2

Continuing our story - the boy has forgotten his friendship with the real nightingale, and instead spends all his time with his fancy toy nightingale. But eventually the toy runs out of batteries, and the boy is left lonely. He feels badly about neglecting his bird friend, but is too embarrassed to ask her to come back. Then one night he has a terrible nightmare. Through the open bedroom window, the nightingale hears his cries and flies into his room to sing comforting songs.

This is definitely my favorite painting that I have done so far this semester. Sometimes my paintings fall short of my hopes and expectations, but on rare occasions they turn out even better than I had imagined. Everything really clicked with this illustration and came together quite easily.

When I was afraid of the dark as a child, I don't remember imagining specific monsters, it was more of just a vague sense of fear and doom. So from the beginning I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted the monsters to be like in this drawing: vague, shadowy blobby things.

My professor suggested that I make the monsters a little more specific, and maybe bird-like to go with the whole theme of the story. So I combined my monsters with BARN OWLS!!

I took this picture of a barn owl at the zoo last year. I was struck by how it was simultaneously beautiful and weird. I mean, where are its eyes? Where is its face?? Perfect for my shadow monsters.