Skip navigation

Illustrating a Dream or Memory

nightmare2

In creative drawing this week we created drawings of a dream or memory by creating a collage of pictures to use as a photo reference. You can follow how I created this under the Illustrating a Dream or Memory on my Creative Drawing page here.

35 Comments

  1. What an environment. I absolutely love it. It is dreamlike with all those smokey values.

    • Thank-you, Jay. I’ve never done a night scene before. I went in search of examples of dark drawings and found many. The good ones, or ones I thought were good, all had one thing in common: The subjects of the drawing were lighter. I went with that idea as I didn’t know how to approach this otherwise. It was truly exploratory and fun because of that.

  2. I like the mystery behind this drawing. Are you one of the people and what happened at the scene?
    Dreams are amazing in why we have them, and what they are trying to convey.

    • Thanks, Ryan. I posted this without the story of the dream because I didn’t want to ruin this for what it said to someone else. I will e-mail the story to you.

  3. i love it when i remember my dreams.
    this captures that feeling perfectly

  4. I really love this! its got a story behind it I know, something very haunting. the figure in the center looks half-submerged in water. yet the dog is running over it.

    this is what dreams are like too, that dream-gray hazy quality surrounds them. you’ve captured that completely.

    • Thank-you, Otto! Haunting, yes, as it was a nightmare. I felt haunted while experiencing it. The surface is wet as it was pouring rain and cold. I didn’t tell the story on purpose because I thought there were many interpretations that could be personal for many viewers. I wanted to add the rain but felt my skill was not quite up to the task of doing so successfully. I feared losing the image if I either drew dark graphite lines over it or scratched them in, so I left it as is. Thanks again for your excellent intuition.

      • that’s an excellent idea. it doesn’t explain too much or try to insist some single symbolic meaning. perfect the way it is. I’d like to see other dreamscapes you come up with.

      • There was one other that I posted a couple weeks ago: https://lesliepaints.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/the-dream/

        On that post I did explain what the dream book told me about it. I don’t dream very much. There is only one other that I had about 11 years ago that I remember and I will have to try it.It will be difficult to pull off.

  5. Wow! Talk about giving a feeling to a piece! Amazing!

    • Thank-you Isabelle. This seemed to take forever to bring this image out of darkness. Limiting myself to graphite, alone, is really quite a challenge.

  6. This is so beautiful, I really am a sucker for graphite and charcoal, and love this.

    • Thanks Paintedbrush! Graphite and ink was all I used in the 80’s. Whoops! That dates me! I love it,also.

  7. Wow, this is great, Leslie! I love that truck, too! The dreamy, disconnected feeling here is terrific!

    • Thanks, Beth. The truck was from wet canvas and it looked exactly like the one in my nightmare. Didn’t you do a truck painting not long ago? This is too funny that we are overlapping on a lot of things.

  8. This is gorgeous Leslie. I love the dreaminess you’ve achieved in this. I always remember my dreams – very vivid always. It would be worth documenting them somehow but could never do such a great job. Amazing stuff!

    • Thank-you, Heather! You could do magnificent especially if you remember yours. I have so few.I can only remember the “biggies”. You of experimental techniques and admirable abstract art could pull this off just fine.

      • Haha. Thanks Leslie! Mine are so weird they’d fit under the ‘surreal’ category!

  9. Leslie, I was taken by this drawing immediately. I already had a story going in my head. Don’t know if it’s the same as your dream and I think it was a good move not to tell your dream so that each viewer can make up their own story line.

    Love the misty, smoky feeling. The clouds and the trees are a little spooky, but very cool.

    • Thank-you Carol, especially for saying you already had a story going on in your head. Yes…..this was spooky. This was what it looked like except I didn’t include streaks of rain coming down because I didn’tthink I could pull it off without losing the strong images. Not skilled enough for that, yet.

  10. Looking at the sky through the trees and then down the hills – I feel like I have been there. Also, I can see the tree branches on the left moving. Really awesome Leslie.

    • Thank-you sister Kim! A little like some areas along Corey Lake Road in late November at night? Thanks for the tree branches moving vision!

  11. Yes, this is excellent. In dreams we create.

    …rog

    • Thanks, Rog! Definitely had to pull at the creative center to make this happen .

  12. This piece is very creative, i like it. I love the small wheel on the truck, the sky and the eerie look of the branches. It’s definitely conveying some story behind.

  13. What a haunting drawing, Leslie! The faces are blank and having it in black and white only enhances it (and those stark trees and hills!). I seem to recall (your sailboats painting I think it was) that you said you normally dream in black and white, not colour.

    The surface appears smooth and reflective, like ice. Very surreal.

    I also like the movement of the dog, the person in the foreground crouched, calling the dog– there’s action going on, but its all murky– something’s happening here, but I can’t put my finger on it– but its precisely that ambiguity and mystery that makes it work.

    ~josh

    • I love the idea of the reflective surface that you mention. Thanks Joshua!

  14. Very dream like and atmospheric – I like that there is a narrative but it’s elusive – kind of like a dream in fact 🙂

  15. You learn something every day – I had no idea there was such a thing as an electric eraser.

    This is truly fascinating – your resulting picture is superbly spooky and a long way from the original mock-up. It’s very effective and very different.

    I sometimes do this digitally when I needed a reference – just didn’t realise others also did it.

    • I didn’tknow about an electric eraser until my first colored pencil class a couple years ago. Thanks for the comment, June.

  16. This piece of work is really atmospheric. I love your treatment of the stark trees in front of the hummocky hills & luminous clouds. Beautiful.

    • Thank-you, Sonya. I tried really hard on the atmosphere because of the dream concept. This was exactly what it looked like in my dream.
      I have added you to my blogroll under watercolor. Even though you work in acrylic and watercolor, it is still a water-based medium. Love your work!


Leave a reply to Carol King Cancel reply