Friday Quest: Angel of Guidance by Gabrielle Portal

“Never forget that life can only be nobly inspired and rightly lived if you take it bravely and gallantly, as a splendid adventure in which you are setting out into an unknown country, to meet many a joy, to find many a comrade, to win and lose many a battle.”  — Annie Besant

Leilani's Quest: Contact someone who guided you.

Suggestion: Think of a book that changed or inspired you. Write to the author and let him or her know what it meant to you. You can contact the publisher to ask for the address.

It's been a VERY long time since I've taken the time to write to an author. However, I have done it several times in the past and I'm always surprised how often I hear back from them.

Books are one of my major addictions… and thankfully, one of the healthier ones I have. Before I read any book I like to feel the texture of the pages as well as press my nose into the center of the open book, much like I do whenever I pass by a beautiful fragrant rose. I know… I've got it bad! These are just a few of the priceless bits of info you can find … only on my blog. Aside from sniffing the book, I do eventually get around to reading them and oh how I LOVE the fact that they have the power to change the course of my life time and time again.

As for the beautiful art adorning this Angel Quest card, it was created by Gabrielle Portal who as I mentioned in last weeks post is a new up-and-coming illustrator. She's already been featured in Spectrum:The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, so keep your eye on her.

As the art director for Angel Quest it was an absolute delight
working with Gabrielle and getting to be the first to see the unique
and beautiful approach she took when depicting the angels for these
cards. I loved the way she suggested angel wings without painting the
traditional bird wing look. She found different ways of showing this in
all four of the cards she illustrated.

Thoughts from Gabrielle Portal the artist that illustrated "Angel of Guidance".

The 'Angel of Guidance', originally assigned to one of my friends also working on Angel Quest, was a great experience for me. Since I was working with someone else's concept I wanted to keep the feel of what they had created but also to add myself into the piece.   

I had about a week from sketch to finish, which for me is a very short amount of time.  I started with a under-painting of watercolor (my favorite medium) and then took on a new challenge  by throwing it into Corel Painter, which I was just starting to learn.  My favorite part of working on this piece was highlighting the shape of the wings using the 'stars' and creating the shadows across the upper torso of the woman.  It was a great experience and I'm thrilled to have been offered the chance to do more cards for the game.

-Catch up on more of Terese Nielsen's Angel Quest posts!

-Select your favorite Angel Quest print.