The way I work

I call it sampling, like in the music business. I surf the web for images that fit my ideas. This is a time consuming activity.
Then I import it into Adobe Illustrator and draw lines & facets to my liking. For the lines I use a brush, so they are more lively. Somtimes I mirror the image.

So this drawing …


















… came from this picture

Pedro 1 'El cruel'

The story about the statue is, that one night in thirteenhunderd-something, Pedro, king of Castille, walked through the streets of Seville. He had an encounter with Louis Guzman, a member of a family with influence. This family supported the bastard brother of King Pedro, Henry of Trastámara, in his aspiration of the thrown. So the Guzmans and Pedro were enemies. They got into a fight and Pedro killed Louis. An old lady was the unfortunate witness of the killing from her window. She recognized the King by the sound of his knees [as a child he suffered from slight braindamage which resulted in a strange sound as he walked]. When the old lady closed her window in haste, she dropped her lamp, next to the dead Louis Guzman.
When the Guzmans came to find justice for their killed son, Pedro swore the killer would be decapitated and his head would be exposed on the scene of the crime. Because of the lost lamp, the old lady was traced as a witness, but she wouldn't tell what she had seen [Pedro was not called 'El cruel' for nothing]. So when Pedro assured her nothing was going to happen to her, she held a mirror to the King and said: "Here is your killer".
The next day Pedro brought a closed crate, in which, he claimed, was the head of the killer. The crate was placed into an alcove at the place of the killing. Pedro summoned the crate would not be opened until after his death.
His death came on the battlefield with his brother Henry. He was captured and … beheaded.
With which he kept one part of his oath to the Guzmans.
When the Guzman family heard of his death, they opened the crate to find a bust of Pedro in clay. The bust was put on the wall to be replaced later with the one we can see until today.

On to the next …

Next will be the story of the head of King Pedro 1 'El cruel'. The first drawing of course is the statue that can be seen in the street of Seville today.

Final version

This is the final version. Some remarks of Martin Tregale Bigpond are used and the final touch cam from my wife Judith. I'm done now, it's ready for the next step.
Thanks to everybody who took the trouble to edit the text.

With a litlle help from my friends …

After consulting members of the LinkedIn-group 'llustrators seeking Writers / Writers seeking Illustrators', I got some good advise and cronstructive comment. Thank you Chris, Steve, Pbha and Karen.
Steve pointed out that the oppening line was a litlle weak, so I changed it, hopefully improved it.
And Karen … what can I say about Karen.  She took the effort of editting the text for misspelling and awkward English. You will find the result here, perhaps you have to scroll a litlle.
I'm verry greathfull to them all and proud of the result.
All I need te do now, is find an editor in Sevilla [or Spain] who want's to publish this.

Chris: http://cfajohnson.com/
Steve: http://shootingpeople.org/cards/steve_turnbull
Karen: http://www.kstoddardhayes.com/
Abha: http://www.abhaiyengar.com/

Challenge

I made a poster out of 4 pages of drawing and writing and I translated the text to english.
It still has to be checked by some one with more english skills then mine. But here it is [in low resolution].
Click on it to enlarge …

Finishing touch going on

I didn't like the stake at page 4. So I used most of my saterday to find out how to improve that.  It wasn't wasted time in my opinion. Now I'm content. If I only take my time …