Creirwy Illuminating the Darkness

Creirwy Illuminating the World

Digital Painting, 2023  

Created and described by Lynne Hood.

[forest ambience with rustling leaves and chirping birds]

The artwork is painted using digital brushes, with the colours layered on top of each other to give some texture so it is not completely flat. The art style is influenced by late Victorian illustrations, realistically rendered, with richly coloured hues. Such as you would find in a fairy story or a mythology book of the era.

[Celtic harp melody]

In the illustration, the Welsh Goddess Creirwy, depicted as a young, blind, caucasian woman of slender build, walks barefoot, confidently through a moonlit Winter forest. Her figure is central to the illustration, almost as high as the canvas and surrounded by trees and foliage, which take up the rest of the space. The forest is dark, but around Creirwy is a circle of light. Her eyes are white, depicting that she is blind, and she has a determined expression. She wears a dark red dress, which falls below her knees, and her light blonde hair falls freely to her waist. Under her left arm (to the viewer's right), she carries a white swan (symbolising rebirth), and in her right hand (to the viewer's left), she holds a fiery, wooden stave before her. 

[fire crackling]

Small flames licking upwards in orange and yellow hues emanate from the stave. Creirwy is in no danger of burning herself. The stave is not to illuminate her path, but to light the way for others metaphorically, as she is alone.

[Crierwy’s footsteps]

Creirwy is surrounded by tall, brown-hued tree trunks leaning at slight angles. A few small leaves of light brown and orange cling to spindly branches. A trail of long, evergreen leaves hang above her head towards the left of the illustration. She walks upon a forest floor of deep, green moss. Brighter green leaves with small dots and ferns grow beneath the trees, and scattered around are small, white puff ball mushrooms and skeletons of delicate, dried out flowers. 

[crows cawing]

Around the edges of the illustration are silhouettes of trees and leaves, giving us the impression we are looking at Creirwy through a clearing in the woods. High in the sky, against a deep blue night sky, a full, white moon glimmers through tree branches.

The atmosphere of the illustration is one of boldness. Creirwy is blind and visionary. She blazes her path through the darkness, and her blindness will not stop her achieving her ambitions. 

[all sounds fade]