In this season, I always find myself drawn even more than usual* to beautiful and sparkly things. With no ulterior motive whatsoever**, I’ll wander through the jewelry stores for an extra dose of glimmer and tune the old Pandora to my Opera station for a few precious weeks. Why? Because it’s all so pretty! For whatever insane reason my brain comes up with, during the holidays I want to soak up ambiance and emotionalism and gorgeousness like an hungry little human sponge – Achem. I mean… nightelf sponge, of course. o:}

In that same vein, I’ve been returning over and over again to one particular page that I’ve recently discovered. Sandara of DeviantArt sure seems to have ‘beautiful’ and ‘emotional’ in spades in her rich, painterly art. Check it out:

Ahh…. Sigh. :) These are only a few examples from a very lovely and diverse gallery; Sandara has many more paintings of WoW characters as well as a wonderful selection of non-WoW-related art that still gets high points for style and execution. She’s got the dynamic lines, the graceful forms and figures, and the evocative lighting that makes me just want to stare and stare (and maybe drool) and stare some more!

I highly encourage everyone to follow the links to the full-sized images*** and take a few moments to really look them over – admire the quiet detail and softly gritty flow of her brush strokes. Follow a line and watch how it becomes much more than just a line of paint in the way it interacts with the shapes and colors around it. This is the ‘painterly’ style, and I think she’s a perfect example of how and why it works so very well. The paintings manage to look rough and finished at the same time, controlled and somehow still loose enough to make you wonder how every pixel can seem to be in the right place and a random place all at the same time. Mmm… yep, she gives me my holiday artsy glow every single time.

* Yes, it’s possible. Tough to believe, I know. But possible!
** I promise, Mr. Rhoelyn. I wasn’t hinting at anything more. Really!
*** If you’re not familiar with DeviantArt, please follow my link and then click the image itself on her DevArt gallery page one more time to see the full sized version. We intarwebtubes are thumbnail-happy, nowadays. :P