Thursday, August 27, 2015

Therru's Star

girl on cliff on starry night
Fanart for Ursula Le Guin's "Tehanu". The titular character Tehanu (aka Therru) lived on the island of Gont.

Available as prints, iPhone/iPad cases and other products on RedBubble.com.

For painting the "shelf of reddish sandstone" north of the village of Re Albi, I looked at numerous references of sandstone formations in the United States. Some of these sandstone cliffs were from Navajo Land. Coincidentally or not, the Navajo were one of my inspirations for envisioning Gontish clothing styles.

Other real world cultural influences on my design of Gontish attire: Tibetan, Uzbek, Kazakh.
Reasons for looking to these particular cultures:
  • Presence of a sheep herding/goat-herding economy, which is practiced on Gont.
  • Use of clothing elements mentioned in the Earthsea Cycle's description of Gontish people, such as jerkins, aprons and ruffles. (Not necessarily common or native to each of the societies mentioned, but between all of them, there is the use of such items, or something pretty close, in traditional clothing.)