With creativity flowing through her mind and inspirations such as these, it is no wonder Galadriel Diana Robinson has been creating artwork since she was able to hold a crayon in her hand.
Just by looking at her, you might not expect that inside her mind are the faces and sometimes back-stories to many of the characters that she puts down on paper. Elves, with beautifully aged, yet at the same time youthful, faces, gleam from pages where colors swirl and night and day meet. Medieval knights and wood, water and air elves and fairies adorn her pages. Each character she creates has a different feeling or meaning to her.
A lot of the main motivation behind Robinson’s work comes from the Star Wars films, J.R.R. Tolkien’s works, and also the musical masters Rush and Led Zeppelin.
She also plays guitar quite well and says Jimmy Page is the reason.
“I’m a big fan,” she said.
A big fan is an understatement. Robinson creates profile pictures of her musical heroes, which look as though they were straight from a camera. The detail put into each person’s face, hair and eyes is wondrous to say the least.
Wonder is another part of what makes Galadriel unique. Sharing the same middle name as Wonder Woman, from DC Comics, is only a part of the connection she has with the heroine. Robinson’s drawings of Wonder Woman look straight from the cover of the comic book itself.
A lot of detail, thought and feeling goes into the creation of each piece of her work.
“Art is like love,” Robinson says. “It’s a part of my life and it just brings joy and happiness to me and hopefully people who look at it.”
A representation of this feeling is evident in paintings of Rush and of Jimi Hendrix. In both pieces, the feeling and love for music is conveyed through the facial expressions of the rockers, and it’s this love for the music that they play that inspires Galadriel in what she does.
“My art is my soul coming forth; me putting all my love and all my soul into what I do,” she said.
She doesn’t stick to any one conventional method to convey this love either, but uses pencils, paints, oils, pastels, and has even sculptured. She is not limited to small pieces of paper either. Some of her more beautiful work is on larger canvases, where the color and detail stand out magnificently. Two of her favorites include one of Galadriel the Elf from Tolkien’s tales (the artist’s own namesake), and another movie-poster-like painting of “Star Wars.”
Both paintings are amazing to say the least, but one stand-out feature of the “Star Wars” painting, is the detail and time spent on Chewbacca. The shadow and hair details on the wookie are beautiful and easy to appreciate.
Sugarees and Stone Keepers, both on Lytle Street, display some of Robinson’s work. Stone Keepers has an entire shelf of her work.
Robinson said she will do commission work and can often be found around 3 p.m. on Saturdays at Outer Limits Comic Shop on Memorial.
Just ask for the “Elf Girl