The History of the Kingdom of The West
Scrolls

Working on the Malachite Queen. Hands and face are done.

Photo and Contribution
by Tatiana Nikolaevna Tumanova

The Mistress of Copper Mountain

"Here the scroll has been masked off again except for the working area holding the female figure. This lady is meant to depict a figure out of Russian folk tales, the Mistress of Copper Mountain, aka the Malachite Queen. She was the protector of gems and stones and knew all the secrets of working them. She could grant great gifts but never without a heavy cost -- she could appear as a lowly green lizard, a green-eyed maiden or a stunning noble lady garbed in malachite. She could move through the rocks of the mountains, or step out into a room of the Tsar's palace through walls covered with slabs of malachite mined from her domain. She always wore robes of semi-precious stone -- carnelian, lapis lazuli, amethyst, malachite. Sometimes she is shown not only dressed in green, but with green skin and green hair. I thought that was a bit much, however!

"Here the face and hands have been rendered. To suggest the otherworldliness of the Malachite Queen, the flesh tones were mixed very pale. Her eyes are green and a touch of green was used over her eyes to enhance their color. Her lips are painted with a cool viridian green as well -- I did try using green on her cheeks but that didn't work very well, I painted it over and used a very faint pink tone (the flesh tone with a hint of Alizarin Crimson added) instead. The cool red worked well with the cool greens, giving her the cold look I was after. A greenish tint was also applied to her fingernails." -- Tatiana Nikolaevna Tumanova

The West Kingdom History Website was created by and is maintained by Hirsch von Henford (mka Ken Mayer).