"It is told in the Lay of Leithian that Beren came stumbling into Doriath grey and bowed as with many years of woe, so great had been the torment of the road. But wandering in the summer in the woods of Neldoreth he came upon Luthien, daughter of Thingol and Melian, at a time of evening under moonrise, as she danced upon the unfading grass in the glades beside Esgalduin. Then all memory of his pain departed from him, and he fell into an enchantment; for Luthien was the most beautiful of all the Children of Iluvitar. Blue was her raiment as the unclouded heaven, but her eyes were grey as the starlit evening; her mantle was sewn with golden flowers, but her hair was dark as the shadows of twilight. As the light upon the leaves of trees, as the voice of clear waters, as the stars above the mists of the world, such was her glory and her loveliness; and in her face was a shining light.
But she vanished from his sight; and he became dumb, as one that is bound under a spell, and he strayed long in the woods, wild and wary as a beast, seeking for her. In his heart he called her Tinuviel, that signifies Nightingale, daughter of twilight, in the Grey-elven tongue, for he knew no other name for her. And he saw her afar as leaves in the winds of autumn, and in winter as a star upon a hill, but a chain was upon his limbs.
There came a time near dawn on the eve of spring, and Luthien danced upon a green hill; and suddenly she began to sing. Keen, heart-piercing was her song as the song from the lark that rises from the gates of night and pours its voice among the dying stars, seeing the sun behind the walls of the world; and the song of Luthien released the bonds of winter, and the frozen waters spoke, and flowers sprang from the cold earth where her feet had passed.
Then the spell of silence fell from Beren, and he called to her, crying Tinuviel; and the woods echoed the name. Then she halted in wonder, and fled no more, and Beren came to her. But as she looked on him, doom fell upon her, and she loved him; yet she slipped from his arms and vanished from his sight even as the day was breaking. Then Beren lay upon the ground in a swoon, as one slain at once by bliss and grief; and he fell into a sleep as it were into an abyss of shadow, and waking he was cold as stone, and his heart barren and forsaken. And wandering in mind he groped as one that is stricken with sudden blindness, and seeks with hands to grasp the vanished light. Thus he began the payment of anguish for the fate that was laid on him; and in his fate Luthien was caught, and being immortal she shared in his mortality, and being free recieved his chain; and her anguish was greater than any other of the Eldalie has known."

~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion

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I decided to draw Luthien in the role of her namesake, the character Luthien from The Silmarillion. Beren and Luthien's story has always been my favorite out of all of J.R.R. Tolkien's writiings, so I've included a piece of it here for you guys to read. There is quite a bit more to it than what I've included here, but in the end Luthien does forsake her immortal life for Beren and they both die some years later.

I am going to be doing a whole portfolio featuring some of the prominant female characters from Tolkien's stories. This was going to go in it, but I feel I've fallen short of what I wanted to put into it. I wanted more knotwork, and possibly some elven script as well, so I'm putting this down as a trial run; I'll be doing something MUCH more elaborate for the portfolio.

If you have a female character, and you'd like to have her in the portfolio as one of these characters, I'll be posting a journal about it soon - it will be a commission option. :3 There will be a list of characters to choose from.

Artwork info: 9"x12" bristol, colored pencils and marker, I used a TON of glitter pens on this. The whole sky is glittery, as is the trim on her dress and the jewel on her forehead. I'll likely be doing the same for the pieces in the portfolio.