Illustration Friday - Spooky

Those of you who have been following this blog, may recall seeing this image before. It's an image that I created this past spring and wrote about on this blog as a work in progress. My working title for it was 'Spooky' and since that is the word for this week's "Illustration Friday," I thought it would be appropriate to re-post it. My original idea for this piece came while reading "The Dark Secret of Weatherend," one of John Bellairs' spooky books for kids. It was my attempt to create a picture filled with atmosphere and mysterious details. I'm still trying to think of a narrative to go with this story. So far I have the germ of an idea, but I need to develop it. As a side note, I did get this piece into a show here in Bloomington at the Paper Crane gallery. It's part of their opening show, the theme of which is monsters.

Here is the original pen and ink thumbnail sketch that I did before I began on this piece. You can see it is quite rough. I used it to establish a basic layout and a few lights and darks.

For those of you who missed the original posting of this image, where I talked about its development, here are a few of the work in progress shots.

Spooky - Finished

Well, I finally put the finishing touches on the piece that I have been posting as a work in progress over this past week.  I don't really have a title for it, but the file is named "Spooky" on my computer, so far now, I guess "Spooky" will have to do.

If you've been following the progress of this piece, you may notice that the finished product contains lots more detail - a little mouse on the top shelf of the bookcase, a statue of a cat on one of the lower shelves, some packing material in the box with the statue, more spiderwebs, a wallpaper pattern and finally, some writing on the pieces of paper on the desk.  What probably took me the longest to complete in this image were the spines on all of the books, that and their shading.  It seemed like I was working on those things for ages.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, now I'm just trying to think if I can come up with a story to go with it.

Day 4 Work in Progress

I woke up this morning after only getting about 3 hours sleep due to feeling sick all night and decided that since my symptoms were still with me that I should go to the doctor.  I called him this morning as soon as his office opened and luckily, I was able to get in right away.  To make a long story short, I'm now on some anti-biotics, which will hopefully fix me up and enable me to feel like getting back to work.

Anyway, I didn't work on this at all today and only got a little bit done yesterday.  Here's the progress I made yesterday in the short time I worked on it after posting the day 3 entry:  Cleaned up the door frame, cleaned up the box on the desk that is holding the statue, added a layer of preliminary shadows.

I'm looking forward to feeling better so that I can get back to this and get it finished.

Day 3 Work in Progress

I was hoping to have this finished by now but I've been feeling under the weather all day and have not felt like working on it. Here's what I accomplished yesterday - started adding detail to the books in the bookcase, as well as the objects on the desk and finished detailing the red chair.  I also worked on the pictures on the wall.  Adding shading and detail to all of the books took me much longer than I had anticipated and I've still got quite a few more to go, but hopefully I'll finish up the next time I sit down to work on it.

Day 2 Work in Progress

Here is my progress report on the painting I posted yesterday. First, you might notice that I expanded the size of the canvas a bit so that I would have more working room around the edges.  I did this by adding 60 pixels to each edge.  From there I continued to work on adding details.  I gave some form and definition to the taxidermied animal on the top of the bookcase, I refined the books on the bookcase, I painted in a crystal ball on one of the bookcase shelves, I put detail and texture on to the dark green Victorian sofa, began to add some detail to the red chair, I added details to the trunk and crate that are behind the boy, in the foreground I painted in a glowing lantern, I threw in some spider webs and I added more detail and shadows to the boy.

Today, I will continue working on the details - the books in the bookcase still need a lot of work, the items on the desk need to be cleaned up, as does the box and the creature statue that the boy has discovered.  I will also finish up the red chair, add detail to the pictures hanging on the wall, put in some more cobwebs and play with the lighting and shadows.  Then I should be just about finished.

Work in Progress

Yesterday I began work on a new painting.  I guess I would have to say it was inspired by the John Bellairs book that Mark and I are reading to one another at night.  It's called the "Dark Secret of Weatherend."  I'm not illustrating anything from the book (there is no scene like it in the book), but reading this spooky book gave me the idea of trying to create a spooky image for children, an illustration that hopefully will look like it might have come from a children's book.  To start, I began by doing a quick pen study in my sketchbook.  As I worked, I got the idea of a young boy in an old abandoned house, searching for something. He gradually begins to notice that he is being watched by something in the doorway.  You can see my original sketch at the right.  It is actually just a thumbnail sketch, but it was enough to give me an idea of the scene and its composition.

As I began to develop the painting I decided that the item that he has discovered in the box on the desk would be a small statue of a man-like creature. As he turns around, he discovers that the thing watching him from the doorway is identical to the statue he has just discovered.

Maybe at some point I'll attempt to write a story to go with this, but for now I'm only interested in developing this scene. I'm hoping that the final result will be atmospheric, a bit spooky but also somewhat humorous. The color image that I'm posting today is the work in progress. I still have a lot to do on it.  Basically what you see is the image with the colors blocked in. I have just begun to add some detail. Now it's just a process of smoothing out the shapes, adding lighting and shadows and of course, a lot more detail.

Valentines for Today's Kids

In my last blog where I posted some vintage Valentines, circa the early 60's, I promised that I would put up some examples of contemporary kids' Valentines, the type that are sold in packages.  You'll notice that all of these are connected with some sort of brand (Universal Monsters, Pixar, Simpsons, etc). Also notice that they are all rectangular (they come as perforated sheets that you tear apart yourself), no more die-cut Valentines in the shape of hearts or animals.

I'm including copyright information for each of these groups in the hopes that by doing so, and by making this a look at an aspect of pop culture, I can get away with posting these images without any copyright infringement.

The first group from 1992 are based on the Batman animated TV series and are copyright DC Comics.  Although the messages on these Valentines are fairly traditional, i.e. "Who's a Special Valentine? You!," "Dropping in With Valentine Wishes," etc, they do make an attempt to link their message with the character they're depicting - The Riddler is asking a question, Catwoman uses a pun on words, changing the word kidding to kitten, the Penguin, using his ubiquitous umbrella like a parachute, floats downward, telling you that he's dropping in with his Valentine wishes.


The next batch, depicting characters from the Simpsons are copyright and trademarked 2001 Fox.  The messages on these cards are a mix of traditional ("The Truth Must be Told - You'd Make a Great Valentine!") and how should I put this?  Hmmm.  . . less genteel ("Smell ya later, Valentine," "I pickeded this one myself").

There seems to be no character incapable of doling out Valentine's Day wishes as can be seen in this next group of cards that are all copyright 1997 Universal Studios Monsters TM. Frankenstein's monster, Dracula, the Mummy and Dracula are characters that usually decorate the front of Halloween cards, but here they provide more examples of fairly traditional Valentine's messages being combined with imagery that is not usually associated with the day.

The following Spongebob cards are all copyright 2003 by Viacom International.  These cards with their shiny foil finish (which unfortunately doesn't show up on the scans) are funny partially because they are so aggressive.  All of them give you the feeling that the characters are shouting out their sentiments of love. "Crazy 4u!!!!" shouts Patrick with his arms upraised and his teeth bared.

"It's Valentine's Day! Enjoy it!" shouts Spongebob with his mouth wide open exposing his dangling uvula.  These cards are cleverly designed.  Each card is meant to be folded in half and the 2 halves close by inserting the edge of one half under the precut tab on the other half, so that the card becomes its own envelope.

This last group of cards depicting characters from various Pixar/Disney films are from this year. All of them are copyright Disney/Pixar.  These cards, though nicely designed, are printed on what feels like an inferior card stock and have a semi-matte finish giving them a rather dull look.  The sentiments are all fairly traditional with the exception of the Toy Story card's message of "To Infinity and Beyond."  The use of Buzz lightyear's catchphrase doesn't seem very Valentine-like to me, but it does give the card a sort of all-purpose, all-occasion usefulness.  And the Ratatouille card with its message of "Bonjour Valentine!" will give any kid who receives it, a mini-French lesson, not to mention the heebie-jeebies if you don't like rats.

Though as I stated in my last post, I prefer the Valentines I received in the early sixties, I can appreciate these cards for their  links to various movies and TV shows that will one day serve as reminders to what was popular in the media in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.