Xmas with Gill.

What can I say, I love monsters.

And since I was doodling this around Christmas time, I started thinking about what kind of a gift the Creature from the Black Lagoon would want.

Kay Lawrence was just not the right girl for him.

Column

My wife took one look at the sketch and said "you should name him Column." So I did.

The sketch started with a light gray Tombow brush pen followed by pencil and graphite stick to pick out the final shapes.

Then I went over it with two shades of Formula P3 acrylic paint - Coal Black for the darks (which is really a very dark blue) and Morrow White for the highlights.

Here is the final sketchbook page.

Creating a Character from a Scribble

To start this page in my sketchbook I used a light gray Tombow brush pen and just scribbled a bunch of lines in a random pattern. From there I started to imagine shapes in the pattern with no real plan for what my finished piece was going to be. I saw a few ways to do some crazy faces and began drawing over the gray lines with a pencil. When I had a drawing I liked I darkened in the lines with a darker brush pen.

I used a brown acrylic wash to go over the drawing. Since this was the first time I had used this combination of mediums I was quite surprised that the wash pretty much erased the lines I had put down with the Tombow pens. Fortunately my pencil lines remained and I layered Formula P3 acrylic paint on top of them.

Most of the work was done in warm tones and for the final touch I added some complimentary blue into the eyes and background to make the character pop a bit more.

This was a good exercise. I'm quite happy with the results despite the fact that I had no real inspiration when I started the sketch. Truthfully I'm already working on another one.

Experimenting with techniques

I'm playing around with some techniques in preparation for a larger painting.

I started out with a life drawing I did a couple weeks earlier. I think this is a five minute pose.

I printed the drawing on craft paper, soaked it in water, and mounted it on a 8 x 10 board with acrylic gel medium. Once it was completely dry I went back and refined the line drawing with pen and ink. Currently I am layering in tones with acrylic paint. Obviously it is not finished.

When I use this method again I will probably put a coat of acrylic gel medium over the paper after the pen and ink step to prevent the acrylic paint from absorbing into the paper. I will see this piece through to the end though so I'm not quite sure what I would change just yet.