IF: Midsummer Night

"Methought I was enamour'd of an ass."

As a huge Shakespeare fan, I couldn't read the Illustration Friday topic "Midsummer Night" and not think of the play "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Here is the scene where Titania wakes from the spell to discover that she has been making love to Bottom, a big oaf with a donkey head. Since the scene occurs at night, with lots of dark, I decided to try my hand at scratchboard again. It took longer than I expected, but perhaps I just need more practice with the medium. If you want to see a real master of scratchboard, go to http://sean-ashby.blogspot.com/.

Treehouse interior

For the next spread in my Sketchbook Project book, I decided to take a look at an interior room:

Click on image to view larger.

IF: Launch!

Here's a picture I did fairly recently that seems to fit this week's Illustration Friday "launch" theme as the cat is being launched out the door:

The picture is a scene I finished to accompany a dummy for a picture book I wrote. It's a story that, after discussing it with an art director, I now think might work better as part of a chapter book (for early elementary school age readers). I've been brainstorming ideas for expanding the story in my journal. This could be my next major writing project.

Another treehouse

Here's the third spread in my sketchbook project treehouse book. Click on image for a better view.

I draw these during the evening news. It makes listening to what's going on in the world a lot more fun.

Shadows rough sketch

Before I did the mixed media version of my "Shadows," I worked out the composition in the pencil sketch below:

That sketch has been in an open sketchbook on my drawing table for the past few days. It has been catching my eye everytime I pass by. I kinda like the noir look of the black and white image.

I haven't been doing much sketching (okay, not any) since Saturday. I've been trying to write a short story, but it's not coming together very well yet. Perhaps I need to goof off to get the creative juices flowing better. Time to pull out the treehouse sketchbook again and play.

Illustration Friday: Shadows

For this week's Illustration Friday picture, I went with a mixed media approach.

That means I couldn't make up my mind. I started in pen-and-ink, but then thought the shadows would be better depicted in a wash. I used watercolor for that, but only for that. In order to get my witness character to show up a bit more in the dark, I brought her out with colored pencil. I also used some warm yellow colored pencil to set off the cold shadow drama.

I may try more mixed media work in future. I kinda like it.