Gift Drawings

Give me a bit of time (2 hours?!), some construction paper and kid's pack of crayola markers and look whatcha get!!

What is it?! Well, an alien world of course! Can't you tell by the green hue, the pink trees with branches that go down, not up?! Obvious!

The first decsion was the colour of paper. Seriously! I drew the perspective grid in a green colour that I hoped wouldn't be too visible in the end. As it turns out, you can see them, but they doesn't detract. Then I drew the doorway of sorts at the bottom and started working to the right. I did the tall pink tree (remember, alien world) and then started filling in the buildings behind. Early on I did the tall building in the back with the exhaust stacks. I didn't really like that part and it threatened to wreck the whole drawing but I perservered. It was either keep on and try to make the rest of the drawing good or admit defeat and try to draw something else, which I didn't really want to do.

So I just kept drawing more and more bits of the building and shading here and there, adding shadows, darkening lines adding railings and so on. Part of the fun of one of these sorts of drawings is how it makes me feel like I'm in the environment, climbing the stairs, seeing what's behind that wall and so on. The yellow and orange ground tiles were particularly inspired as is the odd design/font/text on three walls.

But really, the parts I like best are the parts I did nearly last. Namely, these guys...

Basically stick figures, and they were kind of hard to do because the markers were fat and the paper sucked up the ink, but still I was able to get nice forms - great boot shapes that look like weight is being put on a foot, interesting clothing designs, hats or helmets, pants, arm bands. Neat-o!

... and these creatures coming up from behind...

Weird, slinky, silent dragon-y sort of creatures. Adding them really helped the overall composition and helped make the whole drawing that much more interesting.

I really like this one and find it quite compelling and pretty inspiring! I LOVE when that happens, it is super rewarding. A Christmas gift to myself!