Art & Illustration
Halloween 2017
A short retrospective and a new card!
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I LOVE AUTUMN!
every year I try to do at least one autumn/Halloween-themed piece, but alas! It's also a busy season in the acting world, so it doesn't always happen in time for the actual season/holiday. Before I move on to talking about this year's piece, I thought it might be fun to go back in time and look at some of my other Halloween pieces from the past... and actually, there are a lot!
I started off with creating a little witch greeting card for my friends and family back in high school. I kept with this theme for many years, and it's resurfaced again in recent Halloweens, but I've also branched out to include tree houses, pumpkins and other creatures. The inspiration for this year's idea came to me in July, backstage on a TV show. I'd finished my book earlier in the morning, and I'd already done a few sketches and had run out of pages in my sketchbook. However, I had one slightly smudgy page at the back that I I figured could be used as a notepad... or a space on which to draft my Halloween card... yes, even in the middle of summer I was already yearning for autumn weather :) Anyhoo, here's the sketch that appeared:
I think I started with the tree, then the witch climbing the ladder to pick apples. Then I had the idea of a second witch helping out... or not helping ;) The fox and his den beneath the tree came later, and I added a sketchy sun to indicate where the light would eventually come from, but I wasn't convinced.
Over the next few months I would bring the sketch up on my computer periodically and try to start finishing it... but nothing was working. I couldn't get the expression right on the apple-eating witch, and the witch in the tree just didn't feel right. Finally, a few days ago, I sat down and tried a more aggressive tack. I erased the witch on the ladder completely and moved around the apple-eating witch until I liked the composition. Unfortunately it meant taking out the fox's den, but I couldn't get rid of him completely: I don't think I've ever had a fox in one of my
pieces before, so he HAD to stay!
I think the main problem I've been having in finishing my pieces is HATING the cleanup process. I don't mind the process so much, but more the bad habit I so easily fall into: perfectionism. There's usually something in the sketch that I'm happy with and I want to remain and shine through in the final version... In this case it was the main witch's mischievous, sweet smile and laughing eyes. But when I took it into Photoshop and looked at my marks up close, I'd achieved it with just the merest suggestions quickly jotted down. So when I tried to re-produce it it just wasn't translating. But then I remembered a graphite pencil Photoshop brush by Trent Kaniuga, which was included in his 2016 brushpack. I'd used it on a few other recent pieces and I love the rough, hand-drawn quality. This brush turned out to be the missing piece for this drawing. As soon as I started using that brush, the clean up-process became more fluid and I was much happier with the results.
Next was the painting process (using Kyle T Webster's Real Watercolor brush set) and voila: The final piece! Or... final for now :) I'm not completely happy with the composition of the sky in the background. There's too much division between the people below the tree and the tree branches above. However, the great thing about Photoshop is that I can always go back and fix things! But for now, I'm happy to share my Halloween creation for 2017! What do you think?