CARDBOARD CUTOUT... |
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This thumbnail sketch was a bit larger than normal because I was afraid the idea wouldn't be clear enough at a smaller size. Remember these thumbnails may not be acted upon for some time, so I have to be able to decypher what some brain spasm may have caused years ago. Case in point: This thumbnail wasn't acted upon for more than four years after it had been scribbled. Because the idea is a little hard to interpret anyway, it needed the space to make sure I'd get it later (I did, by the way). Click on any illustration for an enlargement. |
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This letter caused me a lot of trouble. Although this is the only "sketch" I did for Cardboard Cutout, I spent a lot of time in the next stage. Usually, when I leave the Sketch Stage, all big problems/issues have been worked out. Not this time. I wasn't sold on the placement of the cutout C, and I hadn't decided on the animal. As you see, I thought it was going to be mice (vs. the bears in the thumbnail, although as I've said before, most of my thumbnail sketches use bears). |
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There are at least four detailed drawings before this one. The darkest blue line was made by the rollerball pen I use to transfer the drawing
to the "good" paper. I use a "carbon" paper, made
the universal way: Graphite applied to one side of a piece of tracing
paper (the thin onionskin tracing paper, not what I use to put over the sketch for this step -- a sheet of a very durable vellum film, used because it is more transparent than the onionskin and, more importantly, it can take as many erasures I could possibly give it). If you're wondering about the red chipmunk, I did that to make it stand out from the blue chipmunk that used to be there. What that means is, I didn't like the first chipmunk I had (i.e., the first of this version), then I found another reference photo that I wanted to use, but it was the mirror image of what I needed. So I turned the tracing vellum over and drew on the other side (I didn't erase the first chipmunk before I started the new drawing because I was using it as a guide). Since the other side was done in light blue, the red pencil made everything easier. |
| The usual first step once the drawing has been transferred to the final surface: Watercolor to hide the white of the paper where I don't want it to show through (like in the deep shadow areas). It's quite likely that if I worked larger, I wouldn't need this stage, but the original artwork is only four and a quarter inches high, so I don't have a whole lot of room for maneuvering. |  |
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By the time I'm done with this, the colored pencil stage, I will have completed probably 99% of the work . . . this time I must have gone through more pencils on this letter than the last three combined. Don't ask me why, although overworking it might be worth looking into. |
| The final stage: A final application of acrylics to punch things up. |  |
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