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QUALITY CHECK...
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The thumbnail sketch: My first idea
involved a witch and a cauldron; however, since one of my "rules"
is that all characters have to be animals.
I changed the witch to an orangutan.
Click
on any illustration for an enlargement. |
I
liked the idea of the main character adding salt using a foot, but
because
most of my characters are animals of North America, I decided to use
a bear instead (I'm sure it makes no difference, but I thought a bear was
a better fit for the "series").
On another front: Right from the start, I was having trouble with
the caption for this Q. All I had was Quite the Gourmet, and
I didn't really like it that much. Still, it was something, and I
had nothing better. |
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A
bear would have made an okay character, but I decided to go back to
the orangutan. Here's why:
I realize I have no say whatsoever concerning the order in which letters
appear in a name, and nobody cares how or in what order the different
letters are created (even me), but I organize the letters by alphabets,
and when I noticed that the R next to this Q was also a bear, I went
back to the orang (besides, I liked the
foot
adding salt...a bear doesn't normally do that). |
I
wrapped the orang in a quilt because I thought this was an opportunity
for a caption. I figured I could capitalize on the Q in quilt and
not on the rest of the illustration. That Quite the Gourmet
thing was still bothering me.
Never one to shirk from providing too much of a good thing, I added
another foot (for variety, this foot is adding pepper instead of salt.
I realize it's difficult to tell the shakers apart since they're a
matched set--they probably go with the kitchen). |
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The
watercolor dye stage, same as always--getting rid of the white of
the paper where I want to add darker colors. |
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Colored
pencil step: I think it was during this stage that I decided on
Quality Check as the caption. After all, the quilt really
has nothing to do with cooking (in fact, I doubt if there's anyone
on the planet who would recommend wearing a bulky quilt this close
to an open flame). I wanted to use Questionable Quality,
but I was afraid it wasn't all that clear what the caption implied.
I mean, adding spices with your feet is a questionable practice,
but the quality of the final product may not be affected (as long
as no one finds out about your food preparation habits, that is).
I hope you're now beginning to get an idea of all the problems the
true artist has to wrestle with.
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Acrylic
paint is added to restore the highlights and strengthen other areas.
It is officially declared done!
This letter took about four and a half years to complete from
thumbnail to paint. The reason is, of course, that another Q isn't
nearly as necessary as some letters, so it was always forced to step
aside in favor of something more popular.
Speaking of popularity, I once did a study: After I finished my first complete alphabet, I wanted to know which letters I should design next. I looked up the most popular names given to kids
over a period of years and checked them for repeated letters. Not only was the A repeated more than any other, but the 10th most repeated letter was another A! As it happened, the first
letter I did for the new alphabet was for a name that needed a second A. In fact, nine of the first ten letters created for the second alphabet--all dictated by need and not by choice--were in their Top Ten, including
the third A! |
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