| VIVID IMAGINATIONS... | |
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I'm not sure, but I think the inspiration
for this idea came from the O with the polar bear (Oooh Yeah!),
where I used a reflection to help make the letter. I have to say I
hate these kinds of ideas. They're the kind that, once I see the idea
as a thumbnail, I have to see if it's going to work. So, I
ignore everything else for the sake of seeing this in a more finished
sketch. Talk about your twisted
priorities! Click on any illustration for an enlargement. |
| This is a full size sketch from my sketchbook using the same V outline as the final version.. |  |
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By
the time I finished the final drawing. I had ditched the clothing
for a more realistic approach (I know it's not realistic...just
more real than when the "boy bunny" is wearing a letterman
sweater like he was in the sketch). I had put him in the sweater
to identify him as the character in the reflection, but I figured
that very different colored bunnies would serve just as well. I
also wanted it to be more more
ambiguous as to who's
the boy and who's the girl.
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I wish I were a better watercolorist because I would have liked
for the
reflection to
have been
just watercolors
with no colored pencil work at all. It could have looked very
fluid, very reflection-like. It's vital that the bottom half is
recognizable as a
reflection, especially since the water is not showing a mirror-image
of the upper half.
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I applied many, many layers of colored pencil in this step. I first did the reflection as (here we go again) "realistic" as the top, and then distorted it with ripples and highlights. In the end, there were areas that had taken all the waxy colored pencil it could and further attempts to add more ended up with the pencil just sliding across the surface, depositing nothing. Colored pencils are a lot more transparent than I'd like sometimes, and won't cover adjustments or mistakes as completely as I often need. This can make for a lot of work in the acrylic paint stage. |
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The letter is finished once I painted in more than a few highlights and attended to those areas I spoke about in the last step. Was I satisfied with the final result after the initial obsession? Basically, yes...not what I think I saw in my head, and I could probably do better if I were to do it again right away, but I'm not, so I guess I'm satisfied. I'm sure this is what frustrates most artists--the image in the head isn't what's on the paper (or canvas). Luckily, no one else has access to our brains (or brain cavity) so they can't see how brilliant the idea initially was or how magnificent it looked, so they don't have anything for comparison, so we're safe. |
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