The Old Witch, Part Two

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Hello again!
In the previous post I showed the prelims for the border (above is a detail of the stonework at the top)...

 ...but I hadn't shown my source for the border design. So here it is, snagged from a Dover clip art book. It's a lot of fun to let something like this generate fresh imagery!

When the design was all planned and sketched onto multiple layers of bum wad, I placed them onto my light table ( http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/2013/08/quick-and-easy-diy-artists-light-box.html ) for tracing onto a sheet of 140 lb watercolor paper. Cold press is my choice most often. I chose a human femur for her cane, just for the subtle malevolence...

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...and went over the pencil lines with pen, brush, and india ink.

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I limited my palette to five colors--raw umber, burnt sienna, cadmium red, cerulean, and
ultramarine-- basically the primaries (a yellow, two reds, and two blues). Here's a preliminary wash of raw umber and cerulean over the pen work.

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Building up the layers, bit by bit.

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The obligatory and over-used hand-and-brush shot...

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...and a detail of the peeping scribe at the bottom of the border. I love hand lettering! Finding a font, nudging, changing, and embellishing it, and then adding the paint results in a particularly pleasurable feeling.

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Here's the staged shot of the final art with materials and reference props.
The poster--one of a series--will be available in 2015.

Thanks for following up on this--hope you enjoyed the process!

Frankenstein Returns!

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The Creature (detail). Mixed media.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein has fascinated me since I was lucky enough to be forced to read it in high school. 

As a kid, I loved the 1930s movie. The fear Karloff's face inspired remains a vivid memory.

I didn't know of Thomas Edison's movie--the first film version--until adulthood. You can see the
whole thing here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcLxsOJK9bs

Mary Shelley's description of the creature has been ignored, attempted, and also revised by movie-makers and artists, but it is definitely evocative: His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid 
contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the 
dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips.

I've ignored it for my versions as well. Following is the progression of the newest painting, done as a poster design soon to be released. Hope you enjoy it!

Lots of sketches preceded the final face. Here are a few.

After a search for a border I found this copyright free design in a Dover book.

I modified it greatly as you will see.

Here's the initial pencil prelim (on watercolor paper) of the lower part of the border...

...and here's the big guy, with his initial pair of boots, later changed to somewhat goofy slipper-shoes.

Inked with both pen and brush, it's ready for watercolor.

After an initial wash of raw umber, my colors were added in layers. Striving for a monochromatic look, my palette was mostly limited to ultramarine, burnt sienna, and raw umber. 

The bits of green came from raw sienna mixed with ultramarine, but I brightened his eyes at the end by adding lemon yellow and cerulean to the initial green mixture. (Shot with a camera phone, these look more saturated than the actual piece.)

For another rendition of the creature, you might enjoy http://tomsarmo.blogspot.com/2014/04/pen-and-ink-plus-franken-creature.html

As always, questions and comments are welcome.  Thanks for the visit!