The Company She Keeps

The Company She Keeps

"Little witch, little witch,
What company you keep!
Three prowl about while all others sleep.
Ghosts and ghouls await your play.
Then passes another year
Waiting for that special day."

Can I just tell you how much I love Halloween! I love nearly everything about autumn, from pumpkin spice, to apple cider, to dusty corn fields, but I find my self anxious for that one special evening where ghosts and ghouls come out to play! So here is my latest illustration that celebrates one of my favorite time of year! Prints of this illustration are available in my Etsy shop: GumballGrenade. Today I'll be working on painting her out onto canvas!

"Blanket War" Illustration Friday!

Finding time for this one was by far my biggest challenge. However, I love the final result. I always like to read about he process of artists. So I guess I'll share mine on this one:

First, let me say that making the bed is not an easy task in my house. Anytime I shuffle blankets around I end up in a bit of a play fight with not one, but both of my cats. They love to scurry around underneath the sheets and chase after wrinkles as I'm stretching the sheet over the matress and straightening things out. It's both cute and annoying at the same time. Anyway, I think it's funny how you can be doing something as mundane as making your bed and pop and idea comes to mind. Well my mind had been sifting out the IF suggestion of "Blanket" over the weekend and suddenly the image of a girl having a dipute over a blanket with her cat popped into my mind. Typically, when and idea comes to mind, I try to sketch the idea out as soon as possible. Then I'll usually shade and paint using watercolors and pencil. Next I scan and sometimes revise teh sketch a bit more. When I'm happy with the sketch I'll digitally color it using photoshop. You can see from the photos below that the idea took a bit of working over. didn't like the shape of the blanket it the first version and the cat looked off to me.

You can see from the photos below that I had a couple of ideas brewing. One was a story from my childhood, which I may finish in the future. I worked on it a titch. It involved my childhood cat, Butterscotch, jumping onto my bed. It was a typical event, but on this particular night I had just watched Alien (at far too young an age I might add). So I huddled under my covers in fear of what was lurking about on my bed. When I finally peeked out all I could see was a silhouette that looked like the alien rising from Sourney Weavers belly! So I took my hand bravely and pushed the creature away. Only then did I realize it was my Butterscotch just paying me a nightly visit. lol. One day I'll finish out that one, but in the end a version of the "Blanket War" won out. Hope you enjoy! Finished print is available in my etsy shop: GumballGrenade

Muddy Illustration

Currently I am in love with my watercolor, pencil, and micron pen. I painted this last night and for those of you who know me I definitely expect to see this scene in real life in the near future. Would that be a case of life imitating art? Anyway this is one of my original illustrations titled "Muddy". It was painted using watercolors and ink. It features a cat (maybe JuJu Bean) that has been into mischief and his playmate (E???) who is going to attempt to give the cat a little bath.

Available in my Etsy Shop: Gumball Grenade