Okay, I know Halloween is over but I just couldn’t resist sharing this fun sketch with you.
The day my friend, Karen, and I went to the Omni Resort for a sketch outing (read about it here), there was a “Monster Bash Dance Party” for kids getting underway in a nearby building.
As we finished our sketching session and headed for the car that afternoon, this spooky family of wizards and dragons was making its way to the party. Karen and I both looked at each other, eyes wide with excitement, and exclaimed, “What a GREAT SKETCH!” We politely asked if they would mind if we took a picture of the group, and they happily posed for us.
First we snapped a photo or two, then they handed their phones to us, so we could document the occasion for them. Finally, with plenty of smiles and laughter all around, they shuffled on their way, and we walked off with thoughts of fun Halloween sketches dancing in our heads.
I had a chance to work on this sketch while I was riding in the car on the 3-1/2 hour drive north from Carlsbad to Santa Barbara. I wanted to keep it fun, funky, loose, and colorful, so I started by drawing a super simple block-in with pencil, just to get the people placed on the page and their relative sizes figured out, then I went straight in with a Faber-Castell Pitt Artist’s Pen.
I started out with this guy in the red dragon costume, drawing freehand with my pen and not worrying about irregularities and wobbly lines.
A mama dragon and her colorful offspring were next…
Then a tall wizard in a moon-and-stars hat, along with a little wizard and dragon to keep him company.
Finally, I inked in one more fashionable wizard in a flowing cape and floppy witch’s hat.
The pages were now filled with figures, but that didn’t leave me much room for text or title, so, instead of writing HALLOWEEN somewhere on the two-pages, I went with BOO instead and put the three chunky letters in a vertical box on the left-hand side of the spread. It was the perfect solution! (It feels so satisfying when that happens. 🙂
The BOO letters were filled with bright colors and bold patterns, and a dangling spider was added to up the creepiness factor.
The final touch was to add a crow perched on the dragon’s horn, and a cauldron of bats filling the sky. (Yes, a group of bats is called a cauldron! You learn something new every day.)
A touch of spattering, and the sketch was done!
I can’t tell you how much fun I had working on this. Setting an intention to just have a good time with it and not fuss over accuracy was the key for me. I moved people around, changed colors on the costumes, added elements, left things out that didn’t serve the image, and I got to use loads and loads of fun colors. This is my favorite way of sketching.
I thought you guys would enjoy seeing my sketching buddy Karen’s painting of the same spooky Halloween family…
Karen used a straight-to-ink approach with hers, except for that wonderful lettering which she blocked in with a pencil first. We talked about how different this type of drawing is from what she normally does. “I tend to labor over the drawing part of things, while painting with watercolors has always come more easily to me. Lately, I’ve been working to improve my drawing skills by doing continuous-line drawings without an initial pencil rough-in. I just dive in and go for it. It’s a liberating approach that’s helping me to enjoy the process more while also building my skills.”
I hope you’ll give this more direct approach to drawing a try. If you’re worried about messing up your good sketchbook, buy an inexpensive one and make it your experimentation journal. (I have a cheapie 9×12 Canson sketchbook that I call my “messy sketchbook”.)
Have fun and spend time drawing anything and everything. Seize those moments that would otherwise be forgotten and capture them in ink. You’ll learn and improve through play. I guarantee it!
9 Comments
WOW!! AMAZING
Really fun pages!!!
Dragons and wizards…how could they be anything but fun to sketch? 🙂
I just love this! The fun happy time is all over it!
And how fun that you were with Karen (a fellow painter from your French Alps trip)!!
And you guys will be together again in Croatia in May!
Such a fun page
Thanks, Bonnie! And thanks for always taking the time to comment. I like staying connected. Hope we can meet up again sometime at another workshop.
Leslie! That was an interesting and FUN detail of a FUN time!!! Thank you for sharing!
Merry Christmas to you and your Family!!!
Nancy & Maurice
Tell Maurice I said hi, and I hope you both have a wonderful Christmas.