Print. Sculpt. Stitch.

Drawlloween is finally here, Halloween may be cancelled this year with Covid19 and everything going on in the world today.. But I am still going to do this wonderful Halloween themed art challenge as best I can. Bringing out the spooky spirit to my work! 

To find out more info on the project and it’s inventor check out Mab Graves website here.

So this is the third week of Behind the Scenes here on my Blog and I hope you enjoy looking into how each of these art pieces were made for Drawlloween this year!  For more information on how I started the project make sure to check out my first post.

Wednesday 14th October • Day Fourteen • Extraterrestrial 

When I saw this prompt I knew I wanted to do something different to what I would normally do, which would of course have been an alien creature. So instead I thought of the famous Extraterrestrial Crime Fighting duo, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully from The X-Files played by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. Once I thought of these epic crime fighters I knew I had to draw them. 

So I decided to draw the two characters in one of their iconic looking up into space pose from one of the old posters and used a series of B Grade Pencils to get try and capture their likeness with the chance of possibly using the drawing in the future for a template to embroider this design. Overall I think this turned out well, especially for that of Anderson’s character. 

Thursday 15th October • Day Fifteen • Nightcrawler 

I have to admit I had never heard of a Nightcrawler before this years Drawlloween prompt list so this made for a very exciting research session looking into the strange creature and I wanted to capture this leggy shadow running through the woods. So I began designing this idea out, how I would be using a painted background of the woods scanned underneath a digitally drawn layer for the Nightcrawler animated on top. This meant I could have the high quality textures of an ink painting with the ease of digital drawing for the animation on top – the best of both worlds. 

For the animation I then used Procreate software on my iPad Pro, first drawing out the nightcrawler character at a sort of side angle. When I have the first frame I then started drawing out a walk cycle for the creature, keeping each frame a different colour just to make it clear as I worked on the in-between frames as you can see in the Procreate timelapse video. Once I had the cycle frames I then worked them into the scanned background woods. Having it move between the trees like magic. 

I of course added in some atmospheric wood sound to the audio to set the scene and then exported the final film. Overall it was exactly what I had imagined it being, I had played around with the idea of adding more ghost like textures to the Nightcrawler but I am glad I stuck with the more solid design in the end as it really makes the figure pop against the dark inks of the background. 

Friday 16th October • Day Sixteen • Goblin 

Today’s Goblin was another drawing day, this time digitally on my iPad, starting by looking into the creature and what it may look like. The biggest points showing up were the strength of them, usually seeing them in a fighting stance of some sort with a weapon in hand. 

I then began sketching out this powerful stance with a sword held prepped above it’s head. On top of this layer I then began solidifying the sketch with the outlines first and then the colours underneath. I then wanted to add texturing to the elements, making the skin look rough and the clothing look like the appropriate fabrics. 

Once I had the overall look of my goblin down I added in the finishing touches of light and shadow to give the piece more of a three dimensional look. And then this piece was complete for today’s posting! 

Saturday 17th October • Day Seventeen • Frankenstein 

Frankenstein is one of those prompts that has ended up being in each of Mab’s Drawlloween Club that I have worked on and so it has made for a great comparison over the years as I worked around the same concept. However I realised this year when I started exploring the idea that I have never actually created a piece based on the iconic Bride from ‘Bride of Frankenstein’ (Whale, 1935) portrayed by Elsa Lanchester. And of course I knew I had to rectify this for today. 

So I began drawing out character from one of the many great poster images of Lanchester from this film, focusing on the most memorrable hair and clothing for her image. Once I had a good drawing I then scanned in the work and played around with the composition to make sure the black and white look worked for a lino cut later on, that it would look like the famous character I wanted to show before I went any further with it. 

At this stage I traced the design onto Lino, inking out the black to keep the design clear and so easier to cut right and get the design clear. For this larger 8”x6” print with the one figure it made a clearer piece to create which is great for the next stage of actually Printing. 

For these prints I prepped with some different mediums of green card (some painted with ink and others acrylic paint) to make for some interesting pop of colour when printing along with the plain card. As I had hoped this design was easier to get a clear print from than some of the others and made for a much more successful stage in making than I could have hoped. 

Once I had all these first batch of prints completed (and dried fully) I scanned each of them and made a pop art contrasting squares composition for posting on Instagram. You can also see two of the prints in large format here to compare. I definitely found my first Bride of Frankenstein piece to be a complete success and hope to work on this character again in the future. 

Sunday 18th October • Day Eighteen • Undead 

Last Month I started re-watching American Horror Story from the beginning on Netflix with Murder House first of course and when this prompt came up for Mabs Drawlloween Club I thought it would be great to take this opportunity to portray one of the Undead ghost characters from the Haunted House. When looking at each of the characters I couldn’t resist making a combined image of the Older and Younger portrayals of the Maid to the house (Played by the amazing Frances Conroy and Alexandra Breckenridge). 

So I began drawing out these characters from Reference Photographs from the TV show to get as much accuracy as I could into the figures. I tried to show the different looks of the two versions of Moira that were shown within the series. Showing the older woman above, bold and strong in her pose and the younger in a more ‘sexy’ pose lower. [As in the programme Moira’s character is used in relation to the other characters of Murder House to portray the theme of Infidelity that the series revolves around with the corruptible men seeing her as the younger version played by Breckenridge and the devoted women seeing the the older woman by Conroy]. And I think I captured these ideas well in the final design. 

I then scanned the design, printing in prep for embroidering with the fabulous ‘Halloween Coffins’ pink fabric by Little Arrow Designs that I purchased from Spoonflower. However as stated in Instagram post for the day the I currently halfway through completing this embroidery so I shall look into writing up on the rest of the Making for this piece when it is complete in the future – So make sure to sign up and follow below so you don’t miss out on any of these future posts! 

Monday 19th October • Day Nineteen • Apothecary 

When I read Apothecary I imagined this busy little shop full of potion bottles and flowers to create medicines for people ailments. I knew it would make an amazing Block Print if I could pull it off. So I started by designing the apothecary, filling up all the space with shelves and draws stocked with labelled bottles. I wanted there to be something everywhere you looked on the page. Flowers hanging from the bricked archway above this busy table covered in tools and parts. 

Once I had the pencil drawing I scanned it and worked over the piece to give each element the right straight lines and finalising the whole composition before tracing it to Lino and inking for the Lino Cut. This becoming my most complicated Lino Print to date (after ‘Crustacean’ piece I made for MerMay 2020). However in this case although it took a long time to cut all of the parts it was actually rather clean cut without being as difficult as I had thought it would be. 

So I then began printing and this was more difficult, it was not that any of the Lino needed to tweaking to get a clearer print but I found different parts wouldn’t quite print clear in each print. I am hoping to have another go at it and get a 100% clean print in the future. 

Tuesday 20th October • Day Twenty • Fur 

The final post for Behind the Scenes this week is another drawing, this time using fineliners, I had originally planned to use Charcoal to create a Furry Bigfoot or Tarantula for the prompt. However when I started research I suddenly thought of one of my favourite animation studios Laika’s ‘Missing Link’ with their Bigfoot or Yeti like creature as the Mr Link role. 

When I thought of this fun character I began drawing him out, starting in pencil first so I could get each of the details right before putting ink to the page. Drawing each of the little tufts of hair made me really appreciate the original Stop Motion Puppet that the Laika team created for the film, it is a real piece of art in itself and makes me love their work even more. I may add colour to this drawing one day but for now I am just enjoying all the line work with the Fineliners. 

And so that wraps up the third week of Behind the Scenes to Mab’s Drawlloween Club, Being that we are past the halfway point you can start seeing how much more difficult it is to get a piece of work complete for each day’s posts on Instagram. But I hope that I can still complete something for each day and I hope you can join me again next week to find out more about how I actually make the work Behind the Scenes. Make sure to sign up and follow so you don’t miss out on anything!