"surprise" -- illustration friday topic -- 12/9/05

"surprise" -- illustration friday topic -- 12/9/05

i didn't get this entry done in time to post to the illustration friday site, but i did want to finish it. this event actually happened about a month ago when raven was spending the evening with me. she was in the living room coloring in one of those big floor coloring books. i noticed that it had gotten very quiet in there, so i went in to check it out. imagine the surprise to both of us when we each saw the other one. the picture was taken at very close range, so it made it hard to draw from it with there being so few shadows to show depth.

when i walked into the room, raven looked at me and said, "look memaw! yipstick!" what could i say? the more i thought about it, the more i see that a magic marker doesn't look too different than a typical lipstick tube. she was quite proud of the result, and i wasn't about to rain on her parade.

this picture was done w/ prang colored pencils on 65# watercolor sketch pad paper and sprayed w/ matte fixative to keep it from smearing/blending further. the drawing was done from the following picture, so you can compare and see how i did on capturing the look. i think i didn't get as much surprise as i could've/should've in her look, but i felt i was having trouble getting depth to the face and that was more important. overall, i'm really happy with everything in the picture except for her face! any suggestions or help will be greatly appreciated!