The Closet Gnome

And there he was from out of the shadows.

Twinkle in his eye with an attitude and presence.

Done for Watercolor Wednesdays.

I liked the faeries and gnomes of Brian Fround and Allan Lee and wanted to create my own.

I was having my own gnome problems with anything mechanical while making this. I thought my scanner was broken but I think it was my thingy that I plug the ubs cable devices into. Then my answering machine wasn't on and it was giving me the time and not recording my outgoing message. I bought a new scanner which I may not of needed and had to install it. It have me problems because I was still using a plug that didn't work. When I was reinstalling the photoshop that I like using wouldn't open again because of those plug thingy that were not working. So it is now 2:30 am as I write this had I known I could of had this done by early evening. This gnome is a mischievous fellow who seems to be living up to his name. The wild thing boy in the tree and this fellow will get into all sorts of adventures.

I love to hear comments please feel free.

Monkeying Around

I worked this WaWe challenge backwards. Here's a watercolor and pastel illustration that I finished today for the children's book I'm working on. These monkeys weren't that fun for me in the sketch concept phase - this book has lots of fun animals and they seemed kind of weak compared to the others. I started falling in love with them last Tuesday when I moved onto final line art.
Now they're my favorite. I started thinking of these funny little monkeys as characters so I could fit them into last week's challenge. I did a little bit of sketchy character development so I'm not cheating the system. ;) I can't wait until I have the time to devote to these "Munkies."
I've pulled them into today's PbIdMo scenario too.

Here's Moanalua Munkie:
and her brother, Jon:

Smoky

Inquisitive and brave, sweet and tart, Smoky was a girl who craved adventure.

Princess

I've written a story about this princess which I hope to some day take all the way to publication. Thanks, Vanessa, for getting me to do something I've been meaning to do for some time!

I finished my first "picture book" a couple of weeks ago, so now I will hopefully take advantage of a little bit more free time and do some more posting! Everyone has been turning out some very impressive stuff and I hope to do the same!

Eleanor

The girl is Eleanor. She is an orphan. Nobody knows what's on her mind because she's so distant and cold. Just one thing, she's always carrying an empty bird cage around.

Honestly, i was so nervous while painting this illo 'cos i'm still practicing with watercolors. I'm not very good at this medium, my watercolor drawings start well, but i always manage to ruin them in the end :D

I hope i didnt ruin too much this time, i dunno... but i tried to do the best i could for WaWe ^_^

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

The Character...

and soon the little story...

Nice weekend for everybody!!!!

A Puppy and A Wild (Chicken) Thing

When I sat down to paint a child or animal character, this is who showed up.

Happy Puppy!

Does he look familiar? I think he looks a lot like the puppy I did for theFrankenstein prompt and the Halloween character prompt and maybe a little like this puppy too. They are all supposed to be the same kind of dog, so maybe they’re different puppies from the same litter.

For the Wild Thing prompt, I was originally going to do an image of the characters from the book/movie, but then I decided to do something slightly different in the style of Maurice Sendak. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to complete this painting, and honestly I could have spent another week or so on it to make it look the way I wanted it to look. Since I have other projects that I need to get done, I cut a few corners to finish the painting. There are parts I really like and parts I wish I could have spent the time to do right. I think I’ll be using some of the techniques and the palette in future paintings to see what happens. So, here’s my wild (chicken) thing painting.

Wild Chicken Thing and Max

Wild Thing

Wanted to join in the fun with Watercolor Wednesdays. Finished this late Sunday night early Monday morning. Once I started painting I wanted to see how it would turn out like a story I wanted to find out how it ends.

I had thought of doing him, a child as a wild thing because I have been working on developing my child characters. I have always liked the children that get themselves in creative trouble. I sort of relate with conflicts of creative differences. What creative child didn't grow up making an art project of tampons and sanitary napkins. I know I am not the only one that had that sort of show and tell.

Love to read your comments.

Wild Thing

He sat perched in the fork of a tree in the back yard.

Painted in war paint of lipstick on his arms and cheeks;

waiting.

He tied his mother's leopard patterned scarf around his waist and over his underwear.

Maybe not one of his best decisions he made today.

Mom loved that scarf, one of her favourites, and there would be a price to pay.

For now he was a wild thing, a thing of wild the wild and in his mind endangered.

Dayle Dodwell

The Skydiving Grannie and her dog Chuck

Grannie McGill always loved adventure. All her life. Even when she was a young girl, no one: not boy, not man, nor beast could out do my Grannie McGill. If Billy Barkley could climb the old hickory tree, Grannie could climb higher. If Susie Detritis could build a sandcastle, Grannie could build a palatial estate equipped with sand servants and sand stable. My Grannie McGill is the most incredible, and most invincible person I've ever known. So, I took it real hard when Grannie got sick back during that skorcher of a summer when I was eight and she was eight-eight.

Mother called it the "sickness." Grannie just called it like it was ... she had cancer; now stop fussing. At eight years old, I didn't know much about cancer, except that a bunch of my friends' grandparents died from it. But they didn't have a grandparent like Grannie McGill. Grannie decided to prove to all of us, and probably to herself too, that no cancer was going to put a damper on her life. She had a lot of life left in her, even at eighty-eight, and she wasn't going to squander it feeling sorry for herself.

Grannie gathered all of us together and told us we were to meet her at Abercrombie's field at 1:00 pm and told us to bring the reporters. It was all very mysterious.

At 1:00 pm, there we all stood. Just about the whole town of Odon was there in the field. We stood there looking at each other wondering what she was up to now, when we heard the rumble of an airplane above and then saw two black specks in the sky. What in tarnation was going on ...

Well, you get the point. The headlines the next day read "The Skydiving Grannie and her dog Chuck."

NOTE: I never had a Grannie McGill. I just thought she would be a cool character, and made her up.

Camille and Winston

Here is are my little characters Camille and Winston. I must tell you that I love

creating characters. They live in my head until they are expressed through pen

and ink and watercolor onto paper. Creating characters gives us a chance to express ourselves

as well. Maybe relive your childhood through a character. Or create that person that you would like to be or someone that you remember from the past.

It gives us the ability to play and dream! I encourage ALL of

our WAWE members to really try to do this prompt. You never know what magic

YOU will create that could possibly be the beginnings of a great story book, animation short,

greeting card line, or even toy! And you don't know who or how you will inspire other members. he he he he! Happy creating!!

V