Frankenstein’s Monster: Part 3 – Prepping the Painting

It’s been a few days since my last Frankie post. I’ve been able to work on it a little since then, but other obligations and activities sometimes come along that delay my pet project. So, let’s get on with it, shall we?

Now it is time to prep the final painting. Often after I do a preliminary sketch as was posted in Part 1, I tend to redraw it for the final painting, adding in other details along the way. This time, the preliminary sketch layout was pretty tight, so I decided to transfer it directly onto the watercolor paper.

For my watercolor paintings, I have been using Strathmore’s Watercolor Block. It’s a pad of sturdy 140 lb watercolor paper sealed on all four sides so that you can work wet, and it automatically dries flat. Arches also makes a similar product. My only complaint is that the texture on the Strathmore is a little too uniform – too “manufactured”. But, I’m going to be covering a lot of it in dark tones, so the texture will do its duty.

To get my 8.5×11 sketch into a transferrable 18×24 final size, it’s a bit of a “Frankensteining” process. I scanned in the sketch, blew it up, and printed it in two halves onto Strathmore Layout Bond paper which were then taped together. Normally when I do a non-watercolor piece, I can just trace the drawing onto the final paper with my light table. Not so with a pad of thick paper. So I’ll have to trace it on top.

In high school, my art teacher (Walt Sturrock for those of you who know him) taught us how to make our own graphite paper which I still use to this day. You take a sturdy piece of tracing paper, get yourself one of those woodless pencils, and just go to town on one side of the paper. You can smooth out the graphite with rubber cement thinner on a paper towel, but I don’t bother with that step. When it’s done, you have a piece of homemade carbon paper made with pencil lead that will last for many illustrations.

So, I took my printouts with the graphite paper underneath, and traced down the drawing onto my final paper. Since it’s graphite, it’s easy to erase the inevitable smudges, and you can continue to finesse the drawing. For demo purposes here, I neglected to scan the drawing unpainted when this stage was done. Since in real life I have already begun to paint the piece and right now we are just talking about the drawing, I cut off the colored background so you can just see the drawing of the figure (with a little overpainting on his edges).

 

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This is the final pencil drawing of the monster sans background. I had already started painting it forgetting to scan the final drawing for the discussion of this step in the process.

As you can see, this stage doesn’t have all the cross-hatching and shading the preliminary sketch had. More attention is paid to details, though. Subtle changes were made to the face. The ears were extended a little so they weren’t as smooshed (that’s the technical term – smooshed) against his head, and they were given a little more character – cauliflowering, bumpier, etc. The outline of the face is more uneven, etc. Like I said, subtle. When I finish this piece, I’ll be drawing in a lot of detail with colored pencil on top of the paint, so for now this is just a guide as to where to put the paint.

Just a close-up of Frankie's face only a mad scientist could love.
Just a close-up of Frankie’s face only a mad scientist could love.

 

The other area of concentration for me were the hands. Mona’s hands are pretty prominent due to the coloring da Vinci employed – light colors surrounded by dark clothing. Frankie’s hands are definitely a feature. So, using that reference photo I showed you in Part 2, I spent more time making these the hands of an old withered, yet strong monster.

 

No, Frankie didn't just get out of the bathtub - these are the weathered, worn hands of a corpse that probably did a lot of manual labor without the smoothing aid of lotion.
No, Frankie didn’t just get out of the bathtub – these are the weathered, worn hands of a corpse that probably did a lot of manual labor without the smoothing aid of lotion.

 

It was also during this stage that I finally figured out what to do about my castle that needed to be silhouetted in the background. I do have my initial sketch from my sketchbook of the castle that appears  in the final painting. It will read very clearly as a castle amongst the mountains. Does it look at all familiar to you?

 

This castle will read clearly as a castle amongst the mountains of the background.
This castle will read clearly as a castle amongst the mountains of the background.

 

For you Frankenstein film buffs, it is the Frankenstein (“that’s Fronkensteen!”) castle pictured during the opening credits of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein movie. It was perfect!

 

This is the castle pictured during the opening credits of Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein movie.
This is the castle pictured during the opening credits of Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein movie.

 

Next in Part 4, the painting begins!

Frankenstein’s Monster: Part 1-Conceptualization

A few weeks ago I wrote about my recent fascination with Frankenstein’s monster that began with having just seen the play Arsenic and Old Lace. In that article, I shared with you a number of head studies of the monster as I explored the various ways one can draw him and still retain the recognizable fact that he is who he is. The fascination did not end that day. I continued to draw some more heads, all the while wondering where this was going to lead.

 

A few more head studies of Frankenstein's monster that helped guide the direction of the final illustration.
A few more head studies of Frankenstein’s monster that helped guide the direction of the final illustration.

 

It has been awhile since I’ve done an actual bonafide painting, and just the simple drawings of the various heads inspired me to do a portrait of the monster. I rarely can do something straightforward, though. I love the funny, and the funny can’t just be in how the figure looks – it has to be about the situation. Immediately da Vinci’s Mona Lisa came to mind.

 

Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa oil painting. My Frankenstein version will be in watercolor.
Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa oil painting. My Frankenstein version will be in watercolor.

 

In looking at the da Vinci painting, it is the PERFECT setting for my monster. The background is dark and moody, desolate, and eerily earthy in color. Of course the monster will replace Lisa, but I must amuse myself with the background for the scene to be complete. I began to sketch the idea in my sketchbook. That little path on the left? An angry mob, of course! Off to the right? Well, it has to be Frankenstein’s castle!  And the sky is going to have to be more stormy to justify the requisite bolt of lightning integral to the tale of Frankenstein.

 

This is my preliminary rough sketch for the FrankenLisa portrait.
This is my preliminary rough sketch for the FrankenLisa portrait.

 

The final painting is a current work-in-progress. Over the next week or so, I thought I’d take you step-by-step barefoot across the coals of my process that I’ve already overcome. Next, Part 2 of the Frankenstein’s Monster series will focus on my visual research for the painting.

Fred Willard: Best in Show!

From time to time a project comes along that is just plain fun to work on. Back in 2007, this was such a project. I was approached to create an illustration of actor Fred Willard (Best In Show, Everybody Loves Raymond, Anchorman, WALL-E) for the charity group Actors and Others for Animals. Fred was going to be their guest of honor at their annual banquet held in November that year. The piece I created was used on their “save the date” cards, their invitations, and on the cover of the banquet program.

This "Save the Date!" card for the Fred Willard event features text designed by the art director I worked with.
This “Save the Date!” card for the Fred Willard event features text designed by the art director I worked with who also had moved the frog up a bit revealing his floating foot.

The request for this job came right from Mary Willard, Fred’s wife, who is very involved in this animal charity. I had gotten to know the Willards a bit, and the previous year drew their personal ad that they took out in the program book that was honoring Dick Van Dyke (we’ll save that piece for another post some day). This time, when the committee was tossing around ideas for the cover, they asked Mary if she thought the fella who did her ad could do the program cover for Fred’s banquet.

Most jobs I get asked to do, the client really knows what they want, so I draw one pencil rough, make any adjustments, then go to the final. This time the client left it kind of open-ended. They wanted Fred with some animals, though weren’t sure how that should be.

Thumbnails: Often I’ll do them for myself, but this time they had to be a little more detailed because the client was going to have to pick and choose from among them. As you can see, none of the thumbnails as drawn were taken to the final stage, though #5 became the template (#4 was my favorite). The client picked elements from several. One thing that became clear – they only wanted animals that are relatively common house pets (though the committee chairwoman really liked the squirrel, so that stayed). They didn’t like the outstreched arms pointing towards Fred, but rather wanted the animals applauding him.

Thumbnail sketches drawn to figure out the layout of the image.
Thumbnail sketches drawn to figure out the layout of the image.

Tight Pencil: Once they figured out what they wanted from the thumbnail stage, I worked on a tight pencil drawing and then showed it to them again. Usually a client wants to make changes at this stage, too, but apparently this one hit all the right buttons and they said “go for it!”

This is the tight pencil drawing of Fred Willard drawn on tracing paper. I lightbox this onto Bristol when I ink, so the thin paper assists with that process.
This is the tight pencil drawing of Fred Willard drawn on tracing paper. I lightbox this onto Bristol when I ink, so the thin paper assists with that process.

Final Piece: There were two stages to the final piece. The first was inking the drawing, which I do with a nice Winsor-Newton brush and a bottle of black FW acrylic ink. Rapidograph pens are used for some of the small stuff, but the brush is primary. The client needed the piece to be flexible for multi-purpose use, so Fred (with the squirrel) was one layer, and all the other animals were other layers.

...and here's the final piece composited and colored in Photoshop.
…and here’s the final piece composited and colored in Photoshop.

The second stage was with the computer. All the drawings were scanned, then composited in Photoshop. Speed was of the essence for this piece, so I took all my traditional airbrushing knowledge into the computer and came out with this final illustration.

They loved the piece, and even used it the next year for the event honoring Broadway legend Carol Channing. The animals appeared on the cover and interior of the program.

The 2007 program book cover featuring Fred Willard, and the 2008 cover with Carol Channing.

The 2007 program book cover featuring Fred Willard, and the 2008 cover with Carol Channing.

To add icing to the cake, I was invited to attend both banquets, too. It was fun to sit there seeing these actors roasted by their famous friends and sitting shoulder to shoulder with them myself. Folks like Dick Van Patten, Ed Asner, Loretta Swit, Jo Anne Worley, Henry Gibson, Norm MacDonald, Martin Mull, Tippi Hedren, Ted Lange, Lily Tomlin, Florence Henderson, Catherine O’Hara, Jack Riley, Gary Owens, Peter Marshall, Gary Collins, Doris Roberts, David Lander and so on. It was as if I had fallen into the television set of my youth.

So, there you have it. Perhaps a lengthy explanation of everything, but hopefully a fun insight into what took place to make Fred Willard look like the Best in Show!

Drawn & Quoted: Dragon Fun

“A dragon is just one more stranger in search of a friend.”

– Helen Reddy, Pete’s Dragon.

Sometimes even the toughest of us need a little mindless distraction.
Sometimes even the toughest of us need a little mindless distraction.

Many times when I sit down to my sketchbook, my mind is a blank. I just start doodling until something springs forth. Thus was the case this time. However, I happened to have the soundtrack to Pete’s Dragon playing in the background, so my mind started wandering to thoughts of the large, yet friendly version of these beasts even though mine doesn’t have “the head of a camel” with “the neck of a crocodile.” Dragons are just a lot of fun to draw! Where the paddle and ball came from is anyone’s guess.

Bears, Bears & Bears! Oh My!

Bears. Certainly ever since the days of Teddy Roosevelt when he refused to shoot a captive bear cub while on a hunting trip, (stuffed toy bears have since been called “teddy bears”), bears have held a fascination for cartoonists. Clifford K. Berryman famously represented that Roosevelt incident in one of his cartoons. I have my own fascination with them as an art subject, even to the point of once developing a newspaper comic strip about a bear – but that’s for another article at another time.

Cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman's 1902 cartoon that famously ribbed Teddy Roosevelt's bear incident.
Cartoonist Clifford K. Berryman’s 1902 cartoon that famously ribbed Teddy Roosevelt’s bear incident.

When fictionalized, bears are often big, fluffy, huggable, loveable, silly old bears. There’s a certain warmth and comfort that can be achieved with a bear. They look like gentle giants in real life, so when drawing them, many artists tend to give them a sympathetic and friendly look. Yogi Bear was constantly working it to get the pic-a-nic basket. The Jim Henson Co. creation Bear in the Big Blue House was a big, soft, friendly bear that the pre-school set really fell in love with. Even the kung fu wielding Kung Fu Panda was big, soft and loveable despite the fact that he could reign down some mighty painful kung fu awesomeness.

This past week I set about to do a series of bear character studies. I took about eighteen pages of my sketchbook to draw bears of various shapes, sizes, and styles. The goal was to explore multiple ways of creating a bear and still retain it’s friendly loveable beariness. I was pleased with the results, and plan to try it some more in the future. It was clear that there is an inexhaustible amount of ways to imagining this creature as an appealing cartoon character design.

When you are through taking a look at these studies, feel free to check out my bear-themed watercolor painting on my website:  http://chadfrye.com/Illustrations/Bears.html

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Frankenstein Head Studies

I recently attended a performance of the play Arsenic and Old Lace which brought back memories from when I had acted in it myself when I attended college. This specific performance was particularly special as it was directed by and starred my friend Daniel Roebuck who is a ginormous fan of the late great Boris Karloff.  Danny’s role was, of course, the part originated by Karloff on Broadway many years ago.

If you are not up on your classic movie trivia, Karloff is forever etched in the memory of horror buffs as playing the Mummy and Frankenstein’s monster in the early 1930s. In Arsenic, there was the running gag that Karloff’s character (Jonathan Brewster) looks as scary as Boris Karloff – a joke made funnier with Karloff actually in the role.  So Danny had make-up that transformed his face to resemble Frankenstein/Karloff. What made the evening even a little more special was that Karloff’s daughter, Sarah, was in the audience.

Boris Karloff's daughter Sarah, Daniel Roebuck as Jonathan Brewster, and Chad Frye after a performance of "Arsenic and Old Lace" in January, 2009.

Anyway, I tell you that only because that experience put my mind on a Frankenstein kick for the past few weeks. I’m toying with the idea of doing a couple of final pieces featuring the monster. For now, though, I wanted to explore how my monster might look.

Often when I begin a project, I have an image in my head that cascades forth onto the paper. Sometimes it doesn’t elegantly cascade so much as blort out, but after one or two attempts, I run with it. In approaching a character as famous as Frankenstein’s monster, a broader visual exploration seemed more tantalizing. Everyone has an idea of what this character looks like because of Karloff’s flat headed, bolts-in-the-neck, heavy lidded creepy monster. What can I bring to it?

So, the following head studies represent my own Frankenstein experiments to see what will come ALIVE!  I’ve been playing around with size of nose, forehead, jaw, etc. Some are mean, some scary, some even smiling.  It’s amazing that no matter what part of the face changes from sketch to sketch, each one is recognizable as Frankenstein’s monster.  Goes to show there are always more solutions to a problem than the original thought in the artist’s head.

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