Wild Thing – Part 2

Just a short progress report today on my illustration inspired by Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are children’s book. Today, you can see the preliminary and final drawings that will become a watercolor painting that I’m doing for the website TerribleYellowEyes.com.

If you saw the brief concept sketches posted in Part 1, you can see that my preliminary drawing below does not stray too far from my very first thumbnail sketch. Sometimes when doing a project, my first instincts come on so strongly that I can’t shake them from my head.

In looking at Mr. Sendak’s book, he has a WONDERFUL two-page spread (with no words getting in the way) of Max riding piggy-back with all the Wild Things. They are all tightly framed with big green leaves. The sense of fun and friendship in that illustration are what I am trying to invoke with my portrait of the one monster and Max.

So, here is my first drawing done on tracing paper. First a quick blue line sketch, which then got tightened up with regular lead.

Once I was happy with that drawing, I simply traced it onto my heavy duty watercolor paper with a sheet of homemade graphite paper. It comes out a little light, which was perfect. Then with a Dark Brown Prismacolor pencil, I gave it more of a finished line. For the leaves, a Marine (an olive green) colored pencil was used which will help keep the leaves a little softer and “pushed back” in the final piece.

The next step will be to begin painting. These lines may get covered a little in that process, but then I will come back with more pencil on top in the final stages to pull it all together.

TerribleYellowEyes.com just posted several new images today that are just terrific, so be sure to check them out. Next Friday (May 22) you’ll see the finished version of my tribute there.

Check back here for Wild Thing – Part 3 on Monday in which I’ll share with you the beginning stages of the painting process!