Now that the April Art Challenge is done with, I am amazed with the amount of work I was able to produce in one month. Previous to this challenge, I was completing approximately one light box a month. Completing two light boxes seemed like an impossible task, let alone six.
Helga caught her sister, Olga, with her lover, Señor Esqueleto. This always happened to her.
To get back at both of them she transformed her sister into a frog and used her as part of the ingredients for her poison stew.
Poor Señor Esqueleto . . .
From the start, I decided I wanted the witch to have a traditional but comical look. I didn’t want her to be beautiful by any means.
I first drew the dress and hat on black cardstock paper. I made sure to keep the dimensions in mind. After I had the dress and hat done, I cut them out and then used that as reference to draw the hand, the legs, and the head.
One of my favorite parts of making any light box is always the background. Backgrounds bring everything together and make the finished pieces look more cohesive. Although they can be time consuming and a bit more complicated at times (because of the placement of the lights), they are worth it.
As was the case with the previous paper art creations, I already knew, ahead of time, what I wanted to make to represent something poisonous. I decided on a cauldron with poison stew and a spell book that would show exactly what it was.
For day two of the April Art Challenge, we had to work on a skeleton. I decided I wanted my skeleton to be a silly looking skeleton that thinks he is a smooth talker. I looked up at references of skeletons. Even though I’ve drawn my share of skeletons, I forget the exact formation of the body, so references are always a good idea in my opinion.
As part of the April Art Challenge, I decided to blog every day about my little creations. These blogs will provide a bit more background info on the process and the idea behind them. They will be short, but hopefully insightful. 🙂
Day one’s prompt is “amphibian”. I decided to create two little toads out of paper. I wanted to give the pieces a more three dimensional look, so I created a lot of layers. I think the bigger toad was more successful.
author, illustrator, Cut-Paper-artist 