Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Owen the Monkey

I recently received a commission to paint a piece for a newborn's nursery! It was a lot of fun. I'd like to share the process with you here.


The theme of the nursery is Jungle, and the color palette is yellow, browns and greens. My client mentioned she'd like an illustration of a monkey, and she mentioned the new baby's name too -- Owen. I had an idea immediately - how about a monkey hanging from a tree, and the tree branches spell the child's name OR the letters dangle from the tree? I put together some rough thumbnails for my client to choose from.


My client made her choice from the above thumbnail sketches. Then I moved on to the final sketch (I did not scan that step). Once I had the final sketch down on paper, I went forward with the inking. Here is how that came out:


I then moved on to the final painting. This was a lot of fun to paint. It felt looser and freer than my pet portrait work, since I was really working completely from my own imagination here.



Details:


What do you think?

10 comments:

Phyllis Dobbs said...

Kathy, that's simply adorable!!!!
Phyllis

Unknown said...

Thanks Phyllis!! :)

kristian said...

This is beautiful Kathy. I love seeing how your final work really comes to life from the sketch. You must have enjoyed doing this, it shows! Lucky Owen!

Anonymous said...

fyi - that Kristian comment above was me, oops -Gina

Jannie aka Chickengirl said...

so awesome to follow this through concept to completion. I'm still amazed by all the details you always put in your work.

artpaw said...

great new look on the blog merge. Great work as always.

Manon said...

Great work Kathy!
The blog looks fantastic! Congrats

Linda O'Neill said...

Beautiful work, Kathy! You did a great job with the blog merge too!

Unknown said...

Thanks everyone!!! I greatly appreciate your comments.

Anonymous said...

Hi Kathy, I love the updates and changes you made to your blog and you inspired me to make a favicon. :)

Looking very good, girl!
Brava!