Happy Solemnity of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist! He who prophesied the Christ in the Womb! Our Church is called St. John the Baptist so it is a particular special feast for us. It was also the name one of the Churches that St. Benedict started. Why? Because St. John the Baptist (along with Elijah and Moses) is a type or model of the Monk. Jesus of course is himself the Ideal Monk to follow, in whom all true monks follow the example of. Of course I'm talking Christian Catholic Monks. St. John the Baptist, Pray for Us!
I started with watercolor and watercolor, but then realised I needed a more opaque black and switched to gouache, acrylic and brush pens for the final touches. Most of the original looseness was lost after that, however he looks more accurate now I think.
I find backgrounds in paintings challenging so I deliberately tried to make a more complex background with this one. I sometimes have difficulty deciding when to finish and in this case maybe I overworked the background a bit too much. Still, I feel I learned a lot from the process.
I used brush pen and watercolors. The most challenging part was holding back on excessive pen lines to render the fur, using patches of paint instead. Although I think the background is a bit dark and there a few mistakes, I feel that learned from this.
I stated with a rough pencil sketch then inked it with a brush pen and colored it with watercolor and gouache on a watercolor postcard. Reference I used was this excellent photo - https://www.pexels.com/photo/tree-wild-squirrel-monkey-97827/ photo by Mike from Pexels.com
Unfortunately, I broke up and separated with my girlfriend prior to Christmas. If there is an upside, it is that moving by myself has led me going through old work I’d packed up in various boxes - not opened for years. This is just an abstract biro doodle (+ markers for colour) I doodled, while working in a stupid telephone interview job in my early 20s.
I had a time, when monkeys were featured very often in my artworks. Even now, they emerge in the story-lines. Amazing creatures! This sketchbook piece is done using graphic markers, posca and pen.
I took the skulls of monkeys/apes I'd drawn about a year ago and incorporated them into some new collages that include mandalas I did about a month or two ago. Cutting, cutting, cutting, paper everywhere. I'm a huge mess. The second one is Billy / Jigsaw from Saw!
