Scanned from one of last years sketchbooks. Micron pens for basic sketch, added shadows with Koi watercolor pen, and used acrylic paint for the green background.
A few years ago this little guy showed up. He started appearing in my doodles as encouragement. Always defending, never judging. He is the side of my brain that tells me everything is going to be OK. He builds me up, which is why I named him Buil.
This was part of a collaboration I did with another wonderful artist over on YouTube. We picked the theme of our favourite folklore characters to draw.
BEING GREEDY CHOKES ANANSI From Favorite Folktales around the world by Jane Yolen. One time, Anansi lived in a country that had a queen who was also a witch. And she decreed that whoever used the word five would fall down dead, because that was her secret name, and she didn’t want anyone using it. Now, Buh Anansi was a clever fellow, and a hungry one too. Things were especially bad because there was a famine, so Anansi made a little house for himself by the side of the river near where everyone came to get water. And when anybody came to get water, he would call out to them, “I beg you to tell me how many yam hills I have here. I can’t count very well.” So, one by one he thought they would come up and say, “One, two, three, four, five,” and they would fall down dead. Then Anansi would take them and corn them in his barrel and eat them, and that way he would have lots of food in hungry times and in times of plenty.
