My Next Painting (in progress)

Got a Red Riding Hood theme going on here, but I'm enjoying it.

Just like the last painting, this one will be in full color. But to start, I wanted to unify it by painting in all the shadow color as an underpainting. And I liked it so much, I decided to take a picture of it.

If I hadn't done the first one in full color I'd have been tempted to just leave this as is. So glad it wasn't the first one!

My First Painting of This Year

Not too long ago I finally got to see the movie Frida. Aside from being a really good movie, it also reminded me that I actually like to paint. Digital's fun and all, but it's nice to get all up in there with actual paint. I liked painting in the sketchbook too - I'll move to canvas sooner or later, but it was good to just paint something for the fun of it. The paper even held up well too, surprisingly.

The Gingerbread Policeman (IV)

The Gingerbread Policeman's first day on the job.

For the story to continue, I needed to make the Fox into a good guy instead of a bad guy. When a friend of mine saw me working on the last picture, he was appalled. He had read too many fairy tale revisions to his kids where no one was a bad guy, and he thought I was drawing yet another one.

I assured him I wasn't. I, too, am all for villains in fairy tales. They're too wishy washy without them. So enter the Big Bad Wolf.

But of course he's no match for the Gingerbread Policeman, despite being big and bad. And Grandma gets her goodies when this cookie is on the job.

On a side note, my oldest daughter used to love Little Red Riding Hood. When she would ask me to make up stories, she would say "Make Little Blue Riding Hood!" or "Make Little Gold Riding Hood!" And she'd tell me whether Little (insert color) Riding Hood would listen to her mother or not.

One of my favorites was "Little Silver Riding Hood." When asked, she said that Little Silver Riding Hood was good to flowers but bad to her mother. I ended up making that one into an 8-page book for the kids. They're just quick marker sketches colored in on computer, but I may put up one or two up on here later.