Today’s drawings have a bit of a creepy vibe, which fit with the dreary Autumn weather that started out this week. Monday’s drawing, on the left, was started on an uneven background of gray marker. I wouldn’t use that type of marker again with this sort of paper (because of the visible line overlap), but the color was fun to layer over for a night-time effect. The dark brown and teal shadows worked out nicely, and my yellow gel pen decided to work long enough to draw some spooky lights over the pond!
On the right, I looked at the extreme detail of some gilding on a little cardboard box and tried to imagine what it would look like blown up. The box once had macarons in it, and now it has my fountain pen supplies, and the design around the side of the box is so small that you can’t really tell what’s going on other than that there are tassels.
I love drawing tassels. I have no clue why, other than maybe, as essentially bundles of strings, they have interesting movement or gravity. They also make me think of the late, great illustrator Edward Gorey, who loved drawing them enough that he illustrated an entire book of tassels. Les Passementeries Horribles documents a variety of oversized tassels hovering menacingly within otherwise uneventful Victorian scenes. That’s what I was thinking of Tuesday as I scratched out my purple pen drawing. This was my attempt at free hand, so a ton of it “messed up” on some level, but it’s still probably my favorite drawing in this sketchbook so far!