It’s been a long time since I’ve posted with a response to a drawing prompt, but I just felt like diving into one this afternoon. I needed a little creative exercise between other things like editing photographs and wrestling with WordPress, where I’m currently constructing my online shop. I was inspired by a DoodleAddicts community callout for the drawing prompt “skeleton key, as a sketch, using shades of black”. After an hour or so of scribbling, this was the result a mysterious key illustration drawn in Photoshop.
I started with doodling the key, and added the background in behind it. Even though the prompt was for “shades of black”, I found myself layering in some misty blue greens. Pastel blues and greens aren’t traditionally thought of as spooky, but I really like the hazy feeling that this palette brings to the table. I ended up leaving them in because I think the color adds to the gothic horror vibe of my sketch. I might post a grayscale version on the site, however, just so I don’t feel like I’m cheating on the spirit of the drawing prompt!
It was a nice exercise, and could be a study for something more interesting, but I probably won’t polish this any more. Maybe it could be an idea for a panel in some spooky comic that I draw someday, where a character inherits the key to a haunted mansion or something! For now, though, this was just a fun refresher and drawing exercise.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, I continue to set up things for my own online stationery shop. Product photos are being taken and lots of material is being written, and it’s kind of disappointing that tweaking my web page makes such awful post content, because it’s honestly a satisfying part of the process. It’s a different sort of creativity, and it makes it feel especially nice at the end of the day to draw something silly like this that’s not for any part of a current project!