Art House Co-Op’s “The Sketchbook Project” Moleskine sketches, pp08-09

For pages 8-9, I introduce the character of the Mystical Dog King who holds in his hands, the potential of a green crayon. This is because I have found the topic of “It’s not easy being green” to be quite not-easy, and found free associating much easier. First, the dog character is something I came up with in the mid-nineties during colored pencil projects. He just popped up and said “Green is not easy, but I’m easy”. So I started there. The green crayon makes a cameo from page one…because it was easy. Mystery you say? A crown and some clouds with curtains. Yep. Mystery. I’m aggressively working out what charcoal can and can’t do easily, balanced by the simple parameter of a time limit. Apparently like oils, charcoal will take as much time from you as you want to throw at it. I concentrated on simple shapes, a few bold lines, and enough shading and blending to give the dog character some heft. NOTE: Click for enlargements

Sketch pp08-09