I'm out of here - Snook's Cherub Challenge

Did I hear a last call for entries to Snook's 4th challenge?

No? Hmm, I guess then it must just be me who is hearing things. Probably a left-over from my previous snookchallenge post, the non-writer's short story - hahaha.

Seriously though, there are only a few hours left if you want to participate and tell us about your 'New Year Cherub' either in words, art, music, or all of it - Snook's words, not mine. Here are some more helpful tips that Snook dropped for me

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cherub
cherub
a celestial being. Genesis 3:24; Ezekiel 1, 10.
Theology. a member of the second order of angels, often represented as a beautiful rosy-cheeked child with wings.
a beautiful or innocent person, especially a child.
a person, especially a child, with a sweet, chubby, innocent face.

Writing another story was out of the question. I really, really have to have a spark of inspiration to write, and the right mindset i.e. no other worries. Yet, it was back-to-work week meaning lots of things to do and worry about. Which coincidentally also equals little time for the fun stuff.

The problem also is, the only thing I could associate a cherub with was my mom's old, wooden Christmas ornaments. At the time I thought they were horribly cheesy. Today - well, let's just say I'm o.k. seeing them on other people's Christmas trees - LOL. Obviously, I really didn't want to go there.

Obviously, I really didn't want to go there.

So instead I opted for creating my own version of a cherub

_{Now that I look at it I notice that I forgot to paint in the rosy cheeks, darn'! Not enough time to correct it for this post.}

Unlike many of my other drawings, this one was created digitally on my iPad entirely. From sketch to line work to colors to shading to adding a background and final touches.

I spare you the sketching as it is - kinda sketchy... if you get my meaning.

Instead, you can find how this painting evolved in the gif I am inserting at the bottom of this post. All the sketching was done in Procreate. Once I was fairly happy with the sketch and wanted to clean it up I moved on to Adobe Fresco. Why Fresco? Because I came to love the ability to mix pixel and vector layers and brushes. The vector brushes produce very smooth lines without having the total squeaky clean feel of vector paintings. I guess you could do that, too if you wanted to but then you could move into a 100 % vector app straight away.

Anyhow, linework was done in Fresco and then I also added the colors and shading there. Since I use only the free version of Fresco I don't have access to the available specialty brushes. Soooo, I moved back to Procreate for the background effects and light sparks.

I'm sure you have noticed that my little darling cherub comes with a couple of tiny sparkly horns, right?

Well, I envisioned her with her almighty powers to be a teensy weensy little bit mischievous - only in a very innocent way, of course, could that smile be any other way? Like in the sketch I initially wanted to add some words but in the end, I didn't. Here they are:

"Hiya! I'm out of here - have a nice day!"

Cheers,
(Ocean)Bee