Hi everyone! I saw the calendar today and noticed that its Friday the 13th. I thought of making a spooky painting simply to mark the day and to add a little bit of fun to the process of creating an artwork. It sure did motivate me to finish the artwork on the same day I started. After cracking my head for a long time, I decided on this as it is haunting with bold colours.
Tools and Materials
- A sketchbook
- Hb pencil
- Eraser
- Oil pastels
- Colour pencils
- Tissue paper
Method
This is the basic drawing I made using a Hb pencil. I landed on this after many eraser shavings because I wasn't sure what to add for this theme and I made a few adjustments to the tombstone proportions and how big the gaps on the gate should be. I thought of adding some ghosts but then I thought they might give Halloween vibes instead.
I usually start off with the lightest colour and on this artwork, this bright, bold shade is indeed the lightest colour. So I used my oil pastels to colour a bright red moon that's supposed to be a blood moon. I also slipped in some orange at the edges for more dimension to create a rounded effect.
Here's the vibrant looking moon. I enjoyed colouring it because it gave me a chance to use different colours other than the usual yellow and white. Rarely ever do I get the chance to use the bright red pastel to cover a quarter of the artwork.
I wanted to take the moon to another level so I added more shadows on it using different shades of brown along with maroon. I also added a tint of black here and there to deepen the browns. The moon in general isn't perfect and has an uneven surface. When I zoom into the real moon using my special binoculars, I can see those uneven parts as little spots. These are what I tried to recreate.
I also drew some clouds to make it more gloomy and spooky. I used the contrasting blue and red and I honestly regretted it instantly but kept going anyway.
I painted half the background in midnight blue. It was so deep and was totally the opposite of the vibrant red.
I painted the other parts of the background in red. Only then I felt like I was creating a mess. These two colours are so different that it was mind boggling for me, why did I even choose such combination in the first place. I was so dubious on the outcome and couldn't being myself to blend them as that may get muddy.
Here goes my first attempt to blend the colours together. I tried mixing the red and blue but they didn't mix well. So I mixed in some purple in between like a transition colour to blend them both.
I was a little exhausted trying to blend the colours so I moved on to the next portion and colour which is grey. I wanted to make it ghostly and foggy so I used a light grey for the final section of the painting.
Then, I painted the house in black. It's a haunted house and has fog around it. I feel it added a little more life into the artwork after adding black. I had to use a black colour pencil as well to make precise edges as that was hard to do using just oil pastels.
After that, I painted the haunted tree. Yes, everything is haunted in this artwork. Again, I had to use a black colour pencil to draw the branches so it looks neater without blunt looking lines.
I finally painted the cat, the tombstones and any white looking areas. I filled some of them in grey to create more fog. I also used grew for the clouds as well. It was very difficult to colour the eyes of the cat. I could have used a yellow colour pencil but then it wouldn't be as vibrant as an oil pastel. So I had to press a mustard toned pastel stick hard on the drawing to create that vibrant look. Then I drew the rest using a black colour pencil.
With the same colour pencil, I also drew a substantial parts of the gates. I wrote the number 13 on the main tombstone so it's symbolic with the theme of the artwork.
This is the final outcome of the artwork. Usually I take about two days for each artwork but this spooky themed art inspired me to keep working on it and see if till the end as I liked the haunting theme very much.
Thank you for dropping by and I hope that you have a wonderful weekend ahead.