Creepy Attic and Bear (My Process Explained)

The drawing here is one of the illustrations I did for the book project entitled The Groan Folks.  It's kind of a spooky interpretation of childhood fears and grown-up worries.  My brother did the text (poems) and I did the illustrations.  This work is done in pencil.  My process is this: I take an 14" x 17" sheet of bristol board (usually Strathmore brand) from a pad, and I measure out a rough 10" x 13" box in pencil.  I then go back and forth in a cross-hatching fashion with a plain white colored pencil.  I will call this a form of "priming." I cannot say that  this dramatically helps with blending, but I do it anyway.  It would be interesting to do an un-primed illustration and then a primed one, see what differences (if any) arise.

Anyway, once, I have it primed, I get to work laying out the rough illustration with a HB or or even a 2H pencil. Once I have the major forms sketched out, I start deciding what areas will have the most shading and the least.  This is an imprecise method.  I don't plan out exactly what areas will be finished with an 8B pencil.  And sometimes it helps to start shading in gradually.  Certain areas can be "lightened" by heavily shading in surrounding areas.  I will sometimes change my mind as to what will be the most heavily shadowed area.

Below is a closer look at the eaves. In this you can see how going from left to right there are more pencil lines on white paper, and the more right you go, there is more blending.  Also, one-direction pencil lines get turned into multiple-direction cross-hatching as you go right, and there is some straight up 8B pencil blackness in the rafters.

The attic is definitely based on my own attic growing up, but it is not an observational drawing.  I did not go up to my attic and draw it.  There is no gaping hole in my attic wall, there is actually a creepy little door.  However, I have been in my attic so many times and in the small cubby hole there that I know it by heart.  I think I would rather have the "feel" of the attic rather than the actual attic.  I am definitely influenced by Edward Gorey, so I definitely tend to add shadow and texture with many (many, many!) short strokes of a pencil.  In the rafters you can see that I have gone from cross-hatching to straight up blended blacks in pencil the farther you go back into the cubby hole.  I also tried to play with some shadows inside the cubby hole.

In addition to the faint lines on white, blended grays and blacks, I would try to shadows beneath white, like the kind of drop shadows on the pieces of wallpaper hanging off the wall.

Some of the technical things.  Vanishing point and depth:  I definitely used a vanishing point in this illustration (well off the upper right of the piece).  So in the rafters you can see that the lines are not parallel, they will connect at some point. It is a very old trick to create the illusion of depth.  Think of drawing railroad tracks growing closer as they reach the horizon.  See the Wikpedia entry on vanishing point.  A more sophisticated approach would use 2 vanishing points, but I am not bery sophisticated. Weight and balance: The exposed brick I drew (which is the the wall with its wallpaper removed) almost bisects the drawing vertically.  You can use bigger shapes and separations in a drawing to create a sense of balance (or imbalance if you want).  Here is an odd tip: bisecting a piece of art with a line through the center will not necessarily create balance.  It is not just about lines, it's about white space and black space.  A great trick if you are an artist is to look at work upside down.  It's sounds silly and simple but it works.  You see less of the subject matter when you do this.  Things becomes abstracted and you tend to see the shape, weight, and balance of the piece.  Leading the eye: And if you trace over many of the lines in this illustration and then add in the arrow on the side of the cardboard box, there is definitely a design that leads the eye of the viewer to the bear in the box.  I cannot say honestly that this was all planned.  Sometimes it just works out that way.  I almost want the reader to look at two things: the bear, and the deep recess of the attic eaves.  Or maybe be looking at the rafters out of the corner of your eye, because who knows what is in that creepy space.

I f you want to see some weird, creepy illustrations, Edward Gorey is certainly a good choice.  Chris Van Allsburg (who did Jumanji) is also worth looking into if you want to see some incredibly executed pencil illustration.  I would love to hear recommendations for other fine pencil illustrated books.  Please comment.