If at first you don't succeed . . .

I've started working on my next picture book and this one I'm doing a little differently. Instead of one painting for each page like I did with the First Pearl, I'm doing several smaller paintings and hope to put them all together digitally at a later time so that I have more flexibility for edits. This is one of those smaller images (done in acrylic).

Now for the fun part. I'm going to show you how this guy started. Please don't laugh. Okay you can laugh, but don't tell me you laughed. Below are three starts in my sketchbook. Notice I actually wrote the word BAD beside each image. I guess I do this in case a hundred or so years from now, when someone is going through my old sketchbooks, I want him/her to know I knew it was a bad sketch. Sometimes I'm ridiculous. I may have mentioned that before.

Next is the winner:

I thought this guy was pretty cute! (Notice I wrote the word - Better. I need an eyeroll emoji right here.) The challenge was now going to be coloring it. It is a black kitten, looking at a glowing pumpkin. Using the sketch above, I got out my iPad and worked out his coloring.

 He's a little creepy, but with both of these images I was ready to get out my acrylics.

Much better, but not as happy as that little sketch in my sketchbook, so I opened his mouth a little, threw on a bit more highlighting and added digital whiskers. The whiskers and a spot of highlight on the eyes are the only things that are digital in the final piece. Nothing worse than trying to add something like whiskers over the top of the painting and messing them up. Acrylics are not forgiving.

I wanted to share how crappy some of my starts can be. There are just times I feel like I can't draw to save my life and then with patience and perseverance it falls into place.