Turning Words into Pictures

Although this exercise was intended as a warm up, much like the spider diagram exercise, as a means of drawing the first things that come to mind, I couldn't help but need to put words down first. So, for the sake of memory, and hoping not to let a thought slip away as I allowed myself to zone out to let instinct kick in, I quickly scribbled a few words I associate as wild.

I noted a few colours, though when thinking wild, you think outdoors, and as we all know nature is the best inspiration for colour! But I narrowed it down to a few tones, greens, reds, oranges, browns and blues, mostly warm tones!

Then I scribbled, trying to do this part of the exercise without reference.

After the quick doodle session, I decided to take it a little bit further. I guess the reason we do these quick drawings is to inspire a final piece. I was drawn to my little tribal lady, she came out super cool! Then I wondered how to create a story with her, which led me to my second character, the tiger. I liked the idea of them being friends in the wild, hunting together for survival. So I continued to sketch the characters.

I was loving how these were progressing. They went from cute friends to mean hunters. I settled on a pose I liked and put together a detailed piece using pen and coloured pencils.

The background lets the final piece down, and with more consideration I would improve this to be more of a jungle. I also feel I could have done better anatomy with her arms when holding the stick. With that said, I loved how this came out considering it was a quick spontaneous session in one afternoon. I was very pleased with her details, especially the body paint to match the tiger which I thought brought the two together as a team.