I finally finished painting Ruby June walking to the beach.  This one is one of two that are slightly less teal than the rest.  I tried to unify all my shadows in all the paintings and keep the color schemes fairly close but this and panel 2 show less of the dominant blue-green color present in the rest of the book.  I think it should still be fine as the paintings will be on separate pages naturally so a slight variation in the first panels probably won’t be all that noticeable.  And, of course, I had to telegraph the inspiration for the book with the sign.  There really aren’t enough Lovecraft themed children’s books out there.  Who knows… next maybe I’ll seek inspiration from “The Colour Out of Space.”

So here are are images from the whole process, starting with two thumbnails.  I decided I wanted to set the stage a bit and opted for Ruby June walking through the town already over-run with Deep Ones.

Next I went on to the charcoal stage where I lay the image out on the canvas and render the whole thing in charcoal.

Once I’m done, I spray fix so the charcoal doesn’t smear, apply a heavy gel for texture, complete passes of acrylic washes and then dry brush to pick up and enhance more of the texture in places.