Red Monkey: The Great Glern of the Sea

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The Great Glern of the Sea

March 23, 2009

As much as I adored Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are as a child, it was Mercer Mayer's Little Monster who really captivated me. My mom got me Little Monster's You-Can-Make-It Book by Mercer Mayer sometime in the late 70s and I absolutely loved it.

Mercer Mayer's Little Monster Activity Book I loved the pen-and-ink style of Mayer and his whimsical details - like the stamp-collecting Trollusk in his top hat. And it wasn't until I was looking at a drawing done by a good friend, that I realized how much I adored Mayer's eyelids - a weird thing to tickled with, but they simply added so much more character to the drawing.

I actually still have my original Little Monster activity book, though ever so many of the pages have been torn out and coloured, taped and glued. In fact, the last time I was going through a box of childhood trinkets, I found an "archive" of finger puppets that I'd coloured from that book, some stamps and a couple of the other activities.

This past weekend, I decided that I really want to learn to do pen-and-ink work and to vary my line weights a bit more. So, I headed out to Barnes & Noble ... only to discover the store was closing up. Not closing for the day ... but they are closing that particular location and I guess they're moving to an outbuilding at the mall up the road. In some ways, this is a good thing. Their location was once convenient, but that area is so built-up now that it's now quite difficult to get in and out of their parking lot. So, it made me a little sad to see a bookstore half empty, shelves barren in areas and people's names written on paper taped to the shelves - I guess they'd bought those fixtures.

At any rate, the number of art books was pretty well decimated. But I did manage to find a copy of Sketching Your Favorite Subjects in Pen & Ink which is probably, to be honest, too advanced for me and not quite what I was looking for ... but it also looked like a good book and I really do need to trust myself more and stretch my abilities. I also discovered a little spiral bound book called Artistic Fitness which describes itself as "50 quick exercises to shape up your drawing skills." There's a variety of subjects and a step-by-step how that artist quickly sketched that particular little sketch. This will be wonderful for me to utilize on my lunch break when I know I need to take the time to practice, but don't always instantly know what to draw.

Meanwhile, after coming home, I realized I wasn't feeling up to something as involved as the pen & ink book just yet - and I wanted to save the other book for my lunch hour ... savor it, so to speak. So, I snagged my Little Monster book and looked for a couple of ideas to sketch from there.

So, here's a critter from page 86 of Little Monster's You-Can-Make-It Book, The Great Glern of the Sea. This is the loose pencil sketch ... I plan on inking and probably colouring him later on as well.