This is a reposting of my email newsletter hosted at tinyletter.com.

Welcome to the first issue of the Skook WIP Newsletter! 2020 was not a great year for most folks. I hope this year is an improvement. I will do my best to make my portion of the universe a little better. That’s not so much a New Year’s Resolution as a daily practice. I was working to make 2020 a good year. I know things could have been worse.

Much of what I’ll be showing here is art intended for products in my online stores. I’m still pretty tired from the USPS Christmas season. I didn’t get much chance to start completely new work but I’ve got quite a few older pieces that I’m tweaking for new uses. I’ll be showing those in the weeks to come.

Updating Little Red

Say hello to The Mighty Nizz. Expect to see a lot of this kid in this newsletter. Well. Sort of.

The picture above is the first portrait I did of her. I did it as a birthday present for my wife, Sarah, back in 2011. Sarah had a terrible childhood. A simple, non-traumatizing summary of it would be that it involved a lot of discipline and punishment and a little fun as possible. The Mighty Nizz is Sarah, if she’d had a proper childhood, raised by a Sasquatch in the vastness of the Night Forest.

The who? The what?

We’ll get there. Sarah is a writer. We’ll be presenting stories and illustrations featuring Nizzibet on the Mighty Nizz website. Right now, that site is pretty empty. Oops.

Here, in this issue of the newsletter, I’m documenting a few changes I made to that original illustration as I got used to drawing the character.
The first changes I made were simple. In 2013, after I’d done some more drawings of Nizz, I sharpened the contrast on this one so the blacks and whites stand out. That makes the image look better when it gets printed. I also made the paws of her cloak white to match up with the coats of actual wolves. 
Last year I updated this image again. I’ve done a lot more drawings of Nizz at this point and I’d standardized some of her costume. The Red Wolves of the Night Forest have red coats with yellow accents. Nizz usually wears a green dress. I gave her an overall skin tone and highlights in her eyes. I also replaced my hand written signature with my signature chop. This remains one of my favorite portraits of Nizz.

Revising the Red Right Hand

I often listen to music while I draw. It helps me to focus. Mostly the songs occur as background and have little influence on my artwork. Nick Cave’s Red Right Hand is an except. It is one of my favorite songs. There’s a story to it but the details are left to the listener’s imagination. It’s danceable and creepy.

Above is the uncolored image inspired by the song.

Below is the original color version of my illustration. I did the piece as practice in 2016. I draw fairly quickly but color slowly. I’ve spent the last few years working on improving my speed. I’m not a fussy artist. Mostly. I like to finish a piece and move on. I’d had the image of a red glow eminating from the man’s right pocket but I didn’t have any specific idea of how to color the rest of the piece. Last year I started online stores at Zazzle and Redbubble. Most of the images currently there were originally done for the fun of it and as “practice” in years past. I’ve had a great time finding homes for a lot of weird one-off illustrations. Most of them have gotten placed without making changes. When I got around to this one I decided it needed an update. Blue just doesn’t fit the song. The world it evokes, to me, is dusty and dry.

Fortunately I save all my color illustration files in layers so making changes is relatively simple. Out went the blue. In came muted browns.

I’ve posted this version to my Redbubble store. If you prefer the blue version, let me know. I can post that as well.

Public Journal

This issue is a short one. As I mentioned up top, I’m still tired from schlepping packages during Christmas. I went to bed early last night and woke up late. If anyone set off fireworks in our neighborhood I slept through them. Today I plan to catch up on chores and take the day slowly.

Thank you for joining me. I hope 2021 looks bright for you. See you next Friday!