Alphabet Cards Project

Howdy neighbors in the art community! For my 26 cards, I've divided the twenty six into three more or less even groups. The first group will consist of instruments that start with the letters C, F, I, L,O, R,U, and X, eg. xylophone, which will all be painted. the next group will be people that start with the letters B, E, H, K, N, Q, T, W, and Z as in Banker or zoologist, which will all be pencil drawings. Finally, the third group, which I believe I'll have the most fun with and which is displayed above, is fictional or relatively obscure animals using the remaining letters of the alphabet. These will all be pen with colored pencil, as seen above in the Jabberwocky and Gargoyle. My goal with the instrument and mythical animal group will be to have all of the pictures fit together in some artistic way. Above is a more subtle example of this as the negative space of the Jabberwocky's jaw seamlessly becomes the back of the Gargoyle. The black base of the Gargoyle becomes the backdrop of the phoenix and the Jabberwocky's hair becomes grass at the feet of a Vu Quang Ox. The consistency in border and backdrop color are to make them more distinguished as a set.

I've tried to give it a folk-artsy feel, like how the Jabberwocky's eyes are made of fire like it's poem describes and how flat they are and anticlimactic the lightening is as it would be in a tapestry in some old castle. I had to keep my head in the zone of 'artist' instead of 'folk artist' because there were several technical aspects I had to mess with. The Jabberwocky needed texture in his tongue or it would be too flat, same as the Gargoyle's stone surface. Additionally, my rough draft of the Gargoyle had been on notebook paper, so the grey coloring was tinted with blue. When I colored the real thing, the gray was duller and just plain grayer, so I had to add some subtle hints of blue every there and here to get the exact color I was wanting. Ultimately, the mythical animal set will be the less extravagant of the three as it will be flat and depth-less in order to get the feel across that I intend to project, so any suggestions on how to bring in that little extra something without loosing the old-in-days-tapestry feel would be much appreciated. Thanks for reading and please comment!