Week 3 of the Spooky Season Sketchbook Prompts is Monster Mash, which always reminds me of the classic monster characters. I took inspiration from Frankenstein's monster with the colors and the way he’s always depicted with stitches. (You can watch a process video on Instagram or Pinterest!)
There was a rough idea in my mind of wanting to tear strips of paper and sew them together but that was kinda it! The rest slowly fell into place after playing around—I really didn’t know how this one would end up!
Not having a final vision was a great opportunity for play and letting the process unfold on its own.
The pieces ended up looking like butterfly wings to me and I stitched them to the page with green embroidery thread. (It's looked like leaves or a plant to other people--I love hearing what other people see in my art!)
This month has flown by and the fourth and final prompt is: trick or treat! Stay tuned to see what that prompt inspires. (ICYMI: for week 1 I tried to re-create lace and painted a spooky forest using gouache and for week 2 I made a mixed media piece inspired by my trypophobia.)
PS: Have you read Frankenstein before? I realized I wasn’t familiar with the story at all so I wiki’d it. There’s a part where the Creature (Frankenstein is the name of the man who creates him) helps a family and tries to be accepted—so I wanted to use gold thread to represent the good in him.
Another fact I didn’t know—author Mary Shelley was just 18 when she started writing the story and it was first published when she was 20! I thought that was pretty cool!