Rebirth at the Graveyard

Rebirth At the Graveyard (2010), Digital Art. ©2012 Shazanna Khan

Here's a piece I did for a friend a few years back for his birthday. I did not do it for Halloween but as it is in the air, I thought I should post.

It was done as part of my People Inspired One-A-Day Sketches. I was already doing flower drawings, but this particular friend requested something different for his birthday, citing that black and skulls were more of his interest than my happy colourful flower drawings. It was an interesting challenge to try to channel some darkness into his sketch but still maintaining my style of drawing. I was pleased with the result and my lack of the use of the colour black.

My first idea seemed a bit gruesome which involved childbirth itself and a baby crawling out of a womb, so I kept on brainstorming. At the time, I believe I was reading some horror stories of vampires and zombies. The key thing that stuck out to me was the theme of rebirth and how the characters had a new albeit different lease on life. The concept suited me as it was done with his birthday in mind and of course graveyards do contain skulls which kept with his request.

This sketch was great fun, as it challenged me to think outside of the box and allowed me to experiment with different concepts. It was a thrill to stretch my imagination and come up with some spooky, sinister concepts that could possibly one day make it to future drawings/illustrations.

This illustration was done digitally using Corel Painter and my HP Touch Smart. Looking back at it now, I see a lot of improvements I would like to make! I suppose that is a normal reaction to old artwork which hopefully means that your skills have improved vastly since that point in time. (I hope!)