Castellon's Kitchen: Witches' Broom

This summer, I reconnected with my inner artist and created this Halloween themed drawing I've affectionately named, Witches' Broom. If you look closely, the name will be obvious. My drawing was inspired by a beautiful print I bought off Etsy that had used dictionary pages as it's canvas. I loved the print so much that I was inspired to make my own drawing. Here is a quick look at how it all came together.
Enjoy!

HOW TO:
The entire project cost me $1, which was the cost of the old dictionary I bought at a $1 bookstore. I also re-purposed an old broken frame that was destined for the trash.

I love this idea of using dictionary pages not only because it creates an interesting background, but because it really becomes the centerpiece of my drawing because of the pages I chose to use. I knew I wanted to make a Halloween themed drawing so I started by selecting specific pages that contained Halloween themed words and pictures from the dictionary.

Next, I used spray adhesive to glue the pages to the cardboard from the broken frame, taking care to place some of the pages in strategic places on the board. For instance, I wanted to make sure that I could include the vulture perched on a branch of the tree itself, so I made sure the vulture page was placed high and centered on the cardboard canvas. Likewise, for the picture of the trantulas, I placed them low to the ground at the base of the tree.

I used a permanent marker to box the Halloween words and penciled in a rough sketch of the basic tree with it's dominant branches, filling it with permanent marker. I filled in some of the spaces between words with smaller torn pages of the dictionary containing more words so that there was some balance and symmetry with branches and words. Plus it just looks cool and gives it some dimension by layering the pages. I added further dimension and age by tearing some of the edges of the pages to expose some of the cardboard beneath.

I drew one branch at a time to make sure each branch reached out and connected to each boxed word. This was a slow process that took some time to balance and work both sides of the tree, one branch at a time. :)

I added the horizon line with a grey oil pastel and pencil. I used a brown oil pastel to age the areas around the torn dictionary pages. I also used a white oil pastel over all black permanent marker to age it a bit too, rubbing and blending them along the way.

I also added shadows of the trunk and branches in the foreground, again linking the shadow branches to the boxed words under the tree. I used two colors of blue around the edge and horizon line of the drawing to give some color but also to give the impression of what the tree would have looked like if it still had it's leaves. The blue color revealing a ghost image of it's fallen foliage.
I love this so much, it turned out better than I expected. :)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Here are some pictures of the details...