Kaitlin’s Christmas Present

Another one of the Christmas presents that I did this year was a drawing for my niece Kaitlin. Like Megan’s drawing I talked about in the previous post, I also did it in my “Artzee Fartzee” style. Unlike Megan’s however, I did not have to do several sketches to try and capture her likeness because I had done so previousily about a couple years ago for a separate drawing and fortunately for me…it still had all of Kaitlin’s flavor. I of course updated the design a bit, since she had aged a couple of years since I last doodled her. But for the most part, her design remained intact from the original. The thumbnail process on this drawing was not much of a process at all…I only did one…the one posted below. As you can see from the two images, both the Concept Sketch and the Final Piece are pretty much identical. There are some very minor differences, such as instead of holding the Doodlebug it’s now wrapped around one of her fingers, but other than that it is what it is.

My niece Kaitlin is completely in love with all things bug and bug-like. She never met a Doodlebug (“Rollie Pollie” to some) that she did not like. I swear, if she could spin herself a cocoon and then emerge a couple days later with a big bright pair of colorful butterfly wings, I think she would. It would make shopping for clothes difficult but I think she’d be up for the challenge.

Besides Kaitlin, also featured in the drawing is our pet Hermit Crab named Monster. My wife got him from a friend of her’s one summer a few years back after their trip to Destin, Florida. We just assume it’s a “he,” because if it were a “she” we’d have to rename it to something more appropriate like “Ladybug” or “Flower” or “Bananarama” or something like that…and I’ve grown found of the name “Monster.”

She was definitely happy to get the final drawing. The only thing better would have been if my wife and I told she could have Monster…since that’s not going to happen, she’ll have to make due with a drawing of him and her instead.

I hope you enjoy it Kaitlin.