Sunday, June 3, 2012

C is for Charlotte

This week's entry for AlphaBooks is everyone's favorite spider, Charlotte (from E.B.White's Charlotte's Web.) I've always been fairly severely arachnophobic, yet I still fell utterly in love with this character. She is one admirable arachnid.

Sadly, I don't feel this painting does her justice, but I've gone completely cross-eyed putting highlights on all those tiny dewdrops, so I give up!!

Acrylic on text scanned from a hardbound edition of uncertain date-- 1962 is my best guess-- with Photoshopical adjustments, ~ 5"x8"

p.s. I did try to throw in a few "C"s-- some clearer than others-- how many do u C?

7 comments:

  1. I C many...and I C a really nice illustration! Nice tribute to a great character.

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  2. Beautiful. And Charlotte's Web is one of the most memorable books of my childhood... I see now that one can participate in AlphaBooks without actually drawing PEOPLE (which I'm no good at and don't enjoy). I'm a little bit encouraged...

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  3. This one turned out great, with a nice moonlit sort of luminescence. In the text at this point, is she writing something that has a C in it?

    I think I spotted 15 cs, but I might have missed a few. I'm planning to do a character from this book a good deal later in the alphabet.

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  4. AS I'm always mentioning on my blog, Charlotte's Web is my favorite book of all time—I love your version of her spinning away in the night. I've thoroughly enjoyed my "catch-up" tour through your latest pieces. I love Bis for Bloom, H-Top...oh heck, I love them all!

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  5. Thank you all so much-- it's lovely to connect with other Charlotte-heads!

    Debbie, the AlphaBooks entries don't even have to be living creatures, per se-- rag dolls or robots or velveteen rabbits would be fine so long as they are characters in any kind of book!

    Isaac, you found more C's than I knew I was putting in-- some subliminal C-ification is clearly happening here. ;-) And I took some artistic license with the letter-- Charlotte is actually about to write "SOME PIG" at that moment-- great ad copy but sadly lacking in "C"s.

    And Sarah, thanks ever so, but be sure to come back on the 7th! ;-)

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  6. Oh wow! That is one beautiful spider. The details are awesome. I love drawing spiders, not so much real ones although when I was a kid, we had spider-fighting contests. The winner is the one whose spider wrapped his opponent's spider! Oh my. We even prepared beds or cocoons for the spider using a matchbox divided into compartments using palm fronds! Now come to think of it, this was a cruel thing to do but we had hundreds of spiders everywhere! trees, plants, poles, bushes, awnings, eaves...

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  7. all your ideas for the alphabet are so nice, but I like specially this one :)

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