Portrait Illustrations for Drawlloween 2023

Horror themed portrait series based on the Drawlloween art challenge made with Adobe Fresco

October 2023

Monstrous Extravaganza

The Challenge

As an aficionado of the spooky and creepy I love the month of October aka #Spooktober and the creative stimuli that go with it.

Which is why I participated in Mabs Drawlloween Club ,a variation of the yearly Halloween themed art challenge Drawlloween, hosted by @mabgraves .

Monstrous Extravaganza

I decided to create a series of portraits in digital watercolor and ink in Adobe Fresco based on the "Lite List", a list of prompts for every second day of October.

True to the vibe of the challenge I went for a playful, spooky style, using a reduced, muted color palette of blues and yellows, reminiscent of a light in the dark, a candle in the dark blue of night.

What was especially fun for me was coming up with different, suitable kinds of frames for all the portraits.

Prompt 19: Classic Horror

Inspired by "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" a 1920s German expressionist movie and one of the oldest horror movies in existence. The portrait depicts "Cesare - the Somnabulist"

Prompt 11: Web

Since I moved to the countryside I have lost every bit of fear of (regional) spiders, which I didn't have a lot of to begin with, so this, to me, is not very spooky. Quite the opposite, I find them to be quite elegant creatures and the webs many of them create like beautiful, intricate works of art.

Prompt 17: Ghoul

I wasn't entirely sure what a ghoul is so I did a little research for this one. Depictions of ghouls in popular culture vary wildly and even its role in folklore is not really definite, so I decided to focus on its status as an undead being and its habit of eating human flesh and give it my own little twist, creating a ghoul chef.

Prompt 30: Spooky Scary Skeletons

This one is loosely "Freak Show" inspired, the controversial institution that on one hand othered unusual physical features and on the other hand gave the same people with these features a chance for empowerment and to make a career for themselves in a society that didn't offer them many options.