Inspired by Adriana Almanza - art journal page © 2010 Klair Scattergood

I’ve been wanting to do more Goth themed work (I paint far too many bright and chirpy pieces for someone who’s been a Goth for 20+ years) and I also wanted to try working in monochrome. I’d been toying with this composition for a while but couldn’t quite get my head around a single-colour scheme (with black & white).

Then I stumbled across Adriana Almanza’s work (you’ll need to turn on google translate if you don’t read Spanish). I’ve been watching her videos on her YouTube channel and felt very inspired to have a go at my monochrome girl. I fully believe that if you find an artist who’s work captures the spirit of a particular piece you’ve been wanting to try but haven’t got there yet, you should make the most of the opportunity. All the best painters learn by imitating others. It’s not ‘copying’ if you’re doing it for your own learning purposes to try something new and acknowledging it’s not wholly your own. It’s good to experiment with other people’s styles if only to find out what you do or don’t like. For me, that’s what my art journal is for.

That said, there’s a lot of my own work in here. I used the same technique for the face I normally do – two shades of one colour acrylic for the skin with highlights in white. I just used two purples instead of two peaches. I added shading with prismacolour pencils and graphite as normal, but in mauves and lavenders instead of browns and pinks. Then I did the hair in black using Adriana’s distinctive dry-brush hair technique (there’s a tutorial on her YouTube channel) to get the waves and movement. I didn’t add as much detail as Adriana does because it was already feeling too fussy for my taste at that point, so I stopped after the basic layers. I might add extra swirls later just to try it out.

I added fine details in black pen as usual, but also gave her eyelashes, which I don’t normally do and extra details in white. The skull is a stamp from the Bombshell Stamps ‘Sugar Skulls’ set #1302.

I’m quite pleased with the overall feel of it, though I think I prefer my block coloured hair I usually do. I might try adding just a few highlights for ‘movement’ in gel pen next time but I found doing the dry brushing and colouring in acrylic a bit fussy for me. It’s a fun technique to try just too time consuming and doesn’t work if you’re impatient and don’t let things dry properly. Something I did find was that actually, I like girls with lashes – I’ve never added them before for some unknown reason – so I may do a few more with just a hint of lashes, especially on my Goth girls. I’m definitely going to do some more monochrome pieces – I had no idea how much fun it is! Next up, the Corpse Bride maybe? I fancy doing something in blue with a touch of Burton about it. I also have a sketch of a Steampunk gir I think would look awesome in shades of red and brown.

You can see more of Adriana’s work on her flickr photostream and it’s well worth a visit.