Sunday, August 24, 2014

The Mad Scientist in the Basement

As mentioned in previous posts, I have decided to illustrate a number of poems and short stories I've written. Many are from my childhood and others are fantastic takes on real life people and events in my life. "The Mad Scientist in the Basement" is a comical take on a man engrossed with his work/inventions/hobbies and the little kids who like to spy on him. :)

Hope you like it. 

-Becky
Copyright 2014
Copyright 2014
Copyright 2014
Copyright 2014
Copyright 2014

Friday, August 22, 2014

"Becky, can you draw with me?"

Last month I spent a couple weeks visiting family in Virginia and Chicago. Many of my cousins now have children of their own and love to share with their kids that I like to draw (an understatement of course). I don't LIKE to draw, I LOVE to draw. Especially with my little cousins.

Drawing #1
Location: Virginia.
Cousins' ages: 4.5 and 6

Quick sketch illustrating my silly little cousins.

Drawing #2
Location: Chicago
Cousins' ages: 3.5 and 6
Original art by my 6 yr old cousin Thomas.

Collaborative effort by me and my 3.5 yr old cousin Olivia.


Drawing #3
Location: Chicago
Cousins' ages: 4, 7 and 8
My 8 yr old cousin watches me draw Elsa from Disney's Frozen. He holds a blue marker and is ready to jump in and color.

Coloring while my 7 yr old cousin looks online for a pic of Elsa's castle for me to sketch.
Drawing the background.

Finished picture. Sketched by Rebecca Arguello, colored by Joaquin, Jacinta and Jayne (4 yrs).

Friday, August 15, 2014

Castle Crashers


Dear readers,

My cousin Gio turned 6 in July, but was insistent on not really turning 6 until we had a party. Lately he is into this game called Castle Crashers. When I head his party would not be at the usual Chuck E. Cheese, I thought "What IS the theme this year!?!" If' you've seen my other posts, you know that any excuse to make and create is what I'm looking for and parties are the best excuse to get some hot glue going.

I played Castle Crashers with Gio a couple weeks before and thought "This is gonna be AWESOME!" I looked up costumes online and found a great tutorial online on how to make Castle Crasher helmets out of multi gallon paint buckets. The downside of this tutorial: time. It was Friday, the party was Sunday afternoon and my goal was to not only have a helmet for the birthday boy, but at least five other people. So, I went to cardboard.

Cardboard boxes are great materials for masks, weapons and all types of construction. So I took a precut cardboard boxes and folded as many extras edges into it as possible to give is a cylinder shape. I cut about two inches off the bottom while cutting the point of the helmet. After, I mounted the opposite side to a plastic plate (corresponding to the correct color of the Castle Crasher Knight I was thinking of painting) and from there covered the cylinder in its respective Knight color. I made five nights and the Necromancer. If you need a crash course on Castle Crashers, please visit http://www.castlecrashers.com/.

After covering the cylinders I sketched out a template for the knights' helmets and cut the cross out of white construction paper (glued on after). Using black construction paper, I cut out the eyes and details for the rest, added accents of color and ruggedness to each and later finished off the Knights with black Speedball ink for detail.

The Necromancer was a different story: black construction paper, preliminary sketched on face, then painted with gray and white accents and red eyes. Finished with black Speedball ink.

I cut an eye area in the Pink Knight and upon arriving to the birthday boy's house, I told his brother "Don't hide him. Let him see EVERYTHING!" And he did.

He saw me walking in with the helmet on and probably thought I WAS the Pink Knight (despite my jeans, sandals and flowery summer shirt). He saw the other helmets (and the dragon pinata we picked up on the way over) and immediately said "The red one's mine!!!"

So we put on the helmets, played a little Castle Crashers, and took a couple of CC selfies. :) Enjoy!

-Becky