WhatchamaDRAWit

This piece was inspired by the WhatchamaDRAWit prompt "draw an Alien puppet with no legs and lots of arms." Last year, I had drawn a monster with no legs that instead used its arms to walk, and this year I thought about something that would have a lot of arms that it would use to walk on, and could be of alien origin. I instantly thought of a spider. This piece depicts the spider marionette descending down to its web that is cast in light. The string of the marionette connects to the way that a spider will descend using its silk and the web itself suggests a stage, and this piece comes a moment before the curtains would open and the puppet show would begin. The web also connects to the idea that theatre draws the audience in, captures them in the story, while a web captures flies.

To create this piece I used graphite pencils, ink on a brush, a brush pen, and technical ink pens of varying sizes. Thinner pens were used to suggest the thin strands of the spider web, while thicker ones helped to create the suggestion of fur on the spider puppet.

At first, I wanted to use a more cartoonish style, but after some thought, I decided that a darker, more detailed style would better fit the piece. Spiders, even while they help to control fly population, are often seen as scary or gross, which connected to the darker, grungier theme. I also chose to add more eyes than in my original sketches in order to make the puppet more alien and more spider-like.