A few years ago I entered a contest for a scarf design. The theme was “Skulls”. I’m really not into skulls and any kind of “dark” theme, but I always have loved those Sugar Skulls from the Mexican Dia de los Muertos tradition.

I ended up being one of the winners! Yay! But…I had to give up the rights to my design. Boo! But the prize money was pretty decent.

I’ve been wanting to do a series of these for my Etsy shop, and I’ve finally completed them.

Check out my Pinterest page for Dia de los Muertos.

I sketched out half of each of the faces. Then I scanned them, and redrew them in Adobe Illustrator in layers. Sounds like a lot of work (it was!), but I like to do it this way because it gives me flexibility when I go to add color. I can control the stroke shape, stroke width, and fill.

I LOVE drawing and sketching on paper!

Black and white work in progress in Adobe Illustrator.

Starting to add color.

Here is the whole collection as greeting cards. I’ve just sent them to the printer to do a test run. They’ll be available soon in my Etsy shop. I’m also listing them as 8 x 10 giclee art prints.

Which one is your favorite?

This one, below, is my fave. “Groovy Skully”.

Thanks for stopping by! 🙂