Creating Cranium Chromatica

I’ve always been a pretty big fan of watercolours for their buildable boldness and outside of your traditional pencil and acrylics they were one of the first mediums that I gravitated towards. As I’ve talked about previously, the majority of my art supplies were pilfered from my sister’s collection. This was also true for watercolours until I grew confident enough to buy my own.

Neon skull reference from Ref Pics in bold pink and blue lighting.

The idea for Cranium Chromatica came from a colourwork/shadow exercise I was doing in February 2025. I had been wanting to experiment more with bold colours and found a reference image through Ref Pics, which features a massive selection of reference photos, several of which would go on to inspire future collections with their incredible dynamic lighting.

Pencil recreation of reference photo.

This was a very fun study, as it didn’t include any line art which as you can see from my portfolio is outside of my realm of comfort. Some of my angles weren't quite right, and I hadn't spent enough time to understand the anatomy I was working with, but the concept definitely excited me.

I kept coming back to this neon skull and how coloured lights at different angles blended together on the different planes of the skull. I began researching neon portraiture and knew I had a good foundation for a collection.

Three small rough sketches of skulls in bright lighting done in pen and coloured pencil with a focus on where the light in the pictures is coming from.

In my sketchbook, I immediately got to work with thumbnails (small not overly detailed images of what will become the larger picture) playing around with where the lights were coming from and where they would sit on the different planes of the face.

Once I had gotten my feet underneath me with a few skull focused paintings (Cranium Chromatica 001-004), I knew I wanted to keep exploring the concept by zooming out from a headshot to a bust. 

My process was pretty simple.

1. Find a reference photo with interesting dynamic lighting. Curse out the generative AI that has taken over Pinterest until figuring out how to turn it off.

   

   Reference photo of a woman in dark blue lighting with her arms crossed over her chest and her face in profile.

2. Manipulate the 3D model of a skeleton provided by the Proko app - Skelly to get a better idea of where all of the bones fell - especially helpful when I started incorporating ribs, spines, and hands. 

Screenshot from the Proko Skelly app, posed in a similar manner to the above reference photo for better anatomical accuracy.

3. Draw. I would start with a simplified sketch before going in with the anatomical details. The line art followed my usual style with the cross hatching and stipple shading you find in my maps.

Shaded line art of a skeleton taped to a drawing board and ready for painting.

4. Paint. This was always the most fun and most stressful step. Exploring where the different lights would hit the bones, how they cast shadows upon each other, and in the case of paintings with multiple light sources figuring out how to blend them without the colours growing muddy. 

   

   Completed piece. A skeleton in blue lighting on a dark background.

This particular piece stained my hand blue for about three days, but that’s art baby.

I look forward to revisiting Cranium Chromatica as it was such a fun collection, but this fascination with skeletons and dynamic lighting has inspired several upcoming collections: Persephone’s Garden, Bare Bones Boudoir, Horrorscopes and Danse Macabre.

Prints for Cranium Chromatica are available and fulfilled by Art of Where in Quebec. Stay updated on future projects by subscribing to the website, and follow me on social media for exclusive sneak peeks into upcoming collections.

CC009 Fine Art Print

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