A friend invited me to her baby shower. I wanted to go, but had no real money to spend. But I *did* know about her deep love for gnomes.

So I thought I’d draw her a baby gnome!

First, I drew some preliminary sketches at church (click any image to embiggen) (and ignore the MOM! cat).

Then I procrastinated. The night before the party, I had my husband pick the pose (he thought the crawling one with the crooked hat looked like it was “up to no good”), then started drawing on some illustration board that was gathering dust. I think I’ve had that piece of board since college!

The pose was a killer–took me at least two Magnum, PI‘s to finish. By then it was bedtime, and I had no idea how I was going to color it. In particular, I was worried about the skintone. I had a variety of markers on-hand, but I couldn’t think of a one that would make for a decent-looking, non-creepy skintone.

I prayed for a solution, then went to bed.

It was revealed to me the next morning that I could do flats colors  with markers, then use some Prismacolor pencils to add the subtleties I wanted. I still didn’t know what I’d do about the skintone.

Then Moxie Kitten saved my bacon. When I started pawing through my marker collection, one of her markers came up. The color I use for her nose and ears is “Light Peach”, a beautiful, soft color that I realized would work well for this Caucasian gnome-bebe.

It was what I needed. With only an hour to go, I got started coloring. I finished it just in time. I had my husband take a pic with his phone, then it was off to the baby shower!

My friend, the mama-to-be, loved it and said it would go well with her nursery. I got to eat cookies and meatballs!

Mission accomplished!