THE SKETCHBOOK TRIBUNE: July Issue

JULY 2025

WRITTEN BY RAYHAN BENGOUGOU

Illustration by Rayhan Bengougou

Hello and welcome back to this month's edition of The Sketchbook Tribune, the blog where I take a look at some of the artwork I've done and give you my biggest takeaway from making these. 

This month's topic is all about faces. From the eyes, to the hair, what makes a face...well...a face, and how can it convey so many feelings and emotions, telling a beautiful story in the process. 

The two pieces that I will be sharing with you this month are two close-up portraits of Frankenstein's Monster from the 1931 film 'Frankenstein' and Chappell Roan from her album 'The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess'. 

I made these pieces to get a grasp on how to structure the emotions of a face and how to build them with both a limited colour pallet and a wide selection of colours to use from. Without a doubt, this was, in my opinion, one of the most challenging yet exciting projects I have done in the last couple of months. Without any delay, let's get straight into it.

GALLERY:

This Chappell Roan piece was inspired by the front cover of her album 'The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess', Illustration by Rayhan Bengougou.

This illustration of Chappell Roan is based on the album cover of 'The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess' and firstly, one of the things that stood out was the usage of bright and vibrant colours that really made this whole piece pop out and be striking. I will admit, this was the challenging bit since colour theory and shading are not my field of specialties and at times can struggle with this. However, I feel like this was the first time in a while that I actually found myself enjoying the colouring in process and focusing on making everything fit nicely together.

The blending of the skin tones and colour was another aspect of this artwork that I found quite interesting, as I had to use a wide range of colours and make sure they worked right and fitted the dream-like aesthetic that was made by Chappell for her album, creating meaning such as beauty, sadness, glory and glamour.

Behold, the face of a sad monster. Illustration by Rayhan Bengougou.

The second portrait piece I did during this month was the complete opposite of the Chappell Roan piece. Instead of beauty and glamour, we have terror and horror. This portrait of Frankenstein's monster uses darker, black and white colours, to evoke the original 1931 movie and to improve on using different shades to complete artwork.

Overall, I was quite happy with how this portrait came out. It was always going to be a challenge to paint a face with a very limited colour palate and more specifically in black, white and dark shades of grey, but it all came together to create a face that packs the emotions of sadness and terror and really captures the mood and tone of the Boris Karloff classic.

The most significant insight I gained from creating these portraits is the fascinating and intricate nature of the human (or human-like) face. The eyes, lips, and expressions such as smiles or frowns can convey a wealth of storytelling and emotion. This realization highlighted how these subtle details can truly infuse a character with soul and contribute to crafting a compelling story alongside them.

All illustrations by Rayhan Bengougou