I recently repainted this piece using digital paint from an original color pencil drawing created in 2002 (see original below). The idea for it came from one of my favorite color pencil artist, Kristy Kutch, who paints extraordinary florals using color pencils. Whenever I would view her beautiful still life creations, I would always imagine little lizard creatures infiltrating the picture. This is where many of my early concepts began, by taking a still life image and placing the Gekkards within it. Many people often say this painting reminds them of an Anne Geddes photograph, and I would agree, but I honestly never saw her photos prior to completing this work.

The original was done freehand, no tracing or photographs. I had a bad habit in my early years of not working from a completed sketch, I would figure it out as I went along. Fortunately, it turned out alright in this case.

In all of my early color pencil works, the Gekkards did not have pupils in their eyes. We now refer to these as “classic” Gekkards. I began adding pupils to the paintings in 2006. The idea came from the suggestion of an art licensing agent. After a couple of practice drawings with pupils in their eyes, it was clear, pupils were the right direction to pursue. That is why I repainted this one, to enjoy the Gekkards with their warmer, pupil-eyed personalities.