De La Tour and and Egyptian Tombs

One of my favorite artists is Georges de La Tour. As a young boy I saw a painting of his at the LA County Museum of Art and was hooked. Of course, with his dramatic lighting he is easy to like, even for an unschooled young boy. But his work has stuck with me. When we went to Paris a number of years ago, I was again struck by the the beauty of his work. 
So, when I came to this part of the book I am illustrating, I was excited to borrow some influence from my old French Friend.

I'm working in gouache here. As I've mentioned before, it can be a little tricky because the light and middle-tone colors dry darker and the dark colors dry lighter, so you have to do a lot of your color comparison on the palette. Or, you have to lay down a small swatch and dry it with a hair dryer to see if you have the right value. But once you get used to all that, it's a wonderful medium. If you click on this detail, you'll see more clearly how I develop the form with strokes of color.