Surprise Monday : Week 9 : Layers

When using watercolours, it's all about layers. Coming from an oils background, that was a hard thing to learn, especially to learn that you start with light colours first and gradually get darker. Here's a little in-progress of the character Alice, a sketch i showed you here.

Once the sketch is finalised i trace it onto 300lb Arches watercolour paper using my lightbox.


i tape the illo to my table and get to work! as always with my character sketches (in this case title page illo) close at hand for consistency


i do a background wash then start on skin tones which i use the most layers on, this one has 4-5 layers. Monica had asked me about maintaining consistency of colour throughout a book. I find that hard sometimes too. for the most part I use colours 'straight out of the tube' and might only mix two colours together so it's not so bad, but have had lots of problems getting Alice's skin tones right in each illo. I guess I just try to remember how I did it last time and approximate... not the most scientific of ways I guess, but i find i can usually get close enough. Of course your background affect how other colours look to0 so you have to keep that in mind... i don't think that was any help to you though, sorry Monica!

then colour in everything else which for this small illo has 2-3 layers (highlight, middle tone, shadow)
in this case i didn't like the colour i painted the rug so decided to incorporate collage! i like the richness of it, and had talked about doing this with Karen. i'm now using collage in the rest of the illos too which adds a great last 'layer' i think.
i draw or paint on top of the collage too.

Here are all my materials. i've got lots of brushes i never use, and mostly just stick to the ones laid out there by my palette: India Sable brushes, 8, 10 & 12, a W&N probably about #4, a beautiful japanese brush which has a great point on it for doing detailed work, and coloured pencils for the outlines (previously I've used a lot of painted black ink for linework but am trying to move towards something a bit softer) - I've been using some acylics on top of the collage and use W&N paint and flat sable brushes for that.

I'm not going to delve into much more that this point cause I'm really tired... and hungry! My New Orleans red beans & rice is calling me so I'll make a quick getaway! but any questions fire away and I will answer them next time. xx

Surprise Monday : Week 8 : COLOUR! and hiccups.

Well I finally got to delve into some colour this week.... aaah... so satisfying.

Normally the first thing I would do is a colour study of all the characters and have it pinned up on my drawing table for the duration of the project, so that I am always referring back to correct proportions, colours, etc. In this case, the title page illustration serves that purpose really well, so I did that one first, as you can see here (sorry for terrible photo! - the colours are really bad, esp of their hair)

It's always so fun to 'meet' the characters in colour - their personality really comes alive...

There have been a few hiccups this week - the designer hasn't been able to open my InDesign files for some reason, so I don't know yet whether I've left enough room for the text in the illos. This most affects the pages with illustrations across the double-page spread, which is about half of them, so I've been able to start on any spot illustrations, but it's not the way I prefer to work. I like working from start to finish basically, and that way I get a really good feeling for the story. At the moment I feel like I'm putting the cart before the horse but that's okay - it's still fun and I just need to keep going with it.

I've worked out I need to be doing 2 illustrations a week, where 1 illustration can either be 1 double page spread, or 1 page with potentially 4-6 spot illustrations on it. eek! This would all be okay if I didn't also have a 3 day/week day job and still trying to have some semblance of a life! That's not true, it's still all okay, but no rest for the wicked as they say!

The other 'hiccup' has been with the cover. It is still not finalised and both Karen and I are unsure about it. I had been meaning to paint that first so that Karen could use it for publicity and distribution. but it is on hold for the moment as we mull it over. I'll keep you posted on this one. baby steps, baby steps :-)

Hope you're all having a great week and I promise to have more images for you next time! I meant to take photos of my process but forgot - I'll show you that next week and talk about what materials I use in painting.

Cheers

I-F: Primitive

Some people might feel quite 'primitive' before having their first cup of morning coffee...

OK so this wasn't done for I-F and it's a bit of a stretch, but there you go. This is actually for the 2nd blogaversary of my online critique group The Creative Cup. I've found CC invaluable in my humble lil illustration career - from getting practical advice on composition and style to personal encouragement to sharing industry info and links. I feel lucky to be a part of it, so thank you Creative Cupsters!

This illo was done with a mixture of ink, acrylics and collage in my moleskine. I bought this acrylic paint called 'Mixing White' by mistake, and was really disappointed because it is much thinner than the normal W&N Artist's colour, but just discovered that it's great for use on top of collage. See? everything has it's use! (famous last words from a hoarder, which by the way, I refuse to be, except when it comes to art supplies...)

A short read

I recently received a nice little package from Black Dog Books with 2 copies of an anthology book I contributed to, Short. It is a collection of short stories by some well known authors as well as students, but all 'surprising and intelligent people' (I however, am not so surprising as you will have to flip all the way to page 215 to find me!) I think it would be a great book for a teeanger. So if you're interested, you can pick it up here, and all profits go to Big Brothers Big Sisters so it's for a good cause too!

And when flipping through Black Dog's catalogue, I also found that I am in good visual company with the lovely Danielle McDonald, who has some new books fresh for Mother's Day. (and also on the front page of the Black Dog website - go Dan!) Go check out her lovely playful work!

Surprise Monday : Week 7 : A few days of rest

The meeting with Karen and her designer friend on Thursday went well, and I have left the dummy with Karen to mull over, so I'm afraid I don't have any images for you this time. Karen came back with a few changes to some of the illos, but nothing major. (yay!)

I took the weekend off to pull up our front garden beds, but I'll be back into it again this week. I'll be working on the changes Karen wants, and also reworking the cover a bit because I'm not quite happy with it. Then it's on to COLOUR!

Have a great week!

Surprise Monday : Week 6 : Almost there!

It's all coming together now! I've got a meeting with Karen, the author, this Thursday, to show her all the roughs, so I'm busy just tying up all the loose ends. In the next few days I will be making a dummy to show Karen all the illos in true book form! It's very exciting! She got a dummy of the printing/binding sent through from the printer in Taiwan - so basically a blank book but the exact dimensions and quality of the final one. So it will be great to make my dummy in this. I'm just printing out the illos which I've layed out with the text and sticking them in. This isn't how I'll do it for the final one but just thought I'd give you an idea of what it looks like (I blurred out the text though so it's still a 'Surprise'! sorry for the bad photo)

This week I worked on the cover which didn't come easily at first. Sometimes a cover idea comes to the forefront during the book process, but this time it didn't. Karen and I bounced ideas off each other, sent sketches back and forth, but it wasn't happening. I found myself doing little thumbnail sketches everywhere I was, and finally came up with something that fit well. Of course I can't give it away, you'll have to wait for the surprise!

Last week Isabelle asked me 'When you illustrate one story, do you tend to make a cover from scratch or to choose a scene that sums up the story well?' - personally I like to create an illustration that is uniquely for the cover. It has to be something that represents the entire book, gives you a glimpse into the mystery of the book, and is engaging and eye-catching all at the same time! I think it would be hard to find an internal illustration that did all that. Especially for this book - seeing as there are four characters who never meet, it would be hard to have an internal illo on the cover. What do others do? would love to hear...

So that's it for the roughs pretty much! I may do another quick post before Thursday to show you how the dummy turns out. And soon I'll have something to show you in colour!! Have a great week all xx