Color Puddles
A drizzly beach walk gave witness to the color spectrum and a double rainbow! And then inspiration for some fun illustrations...
Step-by-Step: Star Gazer
Here's a rockin' step-by-step of one of my various working methods. It is fast and fun and just messy enough to feel like a kid.
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1) lots of drawing and re-drawing using tracing paper
1) lots of drawing and re-drawing using tracing paper
2) Transfer to watercolor paper (Arches 300lb hot, unstretched). I use blue ball point pen on top of the sketch, and carbon paper under the sketch.
3) Add a warm tint the paper with a wash of Burnt Sienna watercolor (Daniel Smith). This gives the next layers of color a unified 'warm' tint. Air dry, or hair dryer.
4) Mask highlights. Darken the linework - I used a Derwent water-soluble pencil for this one, to create a softer linework (though I abondoned the 'soft' look later - see below).
5) 'Pool' in colors of Ultramarine and Hansa Yellow. This allows me to set the warm and cool areas of the painting.
6) Add more color, and add colors with granulating properties.
7) Define darkest areas. Pencil in darkest areas, such as occlusion shadows (the area where two forms meet).
8) Scan into Photoshop, and begin digital process: adding color, define forms further, add stars, add bold line work, lights, and highlights.
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Hey - that's it! A fun process since it combines the best of analog painting and digital.
H is for Hhhh...Hippo!
Lots of hippopotamus fun this week while completing a spread for the letter 'H', for the 9 Degrees North Project - The ABC's of Northern Ghana, a charity picture book project by the Tools for Schools Africa. My assignment had the accompanying text, "Have you ever seen a hippopotamus yawn? Its mouth and teeth are enormous! Their large bodies overheat easily, so they spend most of the day cooling in the water."
I started with lots of sketches of hippos, since I'd never really drawn them before. The goal was to understand their true form, and find the details that make them exclusively 'hippos'. Lots of reference was used.
Also researched were the variety of hippos that are specific to Ghana; a 40 km stretch of the Black Volta near Wechiau in the Upper West Region is a protected hippo sanctuary. So the color of the river, the fish, the birds, etc. were all good details to have in mind when planning the composition,
Hopefully it engages the young reader enough to feel like they are right there in the thick of it and looking around, using their imaginations to continue the little stories happening in various parts of the illustration.
Adventure: Chikamin Ridge, Spectacle Lake
It took two years to sync up schedules for a 3-day backpack with childhood friends, Jeremy and Mark - and it was worth the wait! A difficult climb up a long, brushy valley to an open ridge, full of eye-popping explorations to mountains, lakes, rock, and ice. We felt very small among the true giants of earth.
The area we explored is around the Pacific Crest Trail: Glacier Lake, Chikamin Ridge, Spectacle Lake.
The area we explored is around the Pacific Crest Trail: Glacier Lake, Chikamin Ridge, Spectacle Lake.
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