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wayfaringwordhackI have dedicated as much time and energy as I could this past week to prepping for my workshop with children's book illustrator Maya Fidawi. Her beautifully-colored work is fun and fresh, full of heart, whimsy and glimpses of Lebanese life. I am very excited for the opportunity to learn from her.
Since I had set aside my art supplies at the beginning of summer to do All the Things That Needed Doing, I wanted to get my fingers "dirty" and my artistic mind warmed up again. So, I worked out a rough draft* for a book idea I had a couple of months ago,** did some color work with watercolors,*** then decided to rework my plan with different colors in gouache. And I worked on some character design and began a storyboard. And watched documentaries.
The first color attempts have a very classic feel, and the complementary colors aren't the punchy combo I was going for. The color study penguins are also way too realistic for what I want to do. I wasn't *trying* for character design at this point, but the colors and forms really drove home what I *don't* want to do.
The gouache colors are much more in line with the story's feel, but not the colors straight out of the tube (the one's at the top). :P
I did a couple of sketches with my left hand (I am a lefty) and still found them too typical. Maya suggested I try with my right hand, eyes closed. :P I told her that i tend to prefer what I do with my right hand but I have never added the difficulty of doing it with my eyes closed. I got a couple of attempts that I like.
Some landscape thumbnails and a "sponge stamped" penguin trial on the upper right. :P
First 5 spreads of the storyboard with the "cartoon" filter so you can see my pencil lines :P
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* The ending is still pretty wobbly, and I don't know if I can fit in into a 32 page format; might have to go for 40, which is not the best for a Mrs. Newbie No-Name.
Since I had set aside my art supplies at the beginning of summer to do All the Things That Needed Doing, I wanted to get my fingers "dirty" and my artistic mind warmed up again. So, I worked out a rough draft* for a book idea I had a couple of months ago,** did some color work with watercolors,*** then decided to rework my plan with different colors in gouache. And I worked on some character design and began a storyboard. And watched documentaries.
The first color attempts have a very classic feel, and the complementary colors aren't the punchy combo I was going for. The color study penguins are also way too realistic for what I want to do. I wasn't *trying* for character design at this point, but the colors and forms really drove home what I *don't* want to do.
The gouache colors are much more in line with the story's feel, but not the colors straight out of the tube (the one's at the top). :P
I did a couple of sketches with my left hand (I am a lefty) and still found them too typical. Maya suggested I try with my right hand, eyes closed. :P I told her that i tend to prefer what I do with my right hand but I have never added the difficulty of doing it with my eyes closed. I got a couple of attempts that I like.
Some landscape thumbnails and a "sponge stamped" penguin trial on the upper right. :P
First 5 spreads of the storyboard with the "cartoon" filter so you can see my pencil lines :P
_______________
* The ending is still pretty wobbly, and I don't know if I can fit in into a 32 page format; might have to go for 40, which is not the best for a Mrs. Newbie No-Name.
**I have a more polished manuscript, but the illustrative difficulty is exponentially greater with lots of cats, people, a dog, interiors, exteriors...
*** I started playing around making browns from my colors before I decided to work on the color palette for this project, but I like the shadow colors I got from two of my blues and decided to see if they could work. Never know until you try. :)