Scott

I’m finally caught up with the projects that came my way. The new agent did her part and sent me more work than I could handle. It’s been a while since I had so many deadlines converge, and the end result was a mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Since it’s my website, I’m only going to share the good parts.

This is Hannah, an 8-year-old girl and the youngest of a large family. The theme is all about hand-me-downs, so she’s supposed to be wearing a mishmash of clothes.

This sketch is created directly on 11″ x 14″ bristol, using my now patented draw/erase/draw/erase (repeat) technique. The editors liked this one, except it had to look like she was sweating.

The first step I take is to fill everything with color using acrylic paint. A good coat of acrylic paint will cover up most of the sketch lines and get me started. This was a 32-page book, so consistency is always an issue. I decide here what colors to mix for her hair and face, and then I treat it like a coloring book. I may put in a little detail, but my main concern is to get a coat of acrylic color everywhere on the page to prepare for the next step.

After the first coat of acrylic, I use gouache. The acrylic forms a permanent and waterproof base for the gouache to sit on. Since it reconsitutes, I can move it and slide it around on top of the acrylic until I get just what I want. If I don’t like it, I can wipe it down and start over, leaving just the acrylic underpainting.

Using a mix of ultramarine blue and raw umber, I outline everything and put in the dark shadows. I do this with the entire stack of illustrations. Then I go back through the stack, and using just clean water I smooth out the blue/brown line and blend it in to create the shadows.

Here is the final. I’ve applied more skin color and details in the hair, shaded the clothing, and made her a bit more solid. I’ve also gone back in with acrylic paint to touch up some spots that needed to be solid, as well as used some titanium white and lamp black to make things “pop.”

The story is ultimately about magic shoes, so I’ve also added the sparkle effect using both acrylic paint and prismacolor.

The sketches came back from the publisher, and I’m working on finishing those up in the next few days. It’s been a real scramble. It took me several months to finish the illustrations for The Three Armadillys Tuff and even more than that to finish the Ring Bear. I see it as a challenge to come up with a style and technique I can produce efficiently. I’ve scanned in a few illustrations as I work and will post in the next week or so.

In the meantime, here is a quick painting I did for the Fringe Festival. She will be on display during business hours at the offices of DC Economic Partnership (1495 F Street NW) from 7/17 – 7/30.

Girl in a Room Series
#1: Alice Changes the Light Bulb
acrylic and gouache
30″ x 60″
SOLD!

The premise is that Alice was institutionalized after returning from Wonderland and is there to this day, pining after Tweedle Dee and obsessing about being mad. It could also be a metaphor for living here in DC, but you didn’t hear that from me.

If you click the image or here, you can see her writings a bit more clearly.

I’ve had an account at Myspace for awhile now but never put anything up. This weekend I finally added info and photos.

All I need now are friends.

The amazing draw/erase/draw/erase process

Here are sketches for various projects I have going right now. All are currently getting “approved” (or “disapproved”) by the publisher. As soon as I hear back I’ll start work on the finals. The deadline is mid-July so I’ll need to work quickly. The finals will be done in acrylic with some color pencil touches here and there. I’ll post a few “in progress” images over the next few weeks.

For those interested in the details of the process, this is generally how I work. I do sketches using just a .05 mm mechanical pencil (HB or 2H lead) on smooth bristol. I lightly block in the areas, and as things I like emerge I’ll apply more pressure to the pencil. Using my kneaded eraser I erase most everything, until I can only see the darker lines of areas I liked. I do this back and forth several times, lightly sketching and searching for something that works, pressing harder on the things I like and want to keep, then erasing everything. Bristol is great because it’s very durable. By the time I’ve gotten to the point these sketches are at I’ve erased everything several times. Kneaded erasers are nice because they don’t leave eraser “dust”.

When most everything is where I want it I’ll go in with a darker ebony pencil and outline a bit. Everything will be covered by paint when I’m done so I don’t concern myself with stray lines.