Lavender Blue - Illustration Roughs

A couple more rough layouts from the story book I'm working on right now called Lavender Blue and the Faeries of Galtee Wood.  These 2 images come at the beginning of the story - in the first one Lavender is visiting her friend Rose who is very ill and quite possibly dying. In the second image we have Lavender with her teacher, getting some scholarly information concerning magical items.
These are of course rough layouts and will be transferred to watercolour paper where they will be painted and hopefully improved upon. It is my usual course to leave much of the detail and character of the image to come when actually painting. It has been my experience that going too far with the rough will take all the joy and spontaneity out of creating, which is why I can't wait to start painting these - but wait I must - other irons in the fire and all that  :)

Lavender Blue - Layouts 5

Here we have another illustration layout from the Irish Faerie Tale I am currently working on. This image comes near the end of the story. Lavender is in big trouble at this point and has been rescued by the Faeries and spirited away to a stone circle at the top of a dark and lonely hill. This image, like the others, will be transferred to watercolour paper and painted in the traditional way following my usual method of watercolour, gouache and coloured pencil.

Lavender Blue - Layouts 4

Another illustration layout form the Irish Faerie Tale I'm currently working on. This scene comes at the beginning of the story and really kicks things off. The Faerie visits Lavender in the middle of the night and delivers a magical object which will send her on her way into the mysterious Faerie Realm and perilous adventure - fun !

Lavender Blue - Layouts 3

Another illustration layout for the Lavender Blue story. I really can't wait to paint this one. This is where the Leprechaun lives - of course  :)

Publish Post

Lavender Blue Layouts - 2

A couple more of the Illustration Layouts for the Irish Faerie Tale I'm working on, Lavender Blue.
Here we have the Water Pixie at the top anf the Pookah underneath.  Neither of these characters are going to be good news for Lavender.
These ones, like the previous post, will be traced on to watercolour paper for the final illustration.

Lavender Blue - Layout 1

A couple of final layouts for the Lavender Blue Faerie Tale I'm working on. These will be traced straight on to the watercolour paper that I will be doing the final illustration on. The layouts were done in coloured pencil so that I could quickly jot done the colour ideas I was getting while drawing and also because the soft prisma colour pencils glide so pleasingly over the slightly toothy sketch book paper. The only problem with these  pencils is that you can't really erase them. I tend to use them like watercolour - starting with the light tones and putting the darks down last. I don't usually put a lot of detail into these layouts because I like to save as much creative energy as possible for the painting. The problem now is having to wait the weeks or months it will take before I can finally paint them and spend that pent up energy.

The first picture comes about half way through the story where Lavender encounters what she thinks is a unicorn but which in fact turns out to be a dangerous, shape shifting pookah, fully intent on harming her. The second picture is actually the first illustration in the story where we see Lavender cutting roses in her garden, blissfully unaware of the dangerous adventure into the faerie realm she is about to take.

Lavender Blue - Sketchbook

I have spoken before about the Irish Faerie Tale project I'm working on, Lavender Blue and the Faeries of Galtee Wood. Well, I'm finally going to have a chance to do a bit of work on it. Up until now it's been a week here and two weeks there but it looks like I'm going to have a month of uninterrupted work on this terrific project. Here's a recent sketchbook page that I did as a way of getting back into the mood of the story and also working out one of the many locations where the tale will unfold. There's a lot more of this kind of work to do. I'm hoping to pencil out most if not all of the illustrations so that I will be able to get painting by autumn.

Bigfoot

A wee portrait of Bigfoot - 8x10 acrylic - This is an updated version of a painting I posted last year.

I have been touching it up a bit and don't mind him as he is now but I think I might want to rework that hair just a little. He's looking just a little too Rod Stewart at the moment. What he needs are some stray leaves and other forest litter tangled in his mop to really give him that "living in the woods" look.

The Best Art Blog - Hans Bacher

Hans Bacher's blog may not be the "best" art blog out there but I'll bet it's close. Hans Bacher is an animation designer who has been working at the Disney Studio and other animation houses all over the world for the last 30 years or so.
If you are a fan of animation, book illustration, painting, drawing, design etc.... - this blog is a must.
He has loaded his blog with a ton of amazing and inspiring art, not to mention art criticism and analysis. Hans also has plenty of drawing tips and advice for improving your art, whatever field you may be interested in.
Here's a link to his blog     http://one1more2time3.wordpress.com/
Get over there and have a look . You won't be sorry.
The image above goes with a series of posts about trees in art and animation - how to paint them and why people paint them the way they do.

Arctic Characters

Two character illustrations from the Arctic Myths project I'm still working on. The colour work is all finished and now the ink drawings remain.
Here we have The Gravel Bank Ogress and the Big Bee Ogress. Big Bee is sporting a giant ulu which is an all purpose knife the Inuit use for skinning and scraping. We decided to make The Gravel Bank Ogress tall and spindly in order to give her a different look so that she stands out from the others. Also, I've illustrated her before and we wanted this one to be different. Quite often the same characters will turn up in different stories and from different regions and they should each look unique.

Dandelion 3

This is also an 8 x 10 acrylic study but this one is on a fresh canvas board rather than the old Masonite panels used on the other ones. I also wanted to change the palette a little on this one in order to keep it fresh. I decided to keep the subject matter simple and similar on these because my intention was to work the paint and not get hung up on the content of the pictures. I also thought it might be fun to create a little series.

Dandelion 2

Another small acrylic study. These were done fairly quickly - 3 or 4 hours tops. I'm planning some larger paintings for later on this summer and so this one and the others are just warm ups. This one is also 8 x 10 on Masonite panel.

Dandelion

Over this past weekend I had a chance to do a couple of small studies. These are 8 x 10 acrylic on Masonite panel. The panels are well used and have been painted on and gessoed over several times, giving them a lot of texture to paint on.

Sketchbook

Some recent sketchbook activity. Although these were not specifically done with my new faerie tale project in mind, they are certainly in the proper spirit.

Story Board - Faerie Tale

I'm now starting work on the Faerie Tale book that is going to be keeping me busy for the next 6 to 8 months. The first step in illustrating a book is to do a story board. This essentially means illustrating the whole story in thumbnail form. These drawings are 3 x 4 inches. This gives you a feel for the entire story and allows you to make critical decisions about the story telling while the art is still small and changes are easy to make. Above I have posted a few composition ideas and a couple of variations. There will be 21 or more paintings for this story as well as a few spot illustrations and they all need to be figured out, refined and then drawn out full scale and painted.  I will be charting my process through this journey here on the blog. This is the first step.

A month or 2 back I posted some witch and brownie designs that I did while the story was still coming together. I was inspired and wanted to jump in and get drawing. The witches and brownies have since been edited out of the tale but they were fun to draw and their sacrifice has strengthened the story. There's so much more to do - lots more drawing required  :)