As I've been painting, I have photographed things in the painting process that I felt might be helpful to understand and see how I solved challenges or problems. One of these has to do with making additions to the drawings because your editor directed you that way after seeing the initial sketch. In the pages 24 & 25 spread, I was directed to add animal characters coming into the spread from the right side. Here is what the initial sketch look like when the editors saw it: (click on it to make it bigger, if you like)
After I received their instructions for adding animals, I took a pen and wrote it out beside the spread sketch. I had done this many months before so that I wouldn't forget to make that change when I made this painting. Here's a close up of what I wrote:
As you can see there are no "party animals" in this picture. To refresh my memory of what these animals will look like, I got one of my former children's books when Tiny went to the farm and looked at the last page so I could get the feel of their size and personality and color:
Then I took this happy band of critters and decided on four of them to be in this spread. These four I envisioned walking into the room where Elliot (the boy) had been wrapping his big present for Tiny. I thought it would be fun to put party hats on the characters to "show" the readers that a birthday party was getting ready to happen. Then I drew a tight drawing with the animals in the picture. This is what I will be tracing down onto my illustration board to make my final painting:
I like how this looks so, I traced it down and starting laying in the background colors for the wall and floor and the big present (purple shape). I painted Elliot and the animals dark brown (underpainting) like I've done in all the paintings up to this point and then traced the drawing with white lines on top of the brown. Notice that I didn't paint any brown on Tiny outside the window because I want him to look like he's outside...further away. Without the dark brown underneath, Tiny, he will be lighter color and less detail when I paint him. Notice that I have another completed painting above the one I'm working on. This is so that I can try and match the same colors and values since it's the same room. The one above is spread 4 & 5 (first spread of the book)...and now I'm working on spread 24 & 25. I want them to look as close to the same as possible. Here's what this stage looks like:
and here is a close up of the animals with their underpainting and white lines on top:
Now I begin to put the animal colors on top starting with the biggest shape which is the pig:
I continue adding colors to the other animals bringing them up to a 3/4 finished stage. Then I chose to move across the rest of the painting and do the same to Elliot. The process with making Tiny outside the window looking in looked like this:
By this time, I felt it was to my advantage to make a "detail list" of little things I needed to do in order to finish the painting.
I went back over to my 3/4 finished party animals and took them to the finished stage.
The only other thing I needed to paint was the big purple package....but I will show you how I designed the wrapping paper and put the ribbon on the package with another post. I'm really happy with this painting...I'm glad the editors suggested the animals coming into the picture...they help the spread be more interesting since Tiny and Elliot are on the other side. After I finished the painting, I made a scan of it and then digitally made the scan black and white. I loved how it made the painting look nostalgic...timeless:
One final note, as I have started to paint my last three spreads, something dawned on me regarding the party hats that I had put on the animals in spread 24 & 25...this was not going to work because the very next spread says, "we put on party hats." Ooops. Well, hooray for digital magic! I will be able to take those off of this spread so that it will look like they were never there. But you will have to wait till the book comes out to see how well I did this!
It's May 20...I have 11 more days to meet the June 1 deadline I have set for myself...and i am painting all three of the remaining paintings at the same time. They are all 1/3 of the way complete as of today! Praise the Lord for His help and faithfulness to me!
