Inktober 2018 "splash" off

Splash!

Monday starts the Inktober challenge 2018 and I will participate with my own prompt list. The topic is toddler routines and I am hoping to create interesting colour-in pages for toddlers with pictures of activities they can identify with and that may help their grown ups to introduce as routine cards.

The tools I will be using are a blue mechanical pencil and a graphite pencil for sketches, fine liners by Staedler and Rotring for the final pictures, and then pen and Rohrers ink for maybe some fancy stuff or fonts.

The Bristol heavy paper by Canson is my absolute favourite for fine liner work. The surface is super silky on touch and the white is absolute. The ink doesn't spread and lines remain crispy sharp. It seems so effortless to slide the liner on the paper and the dried ink looks better than what a printer can press into paper... I am jut in love with it.

Happy inking everyone!

What is INKtober?

Keywords you need to know:

Jake Parker, illustrator and cartoonist, and a business genius. He is dedicated, diligent, and the most disciplined artist I have seen in online media.

Inktober - an ink painting a day, means to get into a habit of painting each day. This improves skills through daily training and sets your mindset into taking art as something that you can work on and not something just for talented people.
See more on: https://inktober.com/

What is staging in the process of creating a children's book?

Work

Book "Africa" is getting into the next step: staging! I create a bunch of test thumbnails drawing different perspective and/or different motion.

Staging is the process where you create the stage for a scene: where is the camera, what  perspective, who is going to be in the scene, where are they going to stand, what is the dynamic going to be?

For each spread (double page) I do about 7-8 and sometimes more. I try to be as creative as possible but also try to pay attention to my initial vision I had when I read the script for the first time. This first picture is an echo of all my experience with other books and movies, which means that probably a lot of people will have similar pictures in their head when reading the text, assuming we are exposed to the same culture. I feel it is good to present people with something familiar, so they can read the message quickly. But it is really important to go further than that first echo, in order to create something new. What I wouldn't want is to draw just copies of copies of memories (ref. Fight Club)

Private
I got some cheap brush pen markers to treat myself and play around with scripting and pattern design. I do feel it might have been one of those impulsive purchases ... ah well, why not. It is for fun and I will enjoy it.

It is meditative and helps me focus on the task ahead. (So it is kind of work related :-P) The tips are a bit fussy, but I also didn't want to spend a lot of money, so it will do just fine. I am enjoying to exercise my wrist and fingers and getting just the right pressure on the tip to paint smooth transitions between thick and thin lines. These are the type of patterns I do:

References
To learn what I learned about staging watch this great video by Marco Bucci!

How I sharpen my pencils more economically

Work

Second week of my paint-run and my lack of sleep blows a massive hit on me. I can't remember when I was last so tired. Nevertheless I keep going, but the quota starts stressing me out, and influences my work considerably. I know how this can evolve in a minor catastrophe if not taken care off. So, I take two evenings off and do the rest as best as I can, without thinking about the quota. This week I am back on track

Exercise
Wanna see a master of water colour who also is an entertainer?  Check out Alvaro Castagnet presented by Graeme Stevenson (Colour in Your Life) on Youtube. Water water water and absolutely stunning colours.

Tools

I work a lot with colored pencils. They are used for my outlines and to enhance some shadows. I love to work precise so I sharpen them pretty often.
It always bothered me how much sharpening rubbish I created and I felt I go through a pencil to quickly. So I started sharpening the tip with a carpenter knife. Once the tip is short, I carve some of the wood away and start again. It saved me some time, and a lot of rubbish. 

Do I need to remind people that they can hurt themselves badly with this knife if not used with caution? I probably do. Please be careful and Kids, please avoid sharp tools until your hand-use-skills are developed completely, until then just use the save sharpener!