vacation and work

work:
Doing two books at a time is a new experience. I am hoping that the books will be always in different stages to each other (stages are: story board, rough drawings, clean drawings, paintings) to keep them apart in my head and not to get fed up. So far it looks promising. One book is ready to be painted (all drawings done), the other is just about in the story board process. I better find keywords to refer to the books. book one: JO, book two: MO

It was alright to work on the storyboard for MO during the vacation. I had a half a day for myself and that was enough to get some rough ideas down. I usually draw up 3-4 possible scenes per double page.

samples:
no sample work at the moment... But it is time to update my portfolio.

private:
I mentioned I am bringing along my small water color kit. I did a couple plants sitting in the garden. Painting outside is a bit difficult, but very meditative, I found.

Backgrounds get more attention now

work
Finished the roughs for my current book project and send them in. Yey!

I was working on this A3 paper, I mentioned a few weeks ago, and I just loved it! I was a bit skeptical to start with, yes, but I quickly learned to appreciate the space. It is much better to work on details on the characters and backgrounds. My aim was to put more attention to the backgrounds, so they support the scene and mood, and make it believable that the characters are existing there. I had a few garden scenes this time, and I really wanted to create the feeling of romantic, playful, and natural chaos. Just what a family garden is.

Now I will work on the colors. I usually go back to Photoshop, and start with giving each page a basic colour. For example, if the scene is in the outside, the block colour will be either blue or green, so either there is a lot of sky visible, or a lot of ground. I also consider the mood of the scene.

private
We will travel for a short vacation. I bought an A6 water colour pad which I will bring with me along with my small water colour kit together water brush. Now from working on A3 for weeks, it will be fun to shrink down even smaller than my typical papers. But I have a plan! I am hoping I can do some loose water color doodling of plants. I always need plants for the garden scenes, and want to expand my visual library on plants.

Time management

First of all, you have to understand: there is plenty of hours in a day for you to work. Even if you have parent duties or things to tidy, there is physically time for you to draw.

For me it is about the to-do list paired with time management, meaning how much time I want/need to spend on each task.

For example 80% of my time should go to the current main project (anything with deadline), 15% to making samples and finding new work, and 5% extras like webpage or drawing exercise. I count up the minimum weekly available hours. In my case, I have time available while my daughter has her daily nap (which can be short), when she goes to bed (if late I have to go to bed shortly after), and the two half days when she is at the nursery (constant).

In my case this comes to min. 20h available during the week. Thereof I have to spend 16h on the project, 3h on making samples, and 1h can be spend on anything else. Seeing this numbers motivates me to not check emails or social media at all during my available, because simply, I cannot ever get the time back and catch up.

I started a time logbook which helps me see if I overspend time on something.

That can happen, for example if a potential new projects is very inspiring, I tend to put more energy into that rather than into finishing an old job. Let's be honest everything new is more exciting than something you have been working on for months :P at least for creatives.

Work
I work a bit on the roughs for the book about family models, but spend most time on the samples.

Samples
I finished the samples for the book series and am very pleased with them. I hope I can convince the author of my skills and I get to illustrate them. It will be awesome!

Private
My husband found a great game for the garden that involves painting. He grounded up some chalk and added a bit of water. Then my baby daughter got a sponge ball to dip in and paint on the house wall. She absolutely loved dabbing the wall in pink. It was great and with the warm weather at the moment the water dries really quickly and leaves very pretty patterns.

training perspective rotations and forshortening of figures

work
I needed to do some studies before I could continue... There is this moment, when I try to draw the picture I got in my head, but just can't get it right. One figure should be half crouching to be on eye sight of a kid, and it should be in a half perspective. Instead of struggling with that one pose, it is best to do some studies of a pose in different perspectives. I found out that I do know one pose, but often only in one perspective and have never tried to turn it around. This is probably because I have seen the pose somewhere, but haven't expanded my visual library, and just stayed with that one example.

There are some good tutorials on how to train different prespectives. If you are into books look for "Hogarth drawing", if you are looking only online, search for: foreshortening and projections into space. You could check out moderndayjames on youtube, for example: https://youtu.be/aS-5A3Veue4
for an introduction into perspective and rotations.

samples
I was approached to do a sample for a series of book. I am so excited about it and want to do my best. Lucky for me, the agent discussed that I will be payed for producing the sample, a generous move. Thank you <3

working on bigger paper

work

I decided to make the sketches bigger this time and then shrink them on the computer to the actual book size. I have had lots troubles in the past with characters becoming too small for watercolor. In pencil it is easy for me to draw the details, but painting it even with the smallest brush removes the details. The water drops are to big and I can't do the gradients on so short surfaces. I ordered A3 printer paper and was very excited to start. I have to get used to the new dimensions though, and have to be careful about the proportions of the people. Big heads and small bodies is a typical mistake.

new applications

I am preparing a sample about animals for the agent in London. The painting is done on cardboard paper. It's something I learned from an illustrator on YouTube. It works with watercolor as long as you keep the brush dry enough. I love the clarity of the finished picture and it is much easier to draw lines in pencil and ink.

private project
The cute robots are on hold atm. So I try to paint an easy random picture a week and post on Instagram.

Private
I made a new toy for my toddler (16month). Porridge flakes in a transparent box... She loves to dig through and pour the flakes through her hands. I believe it's called sensory play. Very modern :P