My Tek-neek

Here's a rough sketch from the latest children's book I'm working on. Note the messiness of the sketch. That is what I am all about. I am a messy drawer. Always have been. I wish I could be neater, but it just don't work for me. I'm not one of those genius types who puts pencil to paper the first time out and shits gold. I start and stop, erase and start over again. And again. By the end of the experience, my drawing hand will have HB pencil dust all along the side, and there will be those goddam 'eraser bits' all over my drawing table, my lap, and on the floor. It's not a pretty sight.

And for reasons that I can't quite comprehend, I am a low-tech kind of artist. I don't even own a light table (and really, I should). If I need to trace things, I use tracing paper. You don't wanna know how messy that gets.

Recently Mike in Wisconsin inquired on my blog if I could share some of my colouring techniques. Jeepers. It's not like I have a multitude of techniques to choose from. After the messy pencilling is done, I pretty much always ink my drawing with a number 2 Cotman Winsor & Newton brush. God I love those brushes. I use Winsor & Newton black india ink. I usually colour with watercolour, but have recently been experimenting with gouache. I'd like to work more with gouache, but don't feel totally comfortable with it yet. Mind you, I still don't feel entirely secure with watercolours either. Regarding paper, sometimes I use watercolour paper, sometimes Strathmore, sometimes even just basic bond printing paper. Depending on what kind of effect I want to create, I'll colour the inked image in Photoshop, if a 'soft' look is not required.

So there you have it. My amazing illustrating secrets revealed. I'm a creative slob and techno-boob.

Comments

[eliane]

Sketch is great! I don't even see any messines. Lovely dynamic thick/thin lines. Go see my sketch of today, way worse. I wouldn't bother to put yours in ink, colouring this would be lovely. If you want I can tell you a secret how to colour pencil sketches. Make the white go away and the lines transparant, so you can colour behind them.

[patricia]

Eliane, If you were to see this sketch 'in the flesh' you could see how messy it is, trust me. Publisher wants black ink lines and watercolour, sorry. But in the future I'd like to experiment a bit sans black ink lines.

Other than it being too light to really see, I can't see what's wrong with your pencil drawing.

[David]

Mmmm.... techno-boob...

Oh! But seriously, techno-boobery is not a problem as long as the results are good, which they are, so screw ther rest.

[patricia]

'Techno-boobery'! Love it! I could teach the course!

[Scully]

I'm in awe of your talent and frankly, quite jealous. My stick figures almost got me kicked out of kindergarten.

I've always wanted to draw but I'm not able to. Didn't get the genes my grandfather and aunts got. They are so talented.

And so what if you're messing. You don't want to see my edits and rewrites when I'm writing.