|
| click on this image for a slide show |
Recently I have been scanning the final pencil drawings into my computer and printing them on to watercolor paper. This is in case I make a painting mistake — it's much easier to reprint the drawing than it is to redraw it! I use spray fixative on the printed drawing before using my watercolors and pencils, otherwise the lines will bleed. Then I paint with watercolor and go over that a little bit with colored pencils and — voila! An illustration is born.
When I'm working on a book, I hang all the drawings up, in order, on a long bulletin board so that I can see how the pages flow from one to the next, and to make sure that the characters, color and so forth match each other throughout. My dog, Jack, usually sits with me while I work.
A book takes a long time to make. On average, I'd say that it takes about two years from start to finish. If it's a book that I've written, sometimes it will be a few months for the story to be accepted, then several more months to make a good book dummy, more months for everything to be approved and then some more months to do all the finishes. And after all that, it will take another year before the publisher and the printer makes an actual printed book that you can hold in your hand! But that moment is really gratifying!