Another Work In Progress: Momma Jay Meets the House Owner

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The big news today is that I admitted to myself that I won’t meet my March 31 deadline, no matter how positive I’m feeling about my progress. I have 8 to 10 more paintings to finish and I have to learn enough InDesign to create a simple layout with text and images. Once that’s don I have to go through the IngramSpark learning process — I have no idea how long that will take. So, I decided to the sane thing and create a realistic schedule based on my available time and skills. In the end, I extended my deadline by two weeks to April 15th.

Work in progress

Daily Progress Report: All cross-hatching is forbidden

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We’re moving right along, folks. According to my calculations, which I hope are wrong, I have 16 more drawings to ink in the next 11 days. The gist of it is that I have to finish all of the artwork by March 7, because, on that day I’ve scheduled myself to start adding color, and simultaneously start learning enough about InDesign to create an e-book. Yes, I’m starting to feel some decent pressure now. To meet my self-imposed deadline, I have to pick up the pace and do two drawings a day, which I’ve never done before. But I have a plan.

The plan is that everything has to get simpler. I realize that this should have been the plan from day one, but better late than never. This obvious truth dawned on me yesterday when I realized that hatching consumes enormous amounts of time. I make literally thousands of pen strokes to create the illusion of form and value. And, the larger the image, the number of hatch marks are squared. As the project manager, I now forbid myself from any kind shading, hatching, cross-hatching, or contouring.

Now that I’ve settled the hatching issue, let’s move on. March 31 is now 38 days away and there’s a helluva lot to do.

Drawing emotion in children's books: fear

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When I look at children’s books in Barnes and Noble I think that I should stop looking at children’s books. For one thing, I don’t want to be influenced by them. Most of them seem so…safe. I don’t want to start thinking that I should tone down my little drama until it’s bland and boring and safe.

As a kid I was happy that my parents were completely oblivious to what I was reading. They were just happy that I was staying off the street. Without a protective parent monitoring my reading, I drifted to the grim tales where the bad guys and the witches got what they deserved. Rumpelstiltskin stomped himself down to Hell. The wolf is brutally hacked to death by the burly woodcutter. Clever Jack gets his hands of some magic beans and ends up killing an endangered species giant. Clever Hansel and Gretel burn the witch to death in her own oven. Those fairy tales were brutal and satisfying to the bone. When the smart kids outwit and overcome malevolent adults you have a real children’s book.

In my children’s book, Jimmy Jay and Buddy Butterfly are doing dangerous stuff they shouldn’t be doing, but they do it anyway. They’re going to be in peril. Of course they’ll survive and maybe, just maybe, learn something from their experience. I’ll put it this way: I’m writing the story that I would have liked when I was a kid.

I’ll ink this sketch tomorrow.

Buddy Butterfly standing triumphant on top of the deadly chimney

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Today’s step forward shows Buddy awash with self-congratulation as he stands on top of the forbidden chimney. He’s definitely a risk-taker and something of an attention hound.

I have a hard time visualizing digital images. I want to see every images that I’ve created so far but my mind becomes a blur when I try to recall of the the drawings I’ve done. To get organized, I’m going to assemble my digital images into a gallery that I can print out as thumbnails.

Perspective added to sketch using Photoshop's skew tool

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Yesterday I used the Photoshop “skew” tool to create some diagonal perspective with roof shingles. In the process I skewed Buddy Butterfly’s body. Today I unskewed his body by patiently using layers and masks to block out the deformed Buddy on the skewed layer to let the real pretty Buddy on the layer below show through. Photoshop is a lifesaver.

The One Where Photoshop saves you a bucket-load of time

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Today’s drawing shows Buddy Butterfly flying off to do something crazy and dangerous. As I drew the roof of the house I tried to draw shingles in a semi-realistic way. When I finished, I sat back and saw that the shingles running parallel to the bottom of the page looked static. Rather than redraw the page, I decided to change the roof in Photoshop by using the skew tool to create some diagonal perspective lines.

Skewing the layer added some interesting perspective, but it created another problem — I messed up Buddy’s body. I’m posting the two Photoshop layers I’ll be working on tomorrow. The slideshow shows the before and after skew problem that I’ll fix one way or another.

The way you look when you want to do something you know you shouldn't

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Today a simple picture of a boy who has to say “no” to his best friend. Head bowed, slumping, arms showing that “what can I do” feeling. Now that’s a good kid! He’s definitely a got more will power than I had when I was a young bird…kid.

Some pages need just a simple picture. I’m thankful that idea appeals to me, but I didn’t get it until I drew too many pictures with too much going on. Now that the deadline of March 31 is crashing down on me, I’m all for simplicity.

Pen and ink scanned as “text”. The great thing about scanning as text is that all of the blacks are pure black and everything that’s not black is white. There are no midtones, which means less time spent cleaning up smudges.

The one where Buddy convinces Jimmy to disobey an order

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I’m getting faster at sketching an idea then inking it, partly because my ideas for my recent drawing are less elaborate. I’m more concerned about getting my point across as directly as possible than I’m concerned about my “art.”

Today’s picture is a good example. My original sketch was just two talking heads that only I could recognize as a butterfly and a jay bird. To get to the point, I drew the butterfly huge to elicit the feeling that despite his actual small size, he was capable of overwhelming Jimmy Jay by persuasion.

Pen and ink again.

Guiding the eye through the picture with intention

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Up to this point in my drawing life I’ve given little thought to composition — I feel fortunate to just get a drawing that looks something like what I see in my imagination. But I know that there’s more to a good picture than simple verisimilitude. I have three Hiroshige art prints staring back at me from above my monitor and each one is a masterpiece, not because everything in the image looks like a carp, or a geisha, or a traveler in the rain. Nope. The pictures are awesome because of their composition and the way my eye travels through each picture and takes me into the Edo period.

Today I decided to try composing a picture intentionally. I need a two-page spread and I want to combine four pictures of Jimmy Jay and Buddy Butterfly playing games into a single image that flows across two facing pages from one scene to the next. Here’s my working sketch. The blue line is on a Photoshop layer, not in the sketch itself.

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The original sketch was drawn lightly with an HB pencil then given some contrast with 4 duplicate layers, all using multiply mode.

Our Jay Family Arrives at the Bird House

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My square job got the best of me today. Lots of stressful urgent red tape sealed up the day in a bundle of nerves and frustration…which spilled over into the new career I’m building. I try to keep the stress low during the day so that I can have a joyous evening of moving ever-forward one inch at a time.

Here’s my daily inch. I had 60 minutes to sketch, ink, scan, and clean up in Photoshop. It’s a good start. I’ll count myself fortunate that I had those 60 pure minutes. Enough said.

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The great thing about drawing is: no matter how you draw it, it’s right. I love pen and ink.