Coloring my children's picture book, page one

80/365

After panicking yesterday when I opened Sketchbook and realized that I’d forgotten how to use it, I calmed down and tried it again today. It took 2 hours to get the hang of the interface with it’s color puck and brush puck. By the time my allotted time expired, I felt that everything is going to work out fine.

The first picture in the book was originally painted with watercolor. I re-inked it fairly quickly and then began to color it. Sketchbook has a complete Copic color palette, which I will use. I didn’t get very far, but there is color on the page! I have a gut feeling that I’m heading in the right direction.

Drawing the Wood-burning Stove Using Autodesk Sketchbook on an iPad

74/365

Today was a little different. I got word at work that we’re being downsized to the point that I probably won’t exist at my job in a couple of years. This puts extra pressure on me to get really good at making high-quality children’s books really fast. As my wife and I pondered our future, we started joking around that there’s ten times more money to be made in writing sexy romance novels than in children’s book. Plus, while listening to the Stress Less Ladies podcast, I learned that lesbian erotica is all the rage these days, and it might be better for me to take on a nom de plume of Sexy Lexy and start cranking out some lit-porn.

It was just a little gallows humor in the face of a career being wiped off the face of the planet. For now I’m honoring my contract and I’m sticking with doing what I originally planned to do: children’s picture books.

Speaking of which, today I scanned in a drawing of a wood-burning stove and inked it with Autodesk Sketchbook on my iPad Pro. It went really smoothly, but what’s missing are my signature wobbly lines and lopsided circles. Those straight lines radiating from the stove are supposed to indicate that something inside the stove is making a helluva racket.