My Inspired work in progress (Zoe Persico)

[Heather Boyd]

@carolinebautista

Thank you, this is what I need. I am at a point where I want feedback questioning my thinking in order for my work to clearly and creatively tell the story I want to tell.

All your points are good - my character is less made up. I need to decide how much detail I want to add to her, especially in her face -partly determining how big she will be.

I will adjust the house size for sure -I certainly want to create a vast expanse with what I have started with. I will consider flipping it.

[Heather Boyd]

So update with feedback corrections, character beginnings and gesture. This week has not gone as planned so I am 3 days behind but this is what I have to update you with. Let me know what gestures you like or have any further suggestions/corrections. As I got more into her gesture, I had more fun.

[Heather Boyd]

I've decided to keep my character's gesture simple because her environment is more turmoil. I am working on value study and then figure out how to ensure my colours line up with the value study.

I haven't drawn these clouds in this style for awhile but it works well with the movement in Zoe's work. Just need to move it from pencil to pastel.

[Heather Boyd]

@KajsaH @Dima-Eichhorn @baileymvidler @carolinebautista @Coley

So I finished but I am not overly pleased with it but I am glad to have it finished not perfect. I underestimated my frustration with pastel beyond it's messiness. I had more colour choice with soft pastels but didn't have the control I have with the pastel pencils. So I liked the composition part most on this one. I do like how I did the mountain/hills, the wave in the grass and I liked my character draw but not the final. I improved better in my values. So it's good learning but I miss my white paper/space. One of those 100 try outs.

Thanks for all your support and help,

Do you guys know other children book illustrators that use white space?! ALSO children book illustrators that draw pencil overtop of colour? I seem to gravitate that way naturally.

[Coley]

@Heather-Boyd the yellow with the purple is quite nice too! The sheep are super cute

I think prefer the character draw a little more too. But not a whole lot! It’s really hard to maintain the initial drawing, my characters change so much too.

I think micheal martchenko sometimes uses a bunch of white space? He’s one of my original inspirations. And he’s all traditional. But watercolor over pencil, I think

[Heather Boyd]

@Coley Thank you I'll got look that illustrator up.

[baileyvidler]

@Heather-Boyd Yay! I'm so happy to see the finished piece! I like the vibrant yellow you used for the field. It nicely contrasts the dark storm clouds! Thanks for sharing your progress.

As for white space... I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but I think Blythe Russo very effectively uses white in her images. It makes them feel all nice and airy.

[A Former User]

@Heather-Boyd it's beautiful! what size is it? soft pastels are the most irritating things to work with!

Are you thinking about the style of your hot chocolate piece? what did you use for that one?

[Heather Boyd]

@carolinebautista thank you. The work is 8 by 10, I try to keep to that. I may work larger and then photograph and shrink digitally.

Here I thought watercolour was harder lols.

The hot chocolate work was digital but it was a combination of gouache and some sort of crayon or pastel on top. No I was not thinking about that style -that work was far realistic.

Thanks

[Heather Boyd]

@baileymvidler Thank you -I was thinking more like how watercolourists use the paper as their white. More practice with that with or without the watercolour part.