Nevermoor

I'd been reading Nevermoor, by Jessica Townsend, which is rather like Harry Potter, only without Harry - and as I always found Harry pretty irritating, this suits me down to the ground. It's the sort of fantasy kidlit book that makes me want to draw all of it, so I've been doing a few sketches:

"Suddenly that's what she was - a living tidal wave of rage and fear. She was not like him, she would never be like him."

"Morrigan stumbled backwards and instinctively threw up her arms, surrendering herself to the wave inside."

Inktober 2018: Harry Potter

I don't have any Harry Potter art in my files, which kinda feels like sacrilege for a kid lit illustrator, so I thought I'd make Harry Potter my theme for Inktober 2018.

I also decided to do my Inktober digitally (It's allowed, it's even in the official rules!) on my father's iPad Pro, to get a bit more comfortable with Procreate and the Apple Pencil. I work almost exclusively on my Wacom Mobile Studio Pro, only occasionally borrowing the iPad, and the different interface and behaviour of the Apple Pencil are a bit confusing. I thought Inktober was the perfect opportunity to improve my Procreate skills at the most basic level, without being too ambitious. I decided I'd mainly do character sketches, because I'm actually very busy, but add in a few scenes as well, to keep things a bit more interesting. I gave myself a 15-minute time limit for each of these, so some of them are very scrappy!

We'll start off with the three main characters, and I'll pop the rest below the cut:

Tuna Sandwiches

Trying to keep up with Colour Collective, despite having all of the projects on the go, so the natural solution is to go with a chapter-book style, which is nice and quick to do. For October I like to have a witchy theme for my Colour Collective posts, so here's a modern little witch eating some tuna sandwiches on the way to school . The colour was 'Glaucous' and I took the easy way out by making it the sky.

Adobe Photoshop CC2018 on a Wacom Mobile Studio Pro. About 2 hours, maybe 2.5. 

Hot Chocolate

It's serious business!

I like to have a witchy theme for Colour Collective in October, so this is what I managed for the Deep Mahogany prompt. I didn't have much time to work on it, I'm very, very busy right now. 

Adobe Photoshop CC2018 on a Wacom Mobile Studio Pro. I've got it in my calendar as taking 2.5 hours. 

Robert Mitchum

Another private portraiture commission, this time of Robert Mitchum. 

100% graphite, almost A3 in size. For a run-down of all the materials I use in pencil portraiture, head over to deviantArt.

See below the cut for a couple of process images:

Misc Sketches

Here are some miscellaneous sketches I've done this year:

Katia, the protagonist in the picture book I did for my honours project in Uni. I'm fond of her, every now and then I dust her off:

I don't know if this girl is hiding or discovering something. It's up to you:

There are more below the cut!

Inktober 2017: Week 2

Despite being horrendously busy, I decided that I would take some time for Inktober this year. If you don't know what that is, it's an October challenge on social media, where you draw something in ink every day. Some of the artwork is amazing, go check it out! There is an official prompt list, and a number of people write their own prompt lists - but there are no real rules, and I'm not following any prompts.

I decided to draw really little images each day - just so I can have ten to twenty minutes working with a nice traditional brush pen, on actual paper, on something that doesn't have to be perfect. I'm not pretending to be up there with the people who do a full-blown, amazing illustration every day. I'm too busy for that, for a start! =P

For my second week, my character was a black raven:

See more below the cut:

The Pirate Stall

'Are you looking to buy.... or looking for trouble?'

Here's a black and white piece I did for my Middle Grade portfolio a little while back. I'd been mucking about with pirates for my nightly sketching, and came up with this little character, who I rather liked. I had fun filling her stall with lots of different wares, and at the suggestion of a friend, I gave her a pet ferret to guard the money. People should think twice about stealing from her now!

As you can see, I'm still working on being sketchier with my final pieces and not getting too hung up on tiny details. What are your thoughts on this?

Here she is all coloured up. It was always intended as a black and white illustration, but I was curious to see how she'd look in colour, so when Colour Collective came up with 'Wenge' as their prompt last week I took that as a sign that I should slap on some colour and see what happened. Wenge is a rather dark, dull wood, so I kept everything looking a bit murky and just slightly sinister. I don't think this girl is necessarily selling wares she came by honestly....

Which do you prefer? Colour or black and white?

Here's a progress animation:

As you can see, this started out as just a character sketch. I don't do fully detailed scenes for my nightly sketching, if I did I'd never get to bed!

Here are some other pirate sketches I did about the same time. I started off with this one, referenced from a photo of someone in the Weekend Magazine. He wasn't a pirate, I just thought he had an interesting weathered face that would be a good fit for one:

I then did this quick little pirate girl:

And finally this character. I see him as the brother of my pirate girl above. They steal stuff to sell on - but to do that you need to know a real jewel from a bad one! 

I did muck about with adding him into the pirate stall scene, but as I hadn't originally planned to have him in there, he really didn't fit so well, so I didn't keep him. 

I used his sister in a recent Colour Collective, which I threw together far too quickly. See? I flipped the image part way through and forgot to fix her eyepatch. 

Adobe Photoshop CC2017 on a Wacom Cintiq Companion 2. Not entirely sure how long it took me, probably around five to eight hours, with another two on top for colouring. I used Kyle T Webster's Photoshop brushes. I'm pretty sure this was done entirely with the Perfect Pencil and Fat Fun Spongy brushes.

Exploring

Here's a new piece for my Middle Grade Illustration portfolio:

This started out as a quick pose study I posted on social media. When there are good full-body photos of kids doing stuff in the newspaper, I often like to use them as pose studies, to kickstart some sketches in poses I might have trouble with, or not have done before.

Here is that original sketch: 

The girl I used as a reference did not look like that, she wasn't wearing that, she wasn't even climbing through vines - but she was useful as a starting point!

I asked what people thought she'd found, and was given the suggestion of 'a tree kangaroo'. I liked that idea, especially as I'd been thinking more along the lines of 'hidden civilisation' (always nice to get a fresh perspective with fresh ideas!), so I ran with it, and just generally had fun making everything really lush and jungly. 

Adobe Photoshop CC on a Wacom Cintiq Companion 2, using Kyle T Webster's brushes - specifically the 'Perfect Pencil' and the 'Watercolour Broad Wash Grainy'.

Algerian Girl

Every now and then I do portraiture demonstrations. People prefer to see portraiture being demonstrated, I find: they can see exactly what I am trying to do, and judge how well I am doing. If I'm illustrating only I know what it's supposed to look like! I've tried demonstrating illustration, but it never goes down so well.

This is one of my demonstration portraits. In previous years I've always done actors and actresses, but I saw a 19th century photograph of an Algerian girl and thought it was beautiful, so I used that. 

I started it for demonstration purposes in October 2015, and only finished it up in October of this year, so I could enter it in a show (I won first in portraiture!!). 

Here are some progress shots, all taken while I was working and posted on Instagram. Some of them are a bit fuzzy, I was quickly snapping shots with my phone between chatting to people, and the lighting was pretty poor:

1.5 hours in:

2.5 hours in:

3.5 hours in:

4.5 hours in:

That was the end of my demonstration time - after that I switched to needle felting.

Here she's almost finished:

Graphite on sketchbook paper 20cm diameter, 8-10 hours in total. If you'd like a rundown of all the materials I use in pencil portraiture, I have a list here.

Here's the original photograph:

Source: Matthew's Island of Misfit Toys

Miss Bear

Here's another recently-completed pet-portrait - this time of a cat! I don't do many cats, my pet portraits tend to be a long line of dogs.

Miss Bear is a beautiful siamese. I was given a few photos to choose from, and chose a pose where she was sitting up straight and proud, as befits a siamese cat:

The background went through a couple of iterations. Apparently she likes to sit by the fire, and so the commissioner (who was commissioning a present for the friend than owns (or is that 'is owned by'?) Miss Bear) originally wanted her sitting on a hearth in front of a roaring fire.

Fire is pretty revolting to paint, so I wasn't exactly looking forward to that, but I was fully prepared to give her a cosy fire... and then I learned that the recipient is red-green colourblind. I did a bit of checking to find out exactly how red-green colourblind people see the world, and found that red appears, basically, yellow. This didn't bode well for painting a fire, where I would be exclusively using red, orange and yellow. I just didn't feel confident that I could paint a convincing fire that would work for a colourblind person, so I contacted the commissioner and suggested a different option - a black and white floral background inspired by the designs of William Morris - lots of nice contrast that would work well for a colourblind person, with a bit of gilding added in to catch the light and liven everything up. Siamese cats are so graphic themselves that I thought the background would work well. The commissioner liked that idea, so I went with that.

Here I'll collate some of the progress snaps I shared on Instagram, and my Instagram Story, as I worked:

I did the draft in Photoshop, on my Cintiq Companion 2 - it just made it much easier to work out the pattern, and repeat areas, without constantly worrying that I was filling in the wrong thing or drawing lines in the wrong place:

I printed out my digital draft and used my lightbox to trace it onto Moleskine Watercolour paper using Copic Multiliners:

Eventually I had everything inked:

I filled in the background with black Ecoline, while Miss Bear herself was painted in Winsor and Newton watercolours with details added in Prismacolour pencil:

The final stage was to add some gilding. I used Cosmic Shimmer Gilding Flakes in Autumn Leaves. This photo shows just how shiny the gilding flakes are:

Here's a video I took to show how I applied the gilding:

Want to see how I do my #gilding? Here's a little #timelapse. I'm using Cosmic Shimmer Gilding Flakes in Autumn Leaves. #wipe #process #gild #gildingflakes #cosmicshimmer #gold #floral #hyperlapse #williammorris #art #artistsoninstagram #artistatwork

A video posted by Alison Mutton (@alene.art) on Aug 29, 2016 at 12:47am PDT

Finally, I created 15 greeting cards using the painting. They were too small to use this gilding technique, so I went over all the gilded areas with different coloured metallic gel pens - not as shiny, but better than nothing. 

Copic Multiliners, Winsor and Newton watercolours, Prismacolour pencils and Cosmic Shimmer gilding flakes on Moleskine watercolour paper. Six and a half hours in total (not counting the cards).

The Little Book of Silly Rhymes & Odd Verses

In January, Ian Andrew contacted me, looking for illustrations for his poetry book, The Little Book of Silly Rhymes & Odd Verses. He didn't want polished illustrations, he wanted sketches that weren't too refined (in his words, 'crude') - a departure for me, but I always do my best to deliver on what a client wants! I sent him links to a few of my sketchbook pieces to check that that was what he was after, and he was happy with the level of detail.

As well as the interior illustrations, I also did the cover and the typesetting. I also did work on the Kindle version, but due to technical difficulties Ian did most of it himself. (Amazon's Kindle plugin for inDesign doesn't work with Creative Cloud, stopping at CS6, the Kindle Previewer doesn't work on my iMac. I did a lot of fiddling on an ancient macbook that still has CS4 on and can just about handle it, but the Kindle plugin also doesn't allow images behind text and insisted on showing them as incredibly tiny thumbnails. In the end I sent the stuff to Ian and he put it together in Amazon's Kid's Book Creator (which I could use, but the preview didn't work. I'm inclined to think Amazon could provide better software!)

I did 18 sketch illustrations for the book overall, plus the cover. Ian was great to work with. I initially worked out each image digitally and sent him a pdf of the book with the drafts in place. He didn't want any substantial changes other than the addition of one more drawing. I then used my lightbox to sketch directly over my drafts on fresh layout paper, keeping things as loose as I could. This was a little tricky for me, as usually I refine everything (probably a little too much) so I worked hard at not obsessing over details. 

Here is a small sample:

This Chihuahua is based on a real one. I was sent photos to use as reference, and it was the grumpiest chihuahua I have ever seen. I adjusted the elf costume a bit, as the original would have looked a bit weird in a rough pencil sketch. 

One of the poems was about the Irish town of Larne. The artist is Larne watercolourist Sam McLarnon who is mentioned in the poem and was loosely referenced from an image by Bernie McAllister - a relative of Ian, which was handy! Ian asked that I use that image for the cover as well. 

When I'd painted the cover and filled the gaps left in the original sketch for the text, I decided that the front was really too bare. It needed something more. I toyed with the idea of various boats, but eventually settled on a few seagulls, just to fill up the space and add a touch more interest. Many of the poems are quite reflective, so I didn't want anything too wacky - wheeling gulls seemed to fit the bill. 

The cover is set in Trajan Pro and Melany Lane (apart from the S in 'silly', I dropped in an S from Recherche and altered it by hand to fit with the other letters. Ian felt, quite reasonably, that the original S was difficult to read.)

Here's a look at the back of the printed book:

Ian was very happy with the final product, which pleased me a lot. I love a happy client! Yay! He was also kind enough to leave me the following lovely testimonial:

Alison’s skill in producing perfectly tailored imagery that matched my words, was a revelation. With a minimal brief she delivered illustrations that were so much better than any I could have imagined. Her work is the true testament to her vision and creativity.

You can buy The Little Book of Silly Rhymes & Odd Verses in paperback or Kindle. Ian's poems are very good, I can recommend it for anyone who likes poetry anthologies. (I receive no royalties from the sale of this book)

Ian has also written several thrillers that are well-regarded. You can find them on Amazon also. 

Portrait: Gemma

This portrait of Baby Gemma has recently gone off to the commissioner, so it's time to post it here!

Gemma was a tricky baby to draw, as she is quite fleshy and rounded, which required a lot of care in the rendering to get both realism and a good likeness - I didn't want her to end up looking plasticy! 

My reference was a bit washed-out, but thanks to the wonders of Photoshop I was able to claw back enough detail to allow me to draw the embroidery on her beautiful blanket (with the photograph at its normal state I could barely see the flowers).

Here is a detail:

This portrait took me 15 hours, and I used a 0.5 Mechanical pencil with a #B lead, and blended with tissues, cotton makeup remover pads, cotton buds and blending stumps. I also used plastic, kneadable and electric erasers. For more information on my portraiture tools, head over to this tutorial. It's an A4 portrait on A3 paper. If you're after a graphite portrait, please contact me via my website for more information, I'm always open to commissions for both portraiture and illustration. 

Illustration: Jane Eyre

This started out as just a sketch, as my default for 'what should I sketch?' is 'Whatever I am reading and/or listening to at the moment' but I liked how it was going, and just kept plugging away at it.

In case you couldn't tell, 'what I was listening to' was Jane Eyre, which was my new audiobook this month, read by the always-fabulous Juliet Stevenson. I'd probably be quite happy if she read all of my audiobooks. 

I'm not entirely sure exactly when Jane Eyre is set. According to the end of the book, it should be set mainly in around 1837-38, but the descriptions of clothes and hairstyles could, at various times, be anywhere in the 40 years before that and at one point she mentions Marmion as a 'new publication' - and that was published in 1808. So I plumped for somewhere in the middle and went with a vague date in the 1820s.

The scene I chose for my sketching was Jane's wedding to Mr Rochester - it is not going well. Plenty of excuse for Drama and Lighting. 

“That—if a genuine document—may prove I have been married, but it does not prove that the woman mentioned therein as my wife is still living.”

“She was living three months ago,” returned the lawyer.

“How do you know?”

“I have a witness to the fact, whose testimony even you, sir, will scarcely controvert.”

“Produce him—or go to hell.”

“I will produce him first—he is on the spot.  Mr. Mason, have the goodness to step forward.”

Mr. Rochester, on hearing the name, set his teeth; he experienced, too, a sort of strong convulsive quiver; near to him as I was, I felt the spasmodic movement of fury or despair run through his frame.  The second stranger, who had hitherto lingered in the background, now drew near; a pale face looked over the solicitor’s shoulder—yes, it was Mason himself.  Mr. Rochester turned and glared at him.  His eye, as I have often said, was a black eye: it had now a tawny, nay, a bloody light in its gloom; and his face flushed—olive cheek and hueless forehead received a glow as from spreading, ascending heart-fire: and he stirred, lifted his strong arm—he could have struck Mason, dashed him on the church-floor, shocked by ruthless blow the breath from his body—but Mason shrank away, and cried faintly, “Good God!”  Contempt fell cool on Mr. Rochester—his passion died as if a blight had shrivelled it up: he only asked—“What have you to say?”

There are three main stages in this illustration. I'm not quite organised enough in Photoshop to keep to just three layers though... 

Here is the initial linework, where everything looks a bit stiff and confusing:

And here I have added some crosshatching to build up the shapes and shadows before adding the greyscale painting:

Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 on a Wacom Cintiq Companion 2

About 10-15 hours, over four evenings. 

Illustration: Gwendolen

I've been doing a series of black and white chapter illustrations for my portfolio, using Diana Wynne Jones' Charmed Life. This is the third one I have completed, but the first one I have blogged about. 

Here's the relevant text, from Chapter 8 of Charmed Life:

She was squatting in the middle of the carpet, beside a sheet of paper. At one end of the paper was a bowl of ingredients. At the other crawled, wriggled or lay a horrid heap of things. Gwendolen had collected two frogs, an earthworm, several earwigs, a black beetle, a spider and a little pile of bones. [...] 

Gwendolen began pounding the ingredients together in the bowl. As she pounded, she muttered things in a groaning hum and her hair hung down and quivered over the bowl. [...] Gwendolen at length sat back on her heels and said, "Now!"

She snapped her fingers over the bowl. The ingredients caught fire, all by themselves, and burnt with a small blue flame. [...] There was a fizzing, and a thick smell of burning. Then the flames leapt up, a foot high, blazing a furious green and purple, colouring the whole room with dancing light. 

Here are the steps I went through for this piece:

Step One: Rough Sketch

This is basically a thumbnail. For personal pieces I quite often dispense with thumbnails per se - I plan pictures out in my head while I'm walking the dog, and then do just one rough thumbnail to check that it works on paper. If it doesn't, then it's thumbnailing time! In this case, it worked pretty well first off, although originally I did have her squatting, but that was ambiguous with the shadows and not as aesthetically pleasing as kneeling.

Step Two: Draft Linework

Usually I will do this step in pencil, as I don't draw very well directly onto the computer - but I have just invested in a Wacom Cintiq Companion, and so I was able to do my draft linework digitally. I want everything to be as tight as possible so that I don't hit any snags while I'm inking. I like this sketch a lot! I think I need to do more pictures just like this - but as this image is part of a series, I couldn't leave it like that, I had to work it up to match the others.

Step Three: Tonal Study

I always do my tonal or colour studies on my draft, because I hate suddenly discovering that something doesn't work when painted while I'm painting. Here I just slapped on some rough tones in Photoshop. It's especially important to do a tonal study when the lighting is so strong and complicated!

Step 5: Inking

I print out my draft linework and use a lightbox to trace it onto watercolour paper, using a Pentel Brush Pen and technical pens (in this case, Copic Multiliners) for the smaller details.

Step 6: Painting

I painted this with black watercolour and black and grey Ecoline inks. My black Ecoline had decided to die on me, going very goopy and recalcitrant, so I was having a bit of trouble with it - because of that, I softened the edges of the smoke digitally after I had finished, as I couldn't get the smooth blends working in the way I wanted. 

As luck would have it, the twitter Colour Collective theme this week was 'Lamp Black'. I finished this painting on the Friday, and was able to post it for that! You can see all the Colour Collective pieces on the Facebook group.

Ink, Watercolour, Ecoline, Copic Opaque White and Adobe Photoshop CC

Charmed Life is copyright Diana Wynne Jones, this is a personal exercise, no copyright infringement intended