Tutorial part 1 - the painting of a Wally

For those of you who are interested, I thought I would show how I went about painting and creating one of my Wallys from the book I'm working on at the moment, Wally & Bert BFF's.

I start with drawing the layout of the page on thin Layout paper, then trace through onto watercolour paper just one of the elements, in this case, Wally. The pic on the left is a colour rough and if you look carefully, you can see the light pencil drawing on the right.

With my Staedler water resistant black pens, I draw the outline of the character. In this instance I have used a thicker pen for most of in, with some thinner for details.

When I'm sure it's dry I rub out the pencil lines and load clean water onto the area I'm about to paint.

Flying in the face of all I was taught at school, I like to mix my paint on the paper, although I do have a rough idea of what colour I want to end up with. So in this case I have loaded some W&N bright red artists watercolour watered down only a touch.

 

And then I chase it around the paper! You never know what is going to happen as watercolour tends to have a mind of it's own (and a close relationship with the laws of physics!)

I like to add water and literally sit there watching paint dry. I remove areas with my wet brush for the highlights and add more paint to the edges and more often than not splodge drops of water onto large areas to give texture. Although it looks like he has a fatal case of smallpox, I know it will look different when dry.

While the head is still wet, I have added some W&N Brown Madder to the area around his eye and ear tip...

and some Vandyke brown. I keep going until I'm happy.

And here he is with his lower half attended to and he's now mostly dry. The intentional (ahem) mistake I made was to forget the waistcoat texture, so I did that after he dried and before I started to colour it.

I love sparkly stuff, so for the waistcoat I used Daler Rowney Pearlescent Liquid Acrylic, Macaw Green, a little splash of pinky red for the bone. As you can see, the 'smallpox' effect has disappeared and he's now ready for the next stage, which will be in part 2.

 

The birth of a lovely thing...

Caw blimey, at long last it's SCORCHIO! The dogs are busy baking their little brains dry while Mr M is whacking posts into the new studio site, in preparation for the structure to go up. I can't wait to have somewhere proper to work, after all these years of working here... (yes, that is the end of my bed)

 and here... (yes, that is a 3ft cubby hole where no light can possibly reach)

 I will soon be working from here....

Obviously, by soon, I mean hopefully by Christmas. 

I accidently had quite a lot of time off illustrating following the arrival of the two younger M's. How I laugh now at my naivite, thinking I might take 3 months off after having number 1. Surely, I could work while rocking his baby chair with my foot, couldn't I? So 3 months turned into 7 years, but when number 2 started nursery, I bought a table and got the brushes out again. 

Actually, it did me a favour. Much as you need to stand back from your painting to see it properly, I found standing back from my techniques made them come into focus. I saw what I liked doing and what I was good at, and found ways around the things I found difficult. Thus working in layers was born, and later, working much more with the help of my digital friend.  So the time off wasn't wasted, it was like waiting for the strawberry jam to set.

This week I have been entertaining the small M's who are having rather too much fun, and have started story number 5 for the Red Wellington's series which is a slightly animated gang of stories. I have also been pouffing up Wally and Bert, who came back with their tail between their legs (that'll be Bert between Wally's legs - all will be revealed) after being returned from an agent. Luckily tomorrow it is going to rain, so I'll be able to concentrate fully on the poor little fellas, as they are feeling like they've been chucked out of Britain's Got Talent. Rock on Wally!

This afternoon I have been squeezing and squashing some pics into an email to Rob at www.literacyshed.com as he is very kindly going to make a photostory of Vincent. What a fab resource for all things literary and thank goodness for Twitter, without whom I would never have known about the literacy shed. Go on, follow the link and have a look for yourself.

In other news from Scarlett Inc Heights, I've been having a first, second and third go at the front cover for Wally and Bert. Comments welcome!

 

12th Wedding Anniversary

What a difference twelve years makes!! 

At this time on 8th July 2000 I was having a nervous breakdown because my hairdresser had decided to go AWOL and did not turn up to pouf my hair in time for my wedding. I had to comb the twigs and stuff out by myself.  I was however, wearing a gorgeous pale gold wedding dress and holding my 10 month old 'Phil Mitchell-alike'. At the allotted time I was waiting outside with our guests, getting worried that my husband to be was late, when in fact he was waiting inside wondering why I was late!!

It turned out to be a lovely day with my Dad and my dear Uncle in attendance, both of whom are now no longer with us and great fun was had by all. We nicked off at 4pm with the rest of the chocolate wedding cake and managed to eat most of it with 'Phil' which looking back on it, was probably the catalyst for our son's love of all things sweet. 

The picture is of me on my wedding day (left) and by contrast, me today, dressed in winter hat, winter coat, DM boots and Wallydog with his winter coat on too.

And here, you can see how 'Phil' has now changed into 'Long haired nearly teenager attached to electric device at all times', along with the smaller version 'Chick Magnet'.

 

We're off to get something nice to eat and then to settle in front of the tv to watch Andy Murray either WIN Wimbledon (Well done Muzza) or lose to Rog, (Bad luck, Muzza). That covers all bases, doesn't it?

Wally and Bert

I went to meet the very nice owner of Babushka books in Shanklin today. He has kindly agreed to stock Vincent and Royal Fleas; thanks Reuben! What a fab bookshop too - loads of interesting finds.

Last night I tweeted that I had been drawing weird shoes, hoovering the dog and shovelling foundations for my new studio. The latter may have been a slight exaggeration, however I had a really nice tweet back from @laurathisgirl saying that it was her best tweet of the day. So here are the shoes! This is the first two pages of my new book.

Royal Fleas

Just a few spreads from Royal Fleas to whet your appetite!

Front Cover

Each year, the Queen stops at Little Burpingham.

Sophie writes to the Queen to mention the Corgis' fleas!

Mr Horatio Flowers-Simkinson does his least favourite job.

A Day of Amazingness...

I spent the day in London yesterday at the Association of Illustrator's Children's Book Event, bathing in the glorious creativity of some really wonderful illustrators. On the one hand it was inspiring to be around such gifted people, on the other hand it made me feel a wee bit intimidated and on the other other hand, it gave me much motivation to find a cure for Procrastinitis and get on with producing some really good work.

I met Tony Ross (Little Princes, Horrid Henry) who has illustrated an astonishing 2000 books since 1976; he very kindly signed my copy of The Pet Person and drew me the dawg!

I also met Alex T Smith of Claude fame, who is currently one of my most favourite illustrators and thoroughly nice chap! We chatted about the merits of chihuahuas as we both have a duo and it transpires that the mad behaviour I have experienced with my two is quite normal.

So, back to the drawing board with my next book and onward with the building of the Groovy Studio.