Tutorial part 2 - the making of a Wally cover

In the first part of this tutorial, I painted the little dawg. This next bit is the scary bit. The first time I decided to do this, I did think I was about to ruin a perfectly good painting that had taken me some time to do. I can't even remember what made me do it, but I found myself, scalpel in hand, cutting around a character. Happily, it all ended well, and I have been working like this ever since.

Take your sharp scalpel, with a new blade in it (I use a 10A) and cut! I left a few mm around the dog.

 

Scan in and Edit - Place on your photoshop document. 

If you look in the Layer menu, you will see there is a 'levels' option. You can move the arrows up and down to bring your character into focus with the background easier to erase. (Thanks @BeckaMoor, I was listening!)

 Then choose the 'magic eraser' tool from the side bar on the left. You will probably be flashed up with a warning sign that Smart Objects need to be Rasterized, but just press ok.

You can see here on the pic above and below that with the magic eraser, it doesn't get everything. But I use that to my advantage as I like it to look like a layer, not an element of a whole picture. It gives the image a more 3d appearance. The leg I've circled in blue I need to erase a bit more as it looks a bit scruffy, but the red circle I left almost as it was.

 I already had worked on the front cover graphic elements, so I just used Edit - Place to put him in the right spot. As you can see, his legs are sticking out the bottom of the circle, so making sure I chose the right layer, I carefully erased them.

 Here's the finished piece.

Thanks for looking at my blog. 

For further details of my other work, you can visit

www.scarlettinc.co.uk

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.