Parse's Process

I'm a fan of audio books and fell under the trance Davina Porter's voice as she spun me through the story of Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz.


It's important for me to keep all sketches for individual projects in one place. When they don't all fit on a large sheet of paper, gathering them on a disk shape gives me a quick sense of what to pluck out of the lines.

I knew I wanted the boy to clutch his marionette. As I listened to the story I felt them an inseparable team-- even if one was an inanimate object. A cleaned up sketch told me more about the character of Parse and I thought of my little neighbor whose features and size were just right for the character. 

With a little coaxing my neighbor jumped into the role, suspenders and all. 

I used transparency paper to work out values. The advantage of good tracing paper (not the stuff that wrinkles while working) is that it's easy to erase and lines can be shifted as you go along.

I made more adjustments when transferring the image to canvas then scanned it to create a color study. I knew the scene was going to be dark, so the addition of cooler colors helped limit the danger of the characters disappearing into the background.

With the drawing on canvas, I referenced my value sketch to put down a first layer of water-miscible oil using Winsor & Newton olive green.

Here is the final painting of Parsefall clutching Clara.

Carriage Crime

I doodled about with this idea of scoundrel recognition. What would you do in the same carriage car with a recognized felon?

I thought a set of wolves in one of those never-ending forests might be necessary. (You can tell I'm still thinking about the Wolves of Willoughby Chase, yes?)

But then a suggestion was made. "Add me as witness," said the seagull.

And so, I did. He's getting a bit more revision in paint, but this gives you the idea.

An early stage of the painting with some reference.

the final.

Remember the Child Catcher?

I only felt a little better about this character when I discovered that Roald Dahl was his creator. He was a film addition to the Ian Fleming book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and he terrified me. It wasn't just the elongated nose and weedy hair. It was his whole unseemly being--no child should be near the fellow. He'd stop me breathing, and I'd bury my head in my hands.

Piccadilly Peril

  

Inspired by The Enola Holmes Mystery series by Nancy Springer,  I imagined the character of the Lady Blanchfleur del Campo into more contemporary times. The original character disappears into the tunnels of the Baker St. Station, but isn't the word Piccadilly just too fun to say?

In an early sketch I'd tangled Lady Blanchfleur's hair with a partial map of the London Underground.

   

30 Shrieks sketch

What do you do when your oh-so-warm, nourishing library begins to alter itself?

This is an idea I've been playing with for a while - the loss of local libraries as centers of knowledge and community. Some have adapted, many are just disappearing...

I'm a HUGE fan of Joan Aiken's work. A scene from her book The Wolves of Willoughby Chase was trapped in my head when I began sketches to what eventually became Hot Air.

All of the adult characters in this story had admirable quirks, and I had a solid idea of what one of these characters looked like.

Propel drawings

These were thumbnail drawings I expanded on as they appeared to have good ol' graphite drawing potential

This was a cover idea for Propel and has a touch of sepia added to the background

Another thought for Propel

Sketches for 8.5: a Steampunk Anthology

 After deciding on characters and composition it's amusing to go back and look at some initial thoughts:

Final drawing for Steampunk Anthology - I'm a little new to the genre, still feeling my way around... Many thanks to Sam Kirkman for the invitation to join the group. No one's ever referred to me as their 'secret weapon' before.

An initial sketch below:

Sketchbook

I was looking through friend's sketchbook and thought what a shame it was that this part of our work is rarely seen. Mistakes and all, it's very fun. I found these interesting as they act as a visual diary about what I considering to focus on that day:
character sketches,  gesture, hands, fat babies....