Joe

Today I've been experimenting. I'm not entirely sure what I've discovered, or how useful it's going to be, but I've had fun, anyway.

Last year I started on a calendar project that had to be done in two sections: the cover and one page before Christmas, and the remaining 11 pages after Christmas. I started off painting it all rather traditionally, but then started on the Cornish project in the middle, and discovered a whole new way of drawing out my characters, ie with a dip-pen. Of course, I then cursed the way I had started drawing out the calendar project, but, having already done the first part, had to continue in that same style for the rest of it.

So, what I suppose I am doing here is trying to come up with a way of drawing my characters with the dip-pen like in the Cornish project, and then finding an interesting way of putting together an image that isn't necessarily all painted by hand.



(The singular image at the top didn't come up in the mosaic, for some reason. It should be bottom left. Tsk.)

In the top left image is the original character of Joe I painted last year, and the rest are today's experiments with line, colour and texture. I put everything together in PhotoShop, with scanned textures and the watercolour sections.

I'm REALLY liking the orange versions. Reminds me of 60s kids' illustrations. Maybe these could be good as screenprints? Particularly with the use of only two colours.

So, I think my next step is to take this approach and try a whole illustration with it. My portfolio is full of characters on white backgrounds, so I definitely need to come up with a way of making an interesting background that isn't just white! Maybe if the characters are drawn in the fairly heavy ink, then the background could be outline-less?

Hmmmmm........