Reading Event at the Acton Memorial Library

I recently read "All the Birds in the World" to some folks at the Acton Memorial Library. I also talked about my inspiration for writing the book, did a drawing of Kiwi, and raffled off a book and a jigsaw puzzle. Here are a few pictures.

"Gator Day" Photos, Part 2

Here are a few more photos from "Gator Day" at Boyd Hill Nature Preserve (in St. Petersburg, FL)  that B.J. Lee (the author) and I participated in. We had a lot of fun presenting our book, There Was an Old Gator Who Swallowed a Moth. We did a presentation, took questions, signed books, and raffled off prizes.

Here I am, answering questions and bending my arm.

A raffle winner taking home a "Gator" coloring book.

More raffle winners.

Signing books (and drawing a picture inside).

Here's the raffle winner for the large drawing I did.
She was planning to frame the drawing and give it as a
baby shower gift.

Process for "There Was an Old Gator" Illustration

Here's a little peek behind the process I used for the illustrations in the picture book, "There Was an Old Gator Who Swallowed a Moth," written by B.J. Lee and produced by Pelican Publishing. I created the original art with dip pen and watercolors on Arches cold-pressed paper.

The final illustration.

It all starts with a pencil drawing. I add tone in Photoshop to create
a value study.

Here's the ink drawing on Arches cold-press watercolor paper. I use a light
table to trace my drawing. I mostly used a Hunt 101 nib.

Starting to lay in the background.

The background is just about blocked in.

Building up the animals in the foreground.

This is my raw scan before I adjust the colors in Photoshop to better match the
painting and fix things up a little.

Here's my Layers Panel to show how much I adjust the scan. I select most major
colors (using the Magic Wand or Quick Selection Tool), Feather the selection about 5 pixels,
and then open up an Adjustment Layer. In this illustration I also copied and enlarged the
gator's left arm. Click to enlarge.

"Chicken Little" Illustration Process

I recently painted a scene from the "Chicken Little" story for an upcoming conference. Here's my process for the illustration.

Above is a composite, showing the three main stages: sketch, color study,
and final painting.

I start off by drawing the basic shapes with a blue pencil. I then go over the underdrawing with a soft lead pencil (see below). I can knock out the blue in Photoshop to clean up the drawing (cmd-U for Hue/Saturation, select Cyans and Blues, drag Lightness all the way over to the right). I print out my drawing at 100% final working size and use a light table to ink the drawing.

Sketch.

I find it helpful to do a color study. This one is about 9 by 7 inches (below).

Color study. Watercolor, ink, touches of pastel.

Below is the raw scan without color correction. The painting is about 13 by 10 inches. I didn't like the way Chicken Little turned out, so I painted a few more versions. I know I can always repaint areas and use Photoshop to combine the patched section. And sometimes I'll just start over and call the abandoned painting another "study."

Raw scan. Watercolor, ink, with touches of pastel and colored pencil.

Below are some alternate versions of Chicken Little. I find that I have more options in blending in the patched section if I paint in some background color. I don't want the patched section to look cut-out or have a white fringe around it.

I liked the middle one the best, so I dropped him into the final painting.

This is what my Layer Panel (below) looks like for the final piece. You can see Chicken Little is on his own Layer (labeled "Chicken"). I used Layer Masking to blend him in, then I made a composite Layer (cmd-option-shift-E) and used the Clone Stamp to blend him in more. Sometimes I do my Cloning on a Layer above the patched section. For more on how I adjust scan colors, please see this blog post, "Optimizing a Color Scan." The short version is that I select each color field (e.g. all the green grass), and then use a Color Balance Layer Adjustment. I do this for each major color while comparing it to the original painting.

Layer Panel.

And here's the final, optimized illustration with the new version of Chicken Little blended into the scene. I also use a Curves Adjustment Layer to increase the contrast (and better match the original painting).

The final, optimized illustration (with the replacement Chicken Little).

PBAA Flip Book

I'm a member of the Picture Book Artists Association, and we've put together a fun Flip Book iPad/iPhone app as a promotional piece. It's kinda' like an "exquisite corpse." It's free.

Click here for more info about the app.

Click here for the PBAA website.

Here's a screenshot. Top: David Opie;
middle: Patrick Girouard; bottom: Elizabeth Allen.
Click to enlarge.

"Let's Go, Murray!" Process

This is the basic process that I used for the artwork for the app "Let's Go, Murray!" I am using Photoshop CS6. Each illustration took about a day-and-a-half of studio time to render (after scanning in the drawing). Click on any image to enlarge.

Pencil on paper, with blue pencil for underdrawing.

Scan drawing in RGB color mode. Cmd-U for Hue/Saturation, set to
Blues, move Lightness slider to the right, then do the same for Cyan.
This will drop out the blue pencil. Make sure to select Preview.

Drawing after Hue/Saturation adjustment. I also knock out the paper tone 

using Levels (cmd-L): Click the white Eye Dropper on the paper tone.

I set drawing Layer's Blending Mode to Multiply (see Layer
Panel a few images below). Underneath that Layer I added
a scan of sienna oil paint over gessoed board (and
wiped-out to bring out brush strokes). 

Shadow Layer, painted in a cool gray, Blending Mode set to
Multiply (which preserves texture of Layer underneath).

Lighter areas created by painting a light color on a Layer
with the Blending Mode set to Color Dodge.

Local color painted on a top Layer with Blending Mode
set to Color. This completes the "underpainting" part
of the process.

This is the Layer set-up for the "underpainting." The Blending
Modes that I used for the first few steps (Multiply, Color Dodge,
Color) will preserve the texture of the oil wipe-out scan that is
on the bottom ("Base Texture").

Now I'm adding opaque details on Layers set to Normal Blending Mode.

Here's the final. Click image to enlarge.

Final Layer set-up. I merged the Layers from the beginning
"underpainting"steps. Noticed the masked Layer of haze that
I created to give some atmospheric background. I lowered the
Opacity of that Layer.

Here are some of my favorite custom Brushes, created mainly
by attaching scanned textures to the Spatter Brush and then
making adjustments through the Brush Panel (F5). I generally
use these Brushes to paint opaquely on Layers set to Normal
(Blending Mode). I use the "Conté on watercolor paper" Brush
to smooth out focal points.

Click here to see a preview of "Let's Go, Murray!"

Click here to see my previous post about adding a texture to a Photoshop Brush.

Click here to go to Tiny Tap.

Click here to see an iTunes preview.