Sketching my way to a new illustration

Sketching is close to my heart. It's where I allow myself to explore concepts, be kind on myself with the mistakes and (hopefully) create a new illustration that will see the light of day. 

For about six months or so I have been toying with a new series, but only in my brain. The idea grew claws though, so I had to put pencil to paper and try to bring my ideas (which look amazing in my head) to life on paper. I find this the most difficult part because I tend to lose courage if the sketch comes out no where near how I see it in my mind. I am ecstatic to share that this time, the sketches have come out okay, and I am prepared to share them with you! 

As you can see from the above image, this new series of paintings will be of New Zealand birds featuring a gem on their backs that correlate to a birth month. I am exctied for this series as I am going to lean a little more into my whimsical tendancies, rather than realism - fulling giving over to a style of art that feels most natural for me.

Right... so I have an idea down on my sketch book. I have paired up all the birds with their gems, visualising the colours of their feathers and how it would look paired with each gem. Now to get a little more serious... 

I do not consider myself a "traditional" artist. I use techniques that are modern and as you may have seen in my previous work, I do not solely work with watercolour. My techniques are learnt rather than taught so I may not approach things conventionally, or paint with the correct technique. I crave this "freedom" though, and in a world where online people have a tendancy to strike down those out of the norm, sharing the inner workings of how I create a concept for a new painting is a mental and emotional challenge. My art is my therapy, so I reiterate again that sharing this with you is highly personal. 

Down to business:

I have sketched the concept on paper, trying out some variations until it feels "right" and now I need to get the concept ready to add to my nice watercolour paper. Enter the iPad and my most favourite app, Procreate!

I am very familiar with birds (if you couldn't already tell) and so I am practised with their basic shapes. But, it I were to work with any other animal I always start with their basic shapes. 

Looking closely at this image your can see a red line in varying shapes. Each of these are created individually, and if you know a little of how Procreate works, you can have layers that you can individually move around. I keep each shape on it's own layer so I can duplicate, delete and move individual pieces around my canvas. This allows me to get the basic concept down in one go and aligned to the page correctly. Then, creating a new layer, I begin my sketch. You can see how rough this is, it's where I play with shape, adding small characteristics to the bird like a little fluff above its beak or mused feathers at the back of its head. I do use reference photos, mainly for colour placement of the feathers and to get an accurate idea of how its wings and tail sit. 

At this stage, it's make or break. If I can't get the idea to work here it usually gets "heaped on the trash pile", put in the "too hard basket" - what ever euphemism you want to use. BUT this idea has made it! So what's next? 

After sketching out 11 more of these digitally I am ready to print these out on plain paper.

And now? I trace these onto my watercolour paper, adding more details before cementing the illustrations with ink. 

Stay tuned for my next blog post detailing the next stage of these paintings. 

Thank you for ready! If you have any question feel free to reach out - it's just me, and love hearing from and elightening my wonderful community of artist and art lovers. 

Until next time, 

Leah xx