Here’s a couple odd bits that were part of the development of one of the illustrations – a chameleon, two ways. Neither are actually how it finally appears in the book, but the process revealed some fun possibilities:
And here’s that little kingfisher from earlier, developed a little further…but there’s still a tangent that needs fixing – where the point of the lower leaf meets the branch. I’d forgotten all about it until I posted the photo. Now that’s all I can see:
This is what I’m seeing a lot of these days – slow-creeping progress bars. Slow progress bars while files open, slow progress bars while files save. Whopping huge files with multiple layers means lots of waiting. Not always something one factors into the time it takes to complete an illustration (also, do not underestimate the quirks of technology, nor the time-sink that is file management & organisation).
At this point, I’m making a second pass at the book as a whole – stuff’s finally falling into place, though there are a couple of pieces that aren’t as far along as I would like. I’ve updated a pdf doc with up-to-date screenshots of each piece so I can check continuity. My workflow and approach has naturally evolved over the many, many months I’ve been working at this, so there are changes in how things start to look and that needs to be reined in. Looking over each page, it’s pretty overwhelming what needs tweaking, finishing etc. Almost paralyzingly overwhelming. And that’s when it’s time to make a list. The list itself can look pretty scary, but somehow, putting these things down on paper allows me to remove them from my mind and free up that space to power the doing. Better yet, I was able to tick off a whole bunch of things on a list I’d made 4 months ago. And even better than that, I’ve got one DONE written in there. And wow, does that ever feel good.
Onward!
It’s so hard to make time. Oh, how well I know this. But, if you can, make some for Family Literacy Day on January 27, 2012. I actually did not know there was such a day, but, there I go, learning something new every day. It’s kind of the antithesis of International Talk Like A Pirate Day, which I did know about.
But all kidding aside, literacy is very, very important. So I’m all for days like this. And making days like this any every-day-of-the-year sort of habit. Read with your kids. Such a small thing, but so, so huge.
In celebration of Family Literacy Day, the Canadian Children’s Book Centre has compiled a list of 50 Canadian children’s books involving the subject of family. And one of them happens to be Catching Time, by author Rachna Gilmore and illustrated me. The list includes books for children age 4 up to young adult. But don’t stop at this list, there are tons of amazing books for kids – Canadian and beyond. However, since I’m rather fond of Canada, and my home province of B.C, here’s another list to explore – it’s all B.C books, organised by region. Abbotsford? Creston? Bella Coola? Williams Lake? Vancouver? There’s a book for that.
(also, Rachna has a teacher’s guide for Catching Time, available on her website.)
More about Family Literacy Day on the ABC Life Literacy Canada website & the Gov’t of Canada site.
A small work-in-progress detail from one of the scenes in the book – fitting subject matter for this time of year.
I’m going to take a couple of days off working on the illustrations to enjoy a very rainy West Coast Christmas with my family. The view from my window today is very, very green. There are even a few blooms on the miniature rose bushes. It’s very unlike the view from the same window in 2008:
Another small part of a page spread, this time with a Malachite kingfisher. And I’ve just noticed couple of tangents that need fixing.
Another little detail from a spread I’m working on. The thin red line is my gutter marker.
Still chugging along on the final illustrations with lots of eye-straining late nights & working-weekends. Here’s a little piece of one of the spreads I’m working on right now.
My boyfriend and I took off on a spontaneous road trip to Portland, OR for a couple of days to celebrate his birthday and while down there we went to see the exhibit The Artist’s Touch, The Craftsman’s Hand: Three Centuries of Japanese Prints from the Portland Art Museum. I have a particular fondness for Japanese woodcut prints, born out of the many hours spent as a kid poring over my grandmother’s collection of books on the subject, so I was thrilled that we managed to squeeze in a visit – it provided a perfect little artistic recharge and the trip gave my eyes a much needed break.
If you are anywhere near Portland, I highly recommend taking the opportunity to see the exhibit. It’s one thing to see reproductions of the prints in books, and a completely different experience to see them up close. I spent quite a bit of time with my nose about 5″ off the glass. Reproductions, as good as many of them are now, just don’t give a complete sense of the translucency or subtle texture of the paper.
I took a lot of iphone photos of details I found particularly wonderful and wanted to remember for future reference, and also bought the catalogue so I can turn to it when I need a bit of an artistic pick-me-up.
The exhibit runs until January 22, 2012.
I’ve inherited my boyfriend’s old iphone 3G after he upgraded to the shiny, fast, new model. It takes crummy photos and it’s really slow and it has always hated me – sometimes it just refuses to acknowledge my touch commands. But I still really like the (somewhat) immediacy of the photo function, and that I don’t have to fuss with big 7D files for silly little work-in-progress snaps. Now I can take really bad photos and add heavy-handed instagram filters to them, further satisfying my love for ambiguous images.
Bonus, I’m also not so worried about getting inky fingers on the thing.
The illustrations for this book are equal parts traditional and equal parts digital assembly. I’m in the thick of the digital stuff but stop every so often when I need to create more traditional elements. That requires cleaning my desk, just to make it really messy again.
It’s freeing just messing around with ink and a roll of rice paper. After trying to plan and figure out details so much on this project, it’s nice to find opportunities to work without a plan, just let interesting things happen, and let the medium lead the way.
There are minor frustrations here and there – like running out a rice paper and finding the new package I bought from Opus isn’t the same stuff as I bought before, and I like the texture much less.
Raven, Orca & Salmon (detail)
Page detail – catching starfish:
