Things have been a quiet on the blog for the past month – I’ve taken some time off from the book to do some money making work to keep the studio lights on/pay the rent etc. Illustrator cannot live off advances alone. Well, at least this one can’t.

It’s two days from Christmas, I’ve closed down the studio for the holidays and am attempting to recover from too many late nights and weekends lost to work. So far, recovery is slow. One word – exhausted.

Part II of the book stage will involve getting reacquainted with inking after many, many months of pencil and charcoal on vellum – not that inking was ever second nature to me. The worst part is steeling myself in anticipation of the feeling of failure brought on by my inevitable inept and uninspired line work, and gathering the strength to push past that to something closer to what I’ve had in mind for these drawings for so long. I’m itching to get back to them – the roughs are all taped to the studio wall and I mentally draw them every time I glance at that wall. I’m not sure there’s anything I find more terrifying than holding a brush full of black ink over a blank, white piece of paper and there’s never enough time to just play and experiment.

Here’s a little ink colour test – the weird snowbally things are, in fact, stars. Or at least stand-ins for stars. Everything’s just sort of slapped in there to give me an general idea of how things might look.

Colour and texture inspiration:

Pushing Off from Shore | (colour test detail) pencil & willow charcoal on vellum with acrylic, watercolour, digital

I’ve almost finished my 7th drawing – but stopped for a little bit to do a quick colour test mockup so I can get my colour process sorted. This won’t be exactly what the final illustration will look like (less gloomy, hopefully), but it’ll be the same sort of treatment.

I spent the last 4 days working on a side project collaboration with friends and that little diversion helped me figure out how to approach the colour for the book. Sometimes taking a little break is a good thing – but it’s hard getting back into the swing of drawing again. I’m on my third cup of coffee this morning – it’s a procrastination/stalling technique I employ when I’ve lost my drawing groove and am afraid to start again (I can’t draw with my hand wrapped around a mug).