I'm slowly getting back into doing a bit of art after spending the summer in the workshop playing with my lathe. I've been doing a bit of doodling to try and loosen up my style. Trying to do realistic drawings is all very well and I've done a few of those, but now it is the time to cut loose.
But why, you may ask? The thing is, my wife has written a book that needs illustrating. It is called The Whoots and is all about some tiny creatures, funnily enough called Whoots, that live in a large garden.
Anyway, the book was written for a bit of fun to see if she could make up a plot and deliver a good story. I'm pleased to say that she managed a very clever plot very well and came up with a great little story. Sometimes things work out better if they are done just for the sheer fun of it. The book was never about making any money, so when it came to the illustrations there was no way she was going to pay anybody proper to do the job. So now you know how I finished up with the task.
Having never illustrated a book before I didn't quite know where to start, so I read through the book and imagined which bits could do with an illustration to help the reader along. I now have a list of pictures that I need to draw. That was the easy bit, however, I have a feeling it will get harder once I get into trying to draw the actual Whoots.
To give you a taster here is the first sketch I have done. It is supposed to depict the place where the Whoots live, which is in an hestimonium bush at the bottom of the garden.
This is just my first sketch done in pencil and then pen and ink on ordinary drawing paper. The next stage will be to transfer the image to some Bristol board so that I can do some watercolour painting on it.
In my next post I hope to show you my first finished illustration.
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