This is my first master study of one of Stephen Gammell's illustrations. The illustration was completed in Photoshop using several different charcoal and graphite brushes, which I had fun creating, using, and looking for. Some of the brushes I used came from a good free brush website that I have added to delicious. There are a total of five layers for the piece. I moved back and forth on layers alternating between firm and soft pressure choices to get the blended smudged charcoal look and the grass/hair was done with a fine hard charcoal brush with varying degrees of pressure. The grain in the original is due to photocopying from an older book and is not the true look of the piece.
Original
Master Copy
This is my starting process, just getting the dominant sections of color blocked in and a general idea of shape.
In this screen shot I have begun to put in more detail and started refining actual forms for the color shapes.
In this screen shot you can see that I have gone through and re-measured several portions of the illustration and made corrections.
Wow, I really like how you displayed your process; side by side. Good job. By chance have you ever heard of a children book called, "Monster Mama" ? The artwork you copied from reminds me ALOT of that book. Look at it on Amazon:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Monster-Mama-Liz-Rosenberg/dp/0698114299/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274103014&sr=8-1
Oh yeah, that book is done by the same illustrator. He did several childrens books in the 80's through the early 90's and then picked back up again in 2000. One of his other really well known ones is called The Old Black Fly. I really like his use of watercolor, which is his main medium, but he also uses charcoal and colored pencil.
ReplyDeleteAllison,
ReplyDeleteGreat job on the charcoal brush! Do you know how to save out brushes from Photoshop. It would be nice if you could share those brushes through our FTP server.
absolutely! i'll try putting some of those up for people to access
ReplyDeleteWow, I didn't realize the Illustrator was THAT unique...that only one person really illustrates that way. Haha
ReplyDelete