After many a cross thought

I settled in to working again on Starlight and trying to see it anew. Muttering useful things under my breath about publishers not looking at work properly and waiting 4 months to come back and ask for it all to be changed I pulled out a layout pad, something I have never used before, and tried to work again on making a character for the book. The roughs in posts below show the development.
I emailed the sketches to James and we talked at length and it was like getting the best crit you could ever have, the kind of thing I had hoped art college would be like but never was. He is so excellent a person to work with.
Then it was time to wait again, having emailed the sketches to the publisher. So I started painting a dragon. Tell me a Dragon is about 2 years, maybe 3, behind its delivery date, partly because Snow leopard stepped in and was published before it. Now I have to finish all the art for Dragon by October which means a dragon a week. So I painted dragons and waited to hear and then on return from walking the dogs one morning had a very positive phone message from the publisher saying yes, much better and thank you.
And it is much better, more confident, and I wasn't going to tell them that. So now all I have to do is try and translate the sketches into finished art. And finish the dragon.

Thinking aloud

Back to the drawing board again

Artist discovers layout paper!

Good advice

The day got worse and worse as all confidence flew out of the window, so in the evening I took Celia's advice and went for a walk with the cat.

Black holes in the blogosphere

Well, word has come from the publisher re spreads so far and cover idea and the answer is.....back to the drawing board. Oh dear. So, the next few weeks will see how this project progresses, if indeed it does, and if it doesn't then be prepared for the blog to become a black hole in the blogosphere as it is deleted.

Rowing on a sea of stars

So, while waiting to hear whether the book has a cloth spine or not, and which design to do, I started working on the last but one spread in the book. Working backwards!

Cover

Back to work after holiday. Two roughs for the front and back covers. The book has a cloth spine. Waiting to hear which the publisher prefers. James likes both. Back cover of bottom one would be same as above.
I think I prefer the more simple one. Any thoughts?

More sketches

Dummy book finished and in the post along with one spread so time to work on other things and wait for a reaction from the publisher.

In the Dragons Cave

It has taken a long time but at last I have completed the first spread for Starlight. The long picture above and the colour one from the previous post make up the top and bottom of the first spread. Time to do all the full size roughs for the rest of the book now.

Progress

Back to the drawing board

After a long period of absence from this book, partly as a result of working on other things and partly as a result of artists block on this particular project, I have gone back to the drawing board, reading the text, sketching and trying to relax into it.




Sketching is always a bit like thinking aloud and the first stages are very rough, s story board version.




Maybe this time it will work and I will not get distracted by hares and birds, but I have another story walking around in my head too, and have promised myself that I can only settle to work on that when this is more settled in itself. However life sometimes does not work out as we want it to, so will have to wait and see.

Patience

The patience f the publisher has finally run out. I have had a period of time of franticly working on other things, have failed to settle to illustration, have traveled to Paris and America promoting books and worked in schools and done Christmas and anything and everything rather than settle to produce roughs for this book.
So, this week I am off to the art shop to purchase a layout pad. I have a dummy book waiting, empty and blank, to be filled with images and I have to get at least on spread (3 in reality) done for the first week in March. Sometimes I have a real block on work, so here's hoping I can cut through it and produce something that dances in the dreams of a child.