Before I had a subject or knew what my story would be, I
began drawing. There was a big snowstorm
approaching and I was at the local BJ’s stocking up on all that stuff you need
when you may not be able to leave the house for a day. I spotted a large pad of plain paper and a
large box of assorted colored pencils. Perfect! I can purchase these items and
start my drawing while snowed in. This
was the start of my book illustrating endeavor.
The snowstorm really never hit, but I began to draw with the
array of colors in the box of pencils I purchased. My first subject was dogs. I was going to draw dogs, a yellow lab to be exact. I drew several dogs using the pencils, each
got a little better each time. However, I ran into an Issue, one of my fingers literally
went numb. I also was not feeling what I
was using was quite right. So I moved on
and tried a few more drawing utensils.
Pastels, I thought.
My husband purchased me a pretty pack of pastel chalk. I tried to make this work, but just didn’t
either have the right paper or just didn’t know how to use these
correctly. I had also purchased some
markers. A pretty pack of water color markers
on sale for use in coloring those adult coloring books. I think I was on to something
here. I was having some success with the markers and was liking what I was
producing.
I decided to purchase a couple of higher end brush tip
markers and give those a try and bingo, that was it. These were Prismacolor brush tip markers. The brush tip gave a nice smooth finish. I was able to blend
them a bit to give some shading effects to my drawings. I started with just a few makers, mostly
shades of gray for my first book The Colorless Forest, where the first few
pages were nothing but grey and white. I
slowly added new colors to my collection as I moved on through this first
book. The collection grew as I worked on
Hanna’s New Skill. I now have a pretty good collection of markers.
I guess I have become an art and drawing geek, because I love just looking at the bucket of markers I now have on hand. I'm now ready and fully supplied to continue work on book number three, The Answer Box, where the main character is a Yellow Lab.
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| Very beginning artwork (RUFF!) Top: Pencils, Bottom: Water Color Markers |
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| Prismacolor Markers (Much better) |
