Final illustration of teen girl

Illustration process from start to finish

I really enjoy seeing how other illustrators work and I especially like to see the process behind their illustrations. I've posted a lot of my sketches and painting process in the past, but I've never shown all the stages that I went through to get to those sketches. Here's all of my process for an illustration I did this month.

Usually when I'm illustrating an article, I read the article and then come up with ideas on how best to illustrate it. With this assignment, the art director already knew what she wanted for the illustration. My task was to draw a teen girl sitting with her chin in her hand, staring off into space with a dreamy expression like she was in love.

I read the article and made some notes and thumbnail sketches about thing to include, colours that came to mind, possible positions for the girl, angles, settings, etc.


Once I had an idea of what I wanted to do, I got my husband to pose and I took some reference shots. Then I did several sketches, most of which I was unhappy with, but one of which I liked. I was especially happy with the way her expression turned out.



I then scanned my sketch, played with how it was cropped, and placed it in a couple of different settings. I chose 4 different versions to send to the art director.


She liked my sketches and chose #4, but requested a few changes. The main thing was that the girl needed to look younger and she needed to be less thin. Since this illustration is for a magazine aimed at teen girls, I absolutely agree with the art director. I just really like drawing skinny arms on people so it didn't even cross my mind.

I made all the changes that she requested and sent her a new sketch.



The art director loved the final sketch. She just asked me to raise the branch a bit higher on the page then I could go ahead and paint the final.

I knew I wanted to keep the colour scheme simple and vibrant. I also had a pretty good idea of what colours I wanted to use, so I tried some variations.


I'll post the final tomorrow.

colour blobs

Tuesday night sketch group

Last Tuesday I got together with some fellow local illustrators and artists for our first gathering as a sketch group. I think it will be a great way to get me drawing more regularly. And it's always inspiring to get together with like-minded people. Great idea, Karen.

Lately I've been really interested in the way fabric folds and gathers so I was mostly paying attention to that with my sketches on Tuesday. I think it adds a lot of interest to my drawings when there's attention paid to the way fabric behaves. And, as usual, I'm also interested in disproportion.





Sometimes interesting things happen when you're not trying too hard... and sometimes it just looks like you didn't try :)

Backstage at the Calgary Folk Fest

Last night, Thursday the 24th, I had the most amazing musical experience. Because Dario and I did that article about The Weakerthans for the July issue of BeatRoute (I had mentioned it here), we were offered free passes to the Calgary Folk Festival for Thursday night. The line up featured Master Musicians of Jajouka, The Weakerthans, Aimee Mann and the Sam Roberts Band. When we got to the festival, we were just expecting a regular wrist band, but we were directed to the west entrance where we were met at the gate and brought to the media tent to pick up our media passes. It was so unexpected - I couldn't believe it when the lady brought us in through the back. We were free to wander around back stage. Back stage.

The Weakerthans had just started to play when we got our passes so we headed over to the stage in a daze. I couldn't believe I was watching my favorite band from right next to the stage. I had the biggest stupidest grin on my face the whole time. There weren't even many people standing there watching - 5 to 10 at any given time. It was great. A little while after their performance was over I got to meet Stephen Carroll and chat with him. But then security made him go back into the private area for musicians because he was drinking a beer. I was glad to talk to him since he was the guy I had interviewed by phone and he remembered me too. I also got to talk to Christine Fellows, John K.'s wife, who is a really cool musician too. I actually just recently discovered her stuff and really like it. She was great, really friendly. She and I have almost the same wedding band - she's not into diamonds either.

I was hoping to meet John K. Samson, but I didn't see him hanging out in the media area. I only saw Sam Roberts from a distance. I did get to talk to the singer for the Great Lakes Swimmers. And the guys from Bedouin SoundClash were standing right next to Dario and I at one point. It might not sound like much, but I've never been in the presence of so many cool musicians before. I felt really fortunate and was really just in awe of the situation the whole time. I'm still smiling from the experience.

Andrew - drums

Dario - guitar, vocals

Weird Italian guy.
Also my husband of 1 year.
Yesterday was our anniversary.

Ben - bass

Ben has a great beard. I liked drawing it.

Cian - guitar

It's pronounced 'Shawn.' I've never seen it spelled like that. Very cool name.

flowering vine?

This is the 5th summer that I have had a honeysuckle vine in my flower garden. This is the first summer that it has flowered. I am very pleased:)

Pretty earings

Although I've been familiar with Etsy for a while (my friend Karen has stuff on there), I had never actually shopped on it for anything. A couple of weeks ago I was looking for a vintage locket, decided to check on-line, stumbled onto Etsy and found so much cool and affordable hand made treasures. I don't even usually wear earrings but I was so taken by how pretty and delicate this pair from Timeless Treasures was that they were my first Etsy purchase. They just came in the mail today - I love them.

July update

I have no images to post at the moment, but I will have some soon as I have several projects on the go. I'm doing a series of portraits for my husband's band, Ahnabith Gish, that they hope to use on their new album. I've completed 3 of the 4. I'm very happy with the first 3 - there's a pretty good resemblance - but the fourth guy is proving to be more of a challenge. I took some more photos of him the other day and with a fresh perspective I am confident that I can pull it off.

I'm also collaborating with the guitarist from the band on the art for the front of the album. He draws and did a really cool sketch, but doesn't know how to finish it. So I'll be painting his drawing. I've never done that before so I'm excited to see how it turns out.

I also just got an editorial assignment for a magazine that I've been wanting to do work for for years. I'm very excited about this one. It's a direct result of a promo mailing I did in May. It's really nice to see your promos (all the time, effort and money) actually pay off and attract some work. I'm a happy happy girl.

On an unrelated topic, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to interview my favorite band on behalf of my husband this month. He writes for Beat Route Magazine and was doing an article on The Weakerthans. Unfortunately, with them being in Europe on tour it was hard to find a time to talk with them. Because my husband had to go to his day job and was unable to do a phone interview at the only time the band was available, I did the interview for him. I got to talk to guitarist, Stephen Carroll, and he was very nice and very cool. I feel really fortunate - how many other people have the opportunity to talk with a member of their favorite band? You can read the article in this month's Beat Route or right here.

And now I'm off to do some sketching...

Printed CD

I finally got a copy of the CD that I designed and illustrated. It got printed at the end of April, so I've been anxiously waiting to see it since then. I never got to see a physical proof, so I was really hoping that the colours would turn out. I'm pretty happy with the printing. It turned out alright.





The photographs were taken by my friend, local photographer Wes Raymond. Thanks Wes :)