Behind the Scenes of Charlie's Dirt Day - PART 6 - final art

A final sneak peek inside the finished pages of Charlie's Dirt Day...
This image is one of my favourites. It was really fun to work on and until it was completely finished I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out.

I hope you've enjoyed the preview of the book as well as some of my process over the last few weeks. If you want to see more, you'll have to buy the book :)

Behind the Scenes of Charlie's Dirt Day - PART 6 - sketch

This is the last sketch that I'll be sharing from my new children's book, Charlie's Dirt Day. Stay tuned to see how the final art turned out; I'll be sharing that illustration tomorrow.

If you've missed any of my previous process posts from this book, you can find them all under the hashtag #CharliesDirtDay.

Behind the Scenes of Charlie's Dirt Day - PART 5 - final art

Here's another finished spread from my upcoming picture book.

Behind the Scenes of Charlie's Dirt Day - PART 5 - sketch

This scene takes place a year after the rest of the story as the characters are heading to the next annual Dirt Day. The same characters who attended the previous year have decided to come back, but because so much time has passed, I included some small changes in their appearance, such as the hair on their heads and facial hair. The two little girls who met at Dirt Day last year became friends and are going together this year.

You can see from my sketches below that I had to alter my original layout in order to be able to fit in everything I wanted to include plus have enough room for all the text. The final sketch features some of the things that Charlie wants to grow in his garden.

Behind the Scenes of Charlie's Dirt Day - PART 4 - final art

Another look at a finished spread from my new children's book.

Behind the Scenes of Charlie's Dirt Day - PART 4 - sketch

For this sketch, I tried to make the composition more interesting by playing with the foreground. I liked the idea of bringing the viewer into the scene on the left side of the spread with a close up of a bowl of freshly picked tomatoes while Charlie and Mr. Martino made a sauce in the background on the right side. Whenever possible, I like to integrate the text with the image and the bowl provided the perfect opportunity for that.

Because Charlie is so short, my initial plan had been to have him standing on a stool, stirring the pot of sauce. However, my publisher pointed out that it wasn't the safest place to put a little boy, something I hadn't considered when I was coming up with ideas for the spread. I reworked the drawing to instead show Charlie offering Mr. Martino tomatoes from the bowl.

Behind The Scenes of Charlie's Dirt Day - PART 3 - final art

Here's another peek at some of the final art from my next book.

The Character of Charlie was based on a sketch I had done when I was traveling through Europe. At one point, my husband and I were living in Paris and I was drawing more than I ever have in all my life. I did a lot of sketches of children at that time and there was one in particular that I really liked but had never been able to use in a project. When I read the manuscript for Bye, Bye, Butterflies! a few years ago, that sketch immediately came to mind for the character of Charlie.

Both of the Charlie books that I've illustrated were written by Andrew Larsen and his stories were based on experiences that he had with his son. Knowing this, when I designed the character of Charlie's dad for Bye, Bye, Butterflies! I based it on a photo that I had seen of Andrew.

The older man in this illustration is Mr. Martino and he comes entirely from my imagination.  For that character, I liked the idea of an older man with an eclectic sense of style.

Behind the Scenes of Charlie's Dirt Day - PART 3 - sketch

When designing an illustration for a picture book, you need to leave room for the text. This double page spread had quite a bit of text to work around. In my initial thumbnail, I had envisioned the older man on the right side filling most of the page, however, I ended up needing to adjust him quite a bit to make even more room for text in the space behind him.

Behind the Scenes of Charlie's Dirt Day - PART 2 - final art

This illustration is probably my favourite one from Charlie's Dirt Day because I included lots of personal touches. Several of the characters in this spread made appearances in my first picture book, Bye, Bye Butterflies, such as the lady in the yellow cardigan on the left, the little boy pulling the wagon and the little girl in the right corner with the green ribbon in her hair.  I thought it would be nice for the children who were familiar with the other book to make those connections.

In Bye, Bye Butterflies, the lady in the yellow cardigan appeared on the opening spread. I used the pattern in her shirt to reference an upcoming event in that book. Her shirt had butterflies on it. In Charlie's Dirt Day, I used the pattern in her dress in the same way.

The little boy pulling the wagon is actually based on my husband. He used to work for Apple as an iPhone technician and wore a dark blue shirt with an apple on it. I lightened the shirt and substituted a different kind of fruit. I'd also like to draw your attention to the words on the side of the wagon. My husband's name is Dario.

There is a mom in a green dress, a dad in a green hat and a little girl in a red dress at the top left. They're based on my friends, Kelci Hind and Colin Leach and their daughter, Juniper. Kelci and Colin own The Silk Road Spice Merchant and have been extremely supportive of my illustrative career and my previous book.

The woman in the red dress in the top right is based on my friend, illustrator Karen Klassen.

Behind the Scenes of Charlie's Dirt Day - PART 2 - sketch

This image is one that I had in my mind from the very beginning, and you can see from the initial thumb nail sketch below that it didn't change much. Because of all of the characters that I wanted to include, this spread was quite intimidating for me. I ended up spending a lot of time on it in order to fit in everything in a way that worked.

When dealing with a double page spread, it's really important to pay attention to the gutter, that's the part of the image where the page folds. You don't want to have anything important, like someone's face, crossing that line. The part of the illustration that goes through the gutter can get lost once the book is bound.

In the end, I had quite a lot of fun with this spread and as a result, it's probably my favourite illustration from the book. I'll share the final art tomorrow, along with some of the personal things that I snuck into the image.

Follow my hashtag, #CharliesDirtDay.

Behind the Scenes of Charlie's Dirt Day - PART 1 - storyboards

To kick things off, I'd like to share my initial thumb nail sketches and storyboards for my soon-to-be-released children's book, Charlie's Dirt Day, written by Andrew Larsen and published by Fitzhenry & Whiteside.

The first thing I did when I got the manuscript was read it over many times, making notes in the margins and jotting down ideas and images that came to mind. Once I had a good feel for the story, I started to think about pacing, how the story would unfold, and began the process of breaking up the text. I found it helpful to cut up the actual manuscript so that it was easier to move around the blocks of text.

Once I was satisfied, I started making little thumbnail drawings to explore different ways of illustrating each page. Having the entire book laid out on one piece of paper made it easy to see how the illustrations related to each other. I worked on the thumbnails until I felt like there was enough variety to keep the spreads interesting.

There's quite a lot of work that goes into the planning of a picture book before the drawing of larger and more detailed sketches can begin.

Follow my hashtag, #CharliesDirtDay.

Charlie's Dirt Day update

For those of you who inquired about when my next picture book, Charlie's Dirt Day by Andrew Larsen, will be available, the release date has been pushed to Monday, December 15th. A few people mentioned wanting to buy it as a Christmas gift and although I recommend supporting brick and mortar book stores, you can also pre-oder it on Amazon.ca right now :) 

As a lead up to the release, I thought it would be fun to share some of the finished interior art as well as some of the behind the scenes process of making a picture book. I've put together a 7 part series and will post the first part, storyboards, tomorrow. Follow my hashtag, #CharliesDirtDay.

I also have an Instagram account where I tend to post photos of work in progess (jacquelinehudon).

giraffe - finished art

Here's my finished piece for the 'It's a Jungle Out There' illustration show, on now at the EPCOR CENTRE's Ledge Gallery.

If anyone's interested, you can see my sketches for this project HERE, and I posted photos of my painting process below. 

giraffe - sketches

These sketches are from a painting that I just did for the 'It's a Jungle Out There' show. It's the first illustration that I've worked on since I had my baby last July and it was so great to get back to that.

The idea behind this show is that the animals have escaped from the zoo and are loose in the city. Each participating artist got an animal and it was up to the artist the decide what the animal did in the city.

I got the giraffe and I spent quite a lot of time thinking about my concept because i really wanted to take advantage of the giraffe's long neck. I also wanted to come up with an interesting way to fit it into the horizontal format of the project.

I don't often draw animals so it took me a few tries before I ended up with something that I was happy with. My initial sketches were too realistic for my tastes, but I needed to get those out of my system in order to arrive at something more simple and playful.

mixed media experiment #2

pin-up

fall leaves

the edmonton comic and entertainment expo

Last weekend I packed up my family and my wares and drove up to Edmonton for their Comic and Entertainment Expo. As usual, there were tons of great costumes and the event was a lot of fun. It was nice to meet some new people as well as reconnect with the people we met last year.

I also brought my 2 month old baby and was thrilled by how calm he was the whole time, as I'm sure the tables around mine were thrilled as well :)

Thanks to everyone who bought a print, a book or some buttons, and a huge thanks to our friends who drove stuff up for us, especially Laurier (pictured above) and Elyse, who helped us man our table.

mixed media experiment

chewbacca

My take on Chewbacca:

This just in...

I just got my copy of the Chinese edition of my picture book, Bye, Bye, Butterflies!

R2-D2

C-3PO

some press for my sketch club

Once a week (or at least once a month) I meet with some very talented people - at least I did before Felix arrived. They are Karen Klassen, Jacqui Lee, Aaron Navrady, Aaron Sidorenko and Julia Minimata.

We get together to sketch, talk shop, offer feedback on current projects, encourage each other, and sometimes to vent when things get frustrating. I also go because my colleagues are a source of endless inspiration.

This month, Avenue Magazine ran a photo essay about our group. At the time, I was working on the final art for Charlie's Dirt Day and that's what I had brought with me to do at the coffee shop. Although you can't tell in the photos, I was also about 5 months pregnant.

Click HERE if you want to check out the digital issue. We're on page 134.

Otherwise, see below.
(click on the images to see them larger)

boba fett

In the weeks counting down to the Edmonton Comic and Entertainment Expo (September 26, 27 & 28), I thought I'd post some Star Wars themed sketches that I did last winter.

juniper

I have lots of work in my sketchbook that has been building up since last fall, when I started working on the final sketches and art for my next picture book and fell off the wagon with Sketchbook Tuesdays. I'm finally scanning it all and will have plenty to share on the Tuesdays to come.

the cover for Charlie's Dirt Day

Here it is! The cover of my next picture book, Charlie's Dirt Day, written by Andrew Larsen and published by Fitzhenry & Whiteside. 

I worked on this book through most of my pregnancy, including 23 weeks of morning sickness. It was a total labour of love and I can't wait to see it in print. It was originally slated for release in September, but that date has been pushed back a bit. I'll post the new release date once it's been announced.

If anyone is interested, I posted some of the process for this cover below.