Illustration Friday - memories

©2008 Jacqueline Hudon-Verrelli

This is a drawing I recently did in my sketchbook. I think it works for this week's IF topic.

weekend summary

• attended a house party where where my hubby's band played
• bought a cute new cardigan
• enjoyed some sun, some music and some good conversation in a park downtown
• went to the opening of the Old School show at Uppercase Gallery & bought the lovely book
• enjoyed my second private lesson in silk screening (next time we'll actually be printing - very exciting)
• went on a date to Paris
• spent a full day drinking tea and working on illustration projects

Martini final

martini sketch

a sketch for an editorial illustration about alcohol regulations around the world.

what I'm working on...

furniture project

I also re-finished this dresser while I was on days off. I wish I had remembered to take a 'before' shot. You'll just have to trust me that it looks a thousand times better. I love all the imperfections.

summer vacation 08

The boy and I went back to Saskatchewan to see my family during our days off at the beginning of August. I really love going home. I love how perfectly flat it is out there. Most people not from Saskatchewan hate the lack of mountains or hills, but I adore it.






I took Dario to see an old train station near my home town. I did a painting of it a few years that hangs in our home.



My nerdy husband...



On our way back to Calgary, we visited the dinosaur museum in Drumheller. I really liked the fossils - they looked like delicate pieces of art.


It was a pretty laid back vacation - which was exactly what we needed. Sometimes it's just nice to get away from the city for a little while.

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