Sunday, September 28, 2014

Boy Reading


The change in season always brings a change in routine. Clothing gets slightly heavier, food staples turn from zucchinis to squash and cabbages and things feel quieter for some reason. It's a slowing down from all the rush in summer. I welcome the chilly fall wind and the light rains. It is a great season for reflection.

Back to school days took some getting use to, with schedules filling up with (Julia's) homework, violin lessons, comic drawing classes and swimming. However, after a couple of weeks' adjustment, I'm now able slowly get back to my drawing and blogging routine again. This week, I have limited my medium to the lowly pencil. Unlike my previous pencil sketches, I've purposely kept the lines soft and light on this one. More feathery and no hard outlines. I liked the feel of the result and also liked the texture of the pencil showing. I think the style matches the mood of the subject. The boy seemed quite peaceful enough, reading his favorite book. I also like it in black and white.



Still, I couldn't help but play around with Photoshop. Adding colors in so I could do my favorite thing in "painting" - putting in the light source. :) This was a fun exercise. I think the pencil outline on the boy and the digital outline on the lamp didn't clash too much. It made it more interesting even.


Monday, September 8, 2014

Video Inspiration: Oliver Jeffers


This week's blogpost follows my thoughts last week on the importance of doing sketches as a tool in fleshing out ideas. I keep reminding myself this as I often underestimate my own sketches and also think that it is way much faster (and more natural) to immediately go to painting the final work.

Here are two videos of Oliver Jeffers, sharing his passion and process in writing and illustrating stories for children. They are quite inspiring.

The videos also show that being a great author and illustrator is more than about having good writing or illustration skills. Great storytellers (either by word or drawings)  have powerful personalities, they have a very unique way of seeing the world, they have an awesome sense of humour and an inherently strong sense of wonder about all things. Being an author/illustrator is never about publishing a book (or getting famous or earning as much as JK Rowling), it is about telling the stories we are born to tell.


Oliver Jeffers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-8ydwV45no

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2rm6vrJw3A