Page 56 Redone and My Lens Arrived from Ukraine

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children's picture book, Clip Studio Paint EX

That’s supposed to be a wet kitten.

I bought a lens for my Leica on EBay. The seller is in Ukraine. I’m amazed that the lens could be delivered even though Ukraine is being horrifically attacked.


Page 60 Redrawn -- Jimmy Jay and Dylan Dolphin waking up

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For page 60 I used a simple G-pen to replace the fuzzy pencil ink. I like the pencil-look, but I believe that I’m more likely to maintain a consistent style by sticking with simple ink lines.

My strategy is now to replace my “painterly” pages with simple line drawings. As for coloring, I’m using the bucket tool to lay down the base color, then using multiply and lighten layers to apply the shadows and highlights.

Redrawing Page One

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Replacing the pencil outlines with G-pen ink

When I started the book, I imagined Jimmy Jay and Betty Burro running from the Monarch Butterfly sanctuary to Guadalajara. I got frustrated with the background and decided to just sketch the two of them running and move on. I would come back to finish the page later. It is now later.

My plan is to re-ink both characters, re-color them, and then add a jungle background.

Redrawing Page 31

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I’ve been distracted lately. When that happens, the best I can do is to go through the book and start repairing pictures that need work. When I review the pages, I see that they look unfinished, as if I was in a hurry — or lazy — when I decided that the page was good enough.

Page 31 needs re-inking and coloring — a complete makeover.

Redrawing page 60

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Jimmy Jay is unrecognizable on page 60. That’s him on the left. He’s cute in an ugly way, but it takes a stretch of the imagination to accept him as the real Jimmy Jay. I don’t want the reader to start wondering who this new character is. The corrected Jimmy is on the right.

When I drew this page, I was going through “rough inking madness” and now I have to redo the linework, at least for Jimmy and Dylan. The background can remain rough. I have several more pages that use heavy outlines.

Making a Mess

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I’ve started fixing some of my early pages. In the one above the heavy lines are bothering me. I drew this page so long ago that I’ve forgotten which brush I used to get the lovely texture. I’ve changed my style three or four times i n the last year. My fickleness coming back to bite me. Ouch!

Starting the next-to-last page

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dark ship in the night, children's picture book, clip studio paint ex

I’m approaching the end of this book by drawing the last few pages first. Knowing how the book ends gives me a landmark and helps me focus on putting one foot in front of the other.

Besides doing the painting, there’s a lot of hard work left. I have to put in the dialog bubbles and then put all of the images into InDesign. I’m looking forward to pushing the Publish button by the end of August.

Sunday, June 26, 2022: A Hot Day in Southern Oregon

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We’re having one of our rare 100+ degrees days. Nacho the Pug is having a hard time dealing with it. My solution is to wet him down thoroughly. I’ll take him for a very short walk this evening.

The picture is a section from a TRI-X negative. What I love about it is the grain. This is a straight scan, with no processing.