My watercolor paintings are small, intimate, like bed-time stories. For book illustration I work between 125 – 140% of final printed size. Usually, I start with a thumbnail drawing from my storyboard. I import the tiny drawing into Photoshop, crop it and enlarge it until I find a good composition and focal point. Sometimes I paint a value study with a soft digital paintbrush to establish the lights and darks.
This is the thumbnail drawing I started with. As you can see, not much to go on here except the basic idea. I re-drew this full size.
I trace the drawing with tracing paper and a marker. Using a light table, I trace the final drawing again onto watercolor paper keeping the lines very clean. I use a hard pencil so the graphite won’t run when I soak the paper.
full-size tracing paper drawing
I’ve tried Arches, Saunders, Waterford, Richeson, Fabriano – cold press watercolor papers and Arches 140 lb. is always the best all purpose paper. I soak the paper, stretch it, and let it really dry before painting. I like how the paper accepts the paint with some of the sizing removed during soaking. I’ve figured out a way to set up a big tupperware type container on the kitchen sink to soak the paper in. The bathtub works, but there was no work surface for the drawing board. I experimented with the brown kraft paper tape. Sometimes it would work perfectly and other times, disaster. So, I’ve started using staples. The paper stays put and dries to a tight drum.
Next, I paint the shadow areas using Carbazole Violet and then the highlights with Aureolin yellow.
These colors stain and then allow for layers of transparent color on top. This serves as an under-painting to help with the values. The colors and details unfold gradually as I layer transparent color allowing the white of the paper to shine through creating a glow.
Drop me an email and I will send you a screensaver of this painting for your computer desktop.