green shoots

I'm finally finding time to work on this and I think this blog is going to be extremely useful for me. Having a space (less cluttered than my sketchbook!) to organise, collate and review my ideas, combined with a 'diary' of my thoughts - very handy. It will also be interesting to see how long I can keep the gardening references going for the post titles!!

My first thoughts for the boy character are above but, having procrastinated and struggled with it for nearly a year, as posted earlier I eventually had to admit defeat. The book wasn't working and definitely not developing as I saw it in my mind, so I have started again. The decision, once made, was something of a relief!

What I have in my head is much cleaner, with simplified lines and very expressive body language. I want to concentrate on the changes to the character's environment as it develops and not get bogged down in irrelevant detail.

My 'Wind' illustration was done fairly quickly and as a very personal response to Wordsworth's poem, Surprised by Joy - Impatient as the Wind. I was very moved by the poem and its expression of loss, and I think that's one of the reasons the image works.

One of my weaknesses as an illustrator (and this has always been so), is my tendency to overwork things long after I should have stopped, losing the immediacy and emotional power of the original roughs. So, now I will try to keep the immediacy for the Growing Boy illustrations - tricky when I've been living with them in my head for so long!

Thumbnail and first roughs above. The devil will be in the rendering of the final artwork! I have to work up one spread at least, to find the best medium and style to achieve what I am seeing in my head. Will post the progress...