Here are the sketches I've been working on for the mini-book, "The Seven Ravens" by the Brothers Grimm. I will still be tweeking them a bit before laying down the color for the finished pieces but here is what I have so far.
This will be the cover, text will be added later
This is the scene where the father curses the boys and turns them into ravens.
The girl asking for help from the sun, moon and the star.
The girl climbs the mountain in an attempt to rescue her brothers.
One of my favorite parts of being an illustrator is doing the research. I love looking at photos and drawings from different time periods and being inspired by them. I think that is why I like to choose different time periods to illustrate when I create my artwork. It is a hidden history lesson in everything you do.
Although my Ravens are a bit simplified it really helped looking at a bunch of them.
This was one of the pictures that gave me some inspiration via
So what is the next step? I'm going to make some small copies of the sketches that I have and play around with the colors. Because of the limited amount of pages in the book, some of the pieces contain a few different scenes in them. So whatever colors I use will determine what scenes pop out or fade into the background.
After I've played with the color ideas I will start the painting. This book will be done in mixed media. I will be using gouache, watercolors and a bit of acrylic paint on these pieces.
I will say I love the painting part of the process. It really makes these drawings come alive. I am so excited to get this started. I will post them as soon as they are done.
The next step in the process(Part 3) is putting this whole book together. This will include scanning the paintings, laying the text and adding type to the cover of the book.
