Thinking About the Illustrations

Now that I've completed the first draft of my Milkweed Manor manuscript I've begun to think about the illustrations and I'm realizing what a challenge they will be - harder, I think, that any visual art I've done before.  That's because the same characters will appear in several illustrations and each time must be recognizable as an individual.   Also, there will probably be a need for more "action" than I usually do.  I typically gravitate to very still and balanced compositions.

So what I've decided to do is devote a chunk of time to each character in turn.  The first will be the main character, Colwyn the rat.  What I'm going to do is as many drawings of rats as I can until I really understand the way they're put together - the head and body shapes, length and thickness of tail, size and shape of ears, eyes, and nose, how the hands and feet work.  Then I'm going to define Colwyn's "look" and do several sketches of him in various positions, developing not only his appearance in a recognizable way, but also his personality as expressed in his face and body language.

This is a very tall order, but a great exercise in growing as a visual artist.  I'm looking forward to starting, which actually happened Thursday but will continue tomorrow and through the week.  I'll be scanning and posting the drawings.

Here's a little ceramic piece I did of Colwyn a few weeks ago.