Sketch-Tinting Tricks with Photoshop

When I have a bit of time, I sometimes play with my pencil sketches in Photoshop. I have recently been tinting my sketches from the Manchester train:

In the past, people have asked how this is done. It's easy if you are at least a little familiar with Photoshop. Why not find yourself a drawing and have a go...

1: Make sure your sketch is RGB, not greyscale, then create a new layer above the drawing.

2: Choose 2 quite different colours. For the sketch above, I chose these:

3: Use Gradient Fill to create a colour blend on the new layer:

4: In your Layers Palette, change the light filter setting for the new layer (where it says Normal): set it instead to Color.

And there you go: Bob's your uncle! (whoever Bob is...).

For a more subtle tinting, that also won't pick up so much of the paper's 'background noise', try setting the light filter to Soft Light instead:

It's fun to try out the various filters when you're playing, as unexpected things can happen. Here are a couple of other immediate effects created by simply setting the filter to Screen and Linear Light:

Also, when I use wording on my sketches, I quite like to colour it in. For this I create another new layer to draw my colour on, and set the light filter to Multiply. I generally try out tints of the colours already used.

I think I like the third one best, created simply by changing the layer order, so that the new coloured wording was dragged between the other two. So here's my final piece:

Merry Christmas One and All

Just to wish everyone out there in Virtual Land (or is it me that's virtual and you guys that are real..?) a very Merry Christmas.

I've not sent out cards this year, partly for eco reasons, but also because I didn't quite get it together. So, this is for everyone from me (it's another oil pastel illustration, similar to the Stars on Canvas one, but on yellow not black):

I hope those of you who celebrate Christmas have a lovely holiday. I'm hosting two separate Christmas Days this year: Dec 25th for friends and 27th for family. Mmmmm, that's LOTS of cooking, and I've not done anything in advance!! I'm sure it'll be alright on the night (I'm thinking calm thoughts)...

For what it's worth, my bit of wisdom for the holiday is: be as nice to one another as you can manage, and if for any reason you can't be with the ones you love, why not pass a little of that spare good will on to someone else out there who looks like they could use it?

From the Ashes...

Remember last week's little disaster with the mini canvas?

I was going to buy a new one, when I was struck by a lateral thought: if I couldn't remove the black pen bleeds, but why not colour the whole thing black and then create an image by removing the black with bleach?

Worth a go: nothing lost, since it was a write-off anyway. I began scribbling...

Except, it turns out the pen is totally impervious to even neat bleach!!! I tried lighter fuel, not at all sure what I would do with it if it worked. I needn't have worried: no impact at all (so, what's so special about bloomin' fixative?).

Then I had another brainwave: oil pastels! I did some tests and they retain their brilliance on black, in fact it sets them off nicely.


I thumbed through sketchbooks, found the little cow sketch above as inspiration, and went for it. I was quite limited for colours, as only one brand was soft enough to work, but in the end I'm really pleased (phew!):

One snag though - how to do the signature? I thought I might be able to scratch back through the oil pastel, but that didn't show up. In the end I found some paper in a similar green and signed that.

I tore the paper for a softer edge, scraped back a patch of pastel underneath, so I could get glue to work, then disguised the edges with more oil pastel.


It's not perfect, but as good as it gets in the circumstances.

Electric Tomatoes For Xmas

Ha ha - that title's got you guessing, eh? You probably won't remember: I'm part of a writing group, The Electric Tomatoes. We're named after a poem of mine, and have been meeting, once a week, for (incredibly) the last 15 years.

This week we had our Christmas bash. We all contributed food (I made king prawn Thai green curry - yum).


Most writing groups are about feedback, but we never bring work written elsewhere: we are simply making space in our lives for writing, purely for fun, and we do it on the spot. We have an envelope full of bits of paper, containing words or phrases as starting points. Each week we pull one out as a topic.

We only have about 50 minutes to write, so no time to think much, which is the secret. It's amazing what you can come up with when pushed, and how varied the responses can be.

We finish by reading out what we've done (not compulsory, but we generally all have something worth hearing, and it's surprising how often someone writes something rather special).

Then of course we go to the pub for a well deserved drink.

Tattoo Update

Gary loves his tattoo design (phew), with one reservation: he's not keen on the section below her chin. He feels the hand looks a bit 'witchy' and he would like to see a little cleavage. Well, I suppose he is a bloke...


I gave it a quick rework, as you can see above.

Now, time is a bit tight this close to Christmas, and hands are quite tricky, so that's my excuse for what you may or may not have spotted...

Yes, because I attempted to do it from imagination rather than life, I nearly let poor Gary have a 5-fingered woman tattoo: I'd forgotten her thumb! It was only when I did this cropped image for the blog that I noticed my mistake. Whoops.

So, I did it properly, and took my sketchbook to the mirror...


Here she is again, with the correct compliment of digits, as well as Gary's added hint-of-boobs...

Good Luck Cassia!

I was sad to hear that my new friend and fellow illustrator, Cassia Thomas, is imminently deserting The North and disappearing Down South. Shame on her!

Actually there are perfectly good reasons, which is why friends forgave her sufficiently to get together in Manchester this week, partly because we fancied supping some mulled wine and pottering through the markets, but also as a kind of send-off.

Though the others were all fresh-faced, disgustingly young, up-and-coming writers and illustrators, they were polite enough to affect not to notice the old bird nudging her way in, and a good time was had by all.

As you can see, we made the obigatory stop at Waterstones and signed our stock. This is Melanie Williamson who is moving in the opposite direction to Cassia, and has already got herself studio space in Manchester (is this part of some kind of Cosmic Illustrator Balance?).

These sketches, by the way, are those I did on the train, on the way there and back. It takes an hour, without too many stops, so is ideal.

Good luck with the move Cassia (get on with that packing missus!) and don't be a stranger. x

Doggy Disaster!!!

Remember my little dog cartoon for the Stars on Canvas project? Well, it turns out I do, after all, have the option to colour the canvas myself. I don't own any acrylics, but thought the textured surface might work with pastels, so I gave it a go.

Things quickly got very messy, so I decided to fix what I'd done so far and gave it a good old spray. BUT...

...it turns out that permanent marker pen is not so permanent after all, and it especially doesn't like fixative, which acts as a solvent. The black bled copiously into the picture before my eyes.

Aaaarghhhhhhh!!!!!!

In a panic I ran to the sink and bunged the whole thing under the tap, which of course didn't touch the black (now quite happy to be water-resistant, thank you very much) but instead washed off a good proportion of the pastel. Grrrrrrrrr...

If it was just the image, I might just be able to do something to make a feature of the effect, maybe, but the signature (important for the auction) is beyond redemption.

So, now I'd better buy a new canvas to replace the foul and useless mess I've created, and start afresh.

Ice Sculpture and Sewing

Last Friday, John and I took ourselves off to York for the weekend, for the Christmas markets. Above is my only sketch I'm afraid, drawn first thing from the hallway window of the hotel, while waiting for our friends.

Apart from the gorgeous colours of the German sausage stall, the market proved a bit of a disappointment, but this was more than compensated for by other lucky discoveries.

Firstly, there was an ice-sculpture festival on. Under fake snow, pumped from the rooftops, York's narrow, central streets were dotted with various glistening creations, dripping in the sunshine.

I've put a few more ice sculpture photos in the picture gallery if you're interested.

My second discovery was at the art gallery: a wonderful Japanese Sashiko textiles exhibition. Sashiko is extraordinary decorative stitchwork, traditionally applied to work clothing, such a labourer's or fisherman's coats, to 'quilt' layered fabric together, for added warmth and strength.

It went out of favour in the 1950's but has been rediscovered by fashion designers and given a contemporary twist, and both old and new styles are on display, side by side. Interestingly, many of the old garments looked very fashionable and I would have killed for one particular jacket...

There was a third find too: York's Quilt Museum, housed in a beautiful old hall which was bursting with colour from both traditional quilts and also some very exciting contemporary textile design.

I got a good way through making a quilt myself, about 4 years ago, but like many people, never quite finished it off (must do that). I treated myself to a book about the transition from drawing to contemporary textiles, called Connecting Art to Stitch, as inspiration.

So, once again, instead of buying Christmas presents for other people, I mainly bought stuff for me. Ho hum.

Stars on Canvas

Yet another fun package arrived with the postman last week: a little canvas, just 20cm square, with a pen, and instructions for me to doodle whatever takes my fancy...

It's part of an unusual appeal by the Willow Foundation, called Stars on Canvas. They raised over £41,000 in 2008, by auctioning off the little canvases.

Artists are asked to draw in black only, whatever they like, then UK artist Julie Anne Gilburt adds colour and exhibits the work in her Brighton Gallery.

I pondered what to draw for a couple of days, continually catching the blank canvas out of the corner of my eye. The pen is quite thick and the space small, so finally I decided on something simple and funny.

Proceeds help provide special days out for the seriously ill and, by coincidence, it was this very charity who treated my cousin Sindie and her family to a wonderful break together in London, with a posh meal and a show, something that I'm sure they will remember forever.


The guy on the left is Tattoo Gary by the way.

The Postman Bringeth...

...my advance copies of the new dinosaur book: Rumble, Roar, Dinosaur! written by Tony Mitton - hurrah! This is next year's sequel to this summer's Gnash, Gnaw, Dinosaur!.

Unusually, I received a paperback copy as well as the hardback. Generally, paperbacks follows 6 months to 1 year behind, but Macmillan have decided to publish both together. The thinking is that, people who prefer hardbacks will still buy them, but those who would otherwise wait for the paperback, possibly losing interest in the meantime, will now not have to wait at all.

This works rather well for me too: I get all excited about my newest books and want to promote them and read them in schools, but the kids can't afford to buy hardbacks (and they're too heavy for me to carry to schools anyway).

As with Gnash, Gnaw, Dinosaur! , this one has big flaps on all the pages, so the two illustrations above are the Elasmosaurus, before and after the flap opening.

I believe publication is in March: I'll be letting you know later, so you can all rush out and buy copies for everyone you know... Oh, go on...

Tattoos and Teddy Bears

My cousin Sindie died recently, after a long battle with cancer. It was especially sad, as she was only young, and a very life-affirming person. When she was well, she designed and made the most exquisite and funny bears:

Her husband, Gary, has apparently been thinking about having a tattoo for a while, and has decided to do it in memory of Sindie. He wants an angel and has been searching for the right image.

Gary found a photo of something similar to what he was after, but it was a bit 'goth': too brooding and dark, very skinny and androgynous, and doing something of an Alice Cooper impression round the eyes!

Which is where I come in. Gary asked me if I would create something for him, based on the goth angel, but making it far more positive, like Sindie.

It's not really my field, but I've given it my best shot, and this is what I've come up with:

It was a lot of fun actually, having a go at something so different.

I started by redesigning the face (I was going for a kind of Mona Lisa half-smile...) and did a grey-scale painting in Photoshop.

Then I reworked the wings and body, keeping the basic pose, but fleshing things out, so the angel was plumper and healthier.

I looked up tattoo techniques to find out what to do about shading, and discovered they use colour a lot. So I converted my painting to 3 tones (using Photoshop's 'posterize' filter) and then tried out various colour combos, until I found a pair that I liked with the black. Things like that are SOOO much easier with a computer.

It was looking pretty good, except for her skin, where the hard-edged, graphic areas of colour were too crude, and much too 'heavy' to work well on Gary's arm.

So I used a very large 'Dissolve' pencil, on low opacity, to get this speckle effect, which helped blend the colours, soften the whole thing up and proved very useful for fading her out at the bottom.

In reality, there should be some fore-shortening of the left wing, but Gary wants the tattoo to stretch well round from his upper arm, back over his shoulder blade, and I'm confident it won't notice once she's in-situ. The ring wing is designed to spread forwards almost to the nipple.

I've just gone back and got rid of that black line, running down towards her belly-button too. It look better.

I've also managed to find a way to convert the whole thing to just black, in case Gary doesn't like the colour effect. I just converted it back to greyscale, then turned it into a Bitmap:

I do hope he likes it. It's quite a responsibility, designing an image that someone will wear so large, and so permanently. If he goes for it, I'll try and talk Gary into letting me take a photo, so you can see it 'in action'!

More Playing With Sketches

The sketches I drew last week, at the conference, were done in semi-darkness, which is probably one of the reasons they are more gestural than usual (not unlike the one I did when a bit squiffy after the party, now I come to think of it, but this time I was quite sober - promise!).

I wanted to try to add a suggestion of the poor light, by playing around with tones and colours behind the linear work. Nothing very serious, literally playing really, but I thought I'd show you anyway.

Although I am rather interested in the energy of the coloured version above, I feel this almost monochrome version more successfully conveys my slight inability to make things out in the dim light:

I'm going to try and get back to some more experimental painting shortly, but getting my hands dirty again with real materials. The computer is great for warming ideas up, but it can make me a bit lazy, because there's no substitute for real, live mark-making. In the meantime though, here's a coloured version of the post-party sketch, in virtual pastels: