Class One: Getting Going on my Artwork!

It has taken absolutely ages to get the go-ahead on my roughs for Class One Farmyard Fun. I was beginning to be concerned... Perhaps the publisher hated them. Maybe there would be loads of redraws to do...

I needn't have worried. They finally came back and there was less than a day's worth of changes needed. Phew! I don't know what the delay was, but at least it's sorted now and I am up and running at last.

The first job was really really boring: working out what dimensions to do the artwork (based mostly on how big the final package will be, for posting), enlarging all my roughs to that size, printing them out and then tracing them up onto pastel paper on the lightbox (with all the blinds drawn). Tedious. At least John helped out by cutting all the pastel paper to size, so that was one less boring job.

I've made a start on the pastel bit now. The first marks are a bit scary as I don;t really know what colours I am going to do things - I work it out as I go along, starting with the big 'givens', like blue sky, green grass etc, then making everything else coordinate and contrast. It's going to be a bit of a slow one, as there is such a lot of detail (all the kids in their little outfits...). Because of my Artist-in-Residence work though, I only have half each week, so that will make it twice as long as it would have been. 

A long haul. better get to it!