My process for creating an illustration for Skink on the Brink

 This has been such a terrific week, with my artwork for Skink on the Brink( written by the lovely Lisa Dalrymple) making the cover of Fitzhenry & Whiteside's Spring 2013 catalogue.  I have been floating without my feet touching the ground since then, which makes for a very peculiar looking happy dance, let me tell you ;)

This illo below is also featured in the catalogue on the Skink on the Brink page( psst see pg 4!).

 I thought it might be fun to show the process of how I created it.

The first step was to cover the illustration board with colour blocks of the background colour.

Yes, it looks like a bit of a mess at this point but it was all about getting the colours onto the board and making sure I had full coverage( for a full bleed illustration). So we have the sky at the top, some grassy hills in the background and some green and muddy parts in the foreground.

The next step was to start from the furthest part of the background and start working forward. In this case it was time to put on the trillium leaves....lots and lots of trillium leaves. And yes, each single leaf was done by hand. That little tool just off to the right is just perfect for grabbing a wee bit of plasticine and, when it is pressed down, it creates a tiny leafy shape. One of my favorite tools. Trees were added, as I continued working forward. 

Many hours later the background leaves are all down.The trees have texture and highlights, to give dimension, and the foreground ground cover goes down. 

Stewie was sculpted off to the side and put on top. Next the foreground trillium leaves and stems are laid on, but not pressed down yet. At this point I know some of the white trillium flowers will be overlapping with the stems to be more organic, so I left these leaves just sitting on top of the plasticine.

Then after wiping off my hands, to get rid of any dark plasticine( as it can transfer to the white, and we don't want dirty white trilliums, right!) I was ready to start adding all of the trillium blooms. Starting again from the back and working forward, I added each trillium petal, one at a time. Next the squirrels, deer mouse(keep a look out for that little guy) and yummy crickets were added( sshhhhhh. they are hiding, I don't think Stewie has noticed them yet?). 

And finally, after some final tweaking, everything was pressed down gently and the illustration was complete! YAY!