Paper, meet your new friend the pen. Lets get to know each other! This is the scariest part of my book design process for me to share. The sketches are very honest, very open. They are flawed, ugly, primitive and silly. I never show these; they are meant for myself. However, to fully understand my process, I will share them freely.
I always sketch the main characters first. They are the most important part and the rest of the art should follow them. Who/what drives your story? For This Tree is for Me, the answer is Orange Monkey and Purple fish. I will start with them and allow them to inspire the rest of the illustrations. I have a few rules for my initial sketches.
- No color.
- No limits.
- Draw from your imagination.
- No corrections. The eraser doesn’t exist.
- No throwing away.
- Don’t spend more than 15 seconds per sketch
Yes, you read right. No more than 15 seconds. 15 seconds? This is the most important rule! Why waste time? Throw your sketches out as fast as they come and don’t look back. Make a mistake? Leave it, move on. Keep moving. Moving creates movement, movement creates life. Let your imagination fly. It’s the only way you will know what it is capable of.
Following are two pages of sketches (out of a total of 30 or so) I produced.
Fast Monkey Sketches.
Fast Fish Sketches.
Out of these countless fish and countless monkeys, I pulled my two favorites out. I sketched them on the same page to see how they looked together.
My two favorite sketches combined.
Orange Monkey, meet Purple Fish. Now my challenge as an illustrator becomes retaining the fun, fresh, and lively spirit of these sketches on a much larger scale. If I lose that life, I lose the illustrations.
