Return of the Bambini

Sometimes I put something away on a shelf for months and months and pull it out to get a new perspective. If I'm really, really excited about something I'll jump on it as soon as I get a spare second.

This lovely Monday found us the time to revisit the Zucchini Bambini

All my sketches happen fast. I'll usually take the sketches, put them on my light-box and do a final drawing on cold press watercolor paper - for the most part I keep this at 140lb. In redrawing my sketches I work as hard as I can to make it easy (which may seem like an oxymoron, but I assure you it isn't). My sketches happen so fast that I try to keep the final line drawings fast too. I don't call this tracing, I call it cleaning-up or redrawing. If you trace you lose energy - guaranteed. My traditional animation roots really help me keep my head in the right place when it comes to this part of my process.If I keep the drawings happening quickly I don't lose the energy. Because I redraw my sketches and then watercolor on top of the final drawings I don't ever have to worry about ruining a promising drawing when I move onto paint. I always have the unmarred original sketch in my back pocket. I think just the mere removal of this kind of pressure keeps the work fresh and spontaneous. When I first started painting my work I'd go back and redo a drawing over and over if I messed up when moved onto paint. Now I do that less than 5% of the time - if that. Plus, I've grown up a bit and I really like the little imperfections that the paint creates against the paper. I think it makes for richer illustrations.
After I scan my finished watercolors I cut them out with the pen tool in Photoshop. Yay for the pen tool! I LOVE the pen tool. For the most part my deliberate thinking process stops after the illustrations are cut out. I don't know what the surface design I pull together will look like but I know it will be fabulous.
I just kind of toss them together like a salad - or like a vegetable medley in this case ;)
Listening to right this second: "She Wolf" -- Shakira