One of the things I love most about art is finding out how the artist went about creating it, and how he/she made the decisions that resulted in the finished piece. Yes, I think there is process to creation. At least for me there is. Call it my Taurus rising and my Sagittarius moon… one loves being child-like, free spirited and creative, and one likes structure and process. Ewwww… the very word give me the heebee-jeebies, but this is in the utmost artistic sense, so it’s okay. I’ll give it a hall pass this time…
So, I’m going to let you guys in a little on my creative process and how I go about making my art. So grab a coffee, get comfy and I hope that this will artistically inspire you.
Ahhh… Planet Harmonium’s forest… this is my favorite page, thus far (for one can never pick favorites for too long). It’s as if spring, summer and fall are all happening at the same time. Since this is a different planet, yet is Earth-like, I really wanted to make the colors a little different, pop and be really vibrant, while adding texture. The picture to the left is my color comp. Here I basically print out a bunch of black and white copies of the page, then I play with different colors for the different elements (in this case the hillside, trees, animals, sky) until one of them clicks in my head… another words my, ‘this is it!!’ moment. It’s an awesome feeling when you have that comp finalized so that you can actually start on the official piece. Doing it this way also helps so that you don’t get started on something and find that your sky doesn’t go well with your other elements, thus having too… *GASP* start over!? No bueno. I like avoiding that whenever I can since these pages can take me 20+ hours to complete!
I use colored pencil for my drawings because I love the way I can add texture to get the pieces to flow and have more movement. I also like it because it evokes that child-like quality of the art, and the hues are so saturated, it really is like a bright kaleidoscope of colors! Here’s another color comp. This time, Planet Harmonium’s ocean…
Like I talked about last week, doing color comps is also a great way to loosen up and get wild with the color before actually committing to your final piece. Hope this helps!
xoxo,
Jen
