JOANA MIRANDA STUDIO

Today was blustery and rainy – very much a fall day – and, therefore, also a good day to be indoors illustrating! I’ve been working on my entry for this month’s Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Draw This contest. So it seemed especially fitting to be working on a whimsical children’s book illustration with a “blustery” theme.

My process for creating whimsical children’s book illustrations…

Starts usually with text, or, in this case a word prompt. These days I also try as much as possible to draw all of my illustrations free hand. I find that my art comes much more naturally to life this way. Of course, it’s one thing to draw just ONE figure freehand; quite another to draw an entire composition that way. In this case, I did a very rough stick-figure pencil layout to determine the placement of the figures in my illustration.

The next step was to lay my pencil rough sketch on my light board so that I could flesh out the illustration using the rough sketch as a guide.

Adding watercolor brought the illustration to life…

Meanwhile, to give myself a break (note: stepping away from the creation of a new artwork often helps give you fresh perspective), I created another video for my ongoing Inktober 2019 series of free hand drawings. (I suppose it was fitting that today’s Inktober prompt also matched the weather.)

Here is my interpretation of “wild”:

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