Drakestail

My January job was another reading card story for Macmillan/MacGraw-Hill. It was the reason I was 'away' for a while. Feedback for the roughs arrived on the 8th + artworks to be submitted on the 18th = very short deadline. I know non-illustrators are sometimes interested in the process of a project, and I've been given kind permission to write about this one. I had never heard of Drakestail - and when I did, I pondered how I was going to depict the characters, most of whom magically disappear into the hero's pockets...hmmm.
These reading cards needed to be done in a certain way. They have to clearly show the 'action', so that the children can see exactly what is going on. Therefore the colours should be bright and fun too. I tend to use a lot of neutrals in my palette and avoid primary colours. In fact when I do a 'for myself' artwork, I like to be downright gloomy. ('Atmospheric' if you're being fancy). But with educational work like this, I bump the colours up and enrich them with layers of paint and soft colour pencil. Little - if any - shading, but also keeping a tight control on how many colours are used - less than it appears, in fact, as I do a lot of mixing from a limited palette. So I draw a happy compromise in doing something I am happy to put in my folio and giving the client what they want. All the cards were painted at their actual size of 11inches by 13 inches, which is roughly A3.

Here is the rough for card one. Drakestail is talking to his friend Fox. He is off to see the King to whom he has lent money. As with any printable artwork, there is a good 'bleed' round the edge of the actual picture, and the figures are kept well within the main frame. I love doing natural scenes like this, and can never resist putting in some kind of fungi and little woodland folk. The art directions wanted French countryside, alas, not something I am familiar with, so Google image search comes in handy. Luckily, a lot of it seemed to be similar to the English landscape , and I popped in some round castle-y things and turrets, not to mention a lavender field. We have those over here too, but not as many. In fact, Snowshill Lavender is just up the road, and very pretty it looks too, in the summer.

Luckily there were no changes to this first card and here it is cropped, as it will appear in real life, although of course the full work has the extra bleed. I had an almost-disastrous accident when painting this. Just at the point where I was really enjoying myself and relaxing for once, I clumsily flipped a plastic palette into the air with my brush hand, splattering the piece with liquid scarlet. Like toast which lands butter side down, the paint went largely on the pristine white clouds. I hollered for tissue paper, (cue Andy running into the studio with handfuls of loo roll, like a medic in 'Casualty') and with much cursing, mopping, scraping and disguising, I miraculously salvaged two days work...tight deadline remember, so no starting again. The darker splodges beneath the squirrel on the righthand tree (not seen in the rough) are where I painted over the worst stained parts.

Here is Drakestail chatting to his friend River. Further up the road is another friend, Beehive. Both of these had to have faces suggested on them. Fox is sat in the duck's waistcoat pocket. This was quite tricky to draw, and I had a headache with the bridge. Hours were spent on Google, looking at pictures of bridges over water, to get an idea of how the perspective goes. I really sweated over that, and it's a miracle that it actually works at all...

There were changes to be made to this one - Beehive had to be sent further up the road, with more trees added. And although I had suggested a face in River, it had to be more obvious. I have to confess, I liked doing River the least - I couldn't avoid making it look cartoonish, and I'm not very happy with how it is depicted. But it did the trick, and there was no time for titivating. Although the style seems simple, the method of layering colours is quite time consuming, and many of the big washes have to be left to dry naturally, or they get watermarks. I've learned the hard way that it saves time just leaving work to dry slowly and evenly, rather than ruin it by taking a hairdryer to it and risking blotches.

I had thought that this third card would be the most difficult composition; there was so much which had to be depicted. In a job like this you are given quite precise instructions as to what to draw and you have to include everything...but in the end it was, I think, the most successful picture. I really enjoyed the challenge, and hens are always good to do. I also managed to flagrantly break the rule about keeping the central characters well inside the picture frame - not sure how I got away with that, but it got passed just as it was with no corrections. I was relieved, as the air of chaos and drama is enhanced by Drakestail being 'thrust' into the corner, the hens flying off the page and Fox leaping out of the pocket to his rescue. If I'd had to make them all sit nicely inside, it would have been a weaker piece and lost its 'oomph'.

And here it is, cropped. By now I was on about day 7 of my ten day painting workspace. Starting to panic...

Here is Drakestail resting in the Throne Room, after his many ordeals at the hands of the nasty King. I did not enjoy doing this one at all. In the past I have avoided depicting humans where possible. While I have a good technique for stylising animals, my faces have always been a weak point. But the directions asked for Drakestail to be 'surrounded' by villagers so there was no escape. But something clicked when I drew the guardsman (above in the hen house) and after much scribbling, I found a way of depicting them which sits nicely within my style. Which just goes to show that there is nothing like making you learn something than having to knuckle down and just do it.

Oooh, there were all kinds of alterations to this one. Excited with my newly found 'human' style, I merrily filled the scene with several villagers (well, the directions were for him to be 'surrounded'...) I also didn't have an instant mental image of how the throne room was going to look and there were several false starts before I settled on this one. Somehow the river had to be fitted in, so I put it in a bowl. This had to be changed, (rather too like a chamber pot) and I was instructed to have it running down the steps. So the cat moved under the throne. I hadn't been told to put a cat in, but I like to get one in wherever possible, and they are good space fillers. Worse, three of the villagers were to be 'executed'. My rough came back with little loops drawn on the intended victims; I had never seen this before. On asking, I found that this meant take them out of the picture - if only Life were as simple. I regretted removing the girl with the bouquet, but in this case the Art Director was king - or queen - and the lucky survivors had to be brought within the picture frame. Again, I wasn't really happy with the way River looks, and of all the cards, this to me feels like the most rushed. But the job was finished with hours to spare before scanning them in and emailing them to the other side of the Atlantic. I was simply thankful that I'd got the job done without any major mishaps. I am learning how to please myself AND the client, so that I enjoy what I do, and they like the results. In this particular job I feel I've learned some major lessons.
The last week has been spent painting new work for my Etsy shop, and the change of going back to a free rein has been quite difficult - in with gentle melancholy and atmosphere...out with jolly and bright. I've already had to tear one up.


I will be putting up two large works up for sale soon. They are framed and mounted, and are a whopping A1 size in their frames, edge to edge. As I'm having a clear out (and with a looming tax bill in mind), they are a snip at £150.00 each (US $300.00 ). But they would probably need to be picked up in person from Oxfordshire, to avoid large postal costs.