This afternoon I finished the second last illustration for Thunderstorm Dancing, which I should add is yet to be approved as the editor is not in the office today.
All being well, I’m now working on the last illustration for the book. I can hardly believe it. Wish me luck!
This is not from Thunderstorm Dancing. This is a scribble-of-joy.
Okay… so this Scribble Cornish may exhibit some slight exaggerations of conformation… but the rest is true :-)
Yes! I have just delivered the title page illustration for Thunderstorm Dancing.
It’s not the last picture to finish, but it feels significant.
Here are some Cornish Rex cats in the grass; working sketches for the title page group.
And a fragment of the finished image. Tommy, bucket in hand, off to play on the sand dunes with brother, sister, dog and cat!
It’s understood that only picture book Cornish Rex cats and Whippets will play on the sand dunes in windy weather with a storm on the horizon.
Thanks goodness for my hard-earned Picture Book Licence. :-)
It’s a funny thing. When this book is finished, there will be tiny little fragments of it, like this one, only about 3 cm long, that I will really like. I think this is my favourite part of the book so far.
It has fat scribble and thin scribble, dancing together. They cross over each other in opposite directions.
I love scribble. And layering. And paint splatters. I wish all of the book were as loose as this. But it’s not.
Onward.
A fragment of a Thunder endpaper.
Prismacolour artsticks are great to use. I’m enjoying the corners and flat sides to get sharp and gravelly effects, all rather rough and imprecise, which is a good thing when you have a tendency to over-detail things as I do, in the context of illustration work.
(a Cornish Rex of course)
Work in progress (a fragment) for page 8/9 spread of Thunderstorm Dancing.
Here’s a fragment of a spread with brindly-blue whippet. (I am so into whippets at the moment. Shame my chickens wouldn’t be.)
Answer… no.
Ha ha. Oh, well. We’re getting closer…
Working hard, drawing and painting Katrina Germein’s picture book Thunderstorm Dancing. I might post some random weather fragments occasionally but can’t show you much until it’s finished…. and I’ll come out from under that cloud ;-) hopefully very soon.
Wish me luck!
The cat is becoming more baleful by the minute. But who can blame it when the only dry place is indoors… but indoors everybody has gone mad with dancing , banging and clanging? I have a vision of it being a sort of smudgy thing in each spread, somewhere amid the linework. So it might be black, if that works.
I think it might have to be a longhaired moggie. If there’s anything more uncomfortable looking than a cat that has been caught in the rain, it’s a long-haired cat that has been caught in the rain. Poor puss. I think perhaps this cat’s name is Thunder :-) That seems infinitely appropriate.
But I am thinking I will give it a treat at the end of the book. I think it might get a delicious fishy. One that was imaginary, but might, just might, not be imaginary…
Is Thunder a boy or girl cat? Somebody tell me. So impolite to call it ‘IT’.
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