Robert's Snow- final snowflake

Once I got home from Monhegan, I decided to turn the scene into a sunset. Here's how it turned out:

Robert's Snow- snowflake in progress

A few weeks ago, My family spent a few days on Monhegan Island, off the coast of Maine. I was late on my deadline for Lady Liberty (which I finally finished yesterday, which is why I'm finally getting around to posting something on my blog), and spent some of the time working. Here's what my makeshift studio looked like:
On the last day, I started working on my snowflake for Robert's Snow. I got up early, and set up my easel here:
It had been sunny all week, but as soon as I set up my easel, it started to pour. I was working in watercolor and gouache. As you might imagine, watercolor doesn't really work in the pouring rain. So I went back inside. After a little while, the rain stopped. I went back out, but decided to stay right on the deck, in case it started raining again.
I chose this view, looking across the water at Manana Island. I thought the branches of the two trees would work well with the shape of the snowflake. First I penciled it in:
This is what it looked like when it started to rain again:
I decided to finish it up at home.

Illustration in Progress- Robert's Snow

This is where I usually work:
But for the next few days I'll be working about a hundred yards from this spot:
I'm heading up to Monhegan Island, off the coast of Maine, for a family vacation. There are no paved roads, only a few cars, beautiful views in every direction, hiking trails, and everywhere you go, artists are painting. It's a very inspirational place.

We went to Monhegan for a few days last summer, and just like this summer, I had a book due in August. So I set up a makeshift studio on the deck of the house where we were staying. And while other artists painted seascapes and landscapes and sunsets, I painted an illustration of knights riding into battle, for Iron Hans.

We're staying in the same house this summer, so if the weather's nice, I'll spend some time painting on the deck, working on an illustration for Lady Liberty. I also plan to spend a few hours working on my snowflake for Robert's Snow 2007. If you're not familiar with Robert's Snow, it's a wonderful program set up by author-illustrator Grace Lin, where hundreds of illustrators design their own snowflake ornament, and all the ornaments are auctioned off in December to raise money to help cure cancer. Here's my snowflake from the most recent Robert's Snow.

This year, I'm going to paint my snowflake on Monhegan. Maybe the view from the deck, maybe I'll wander around a bit and find some different view to paint. I like the idea of someone putting this ornament up on their Christmas tree on a cold winter day, knowing that it was painted on a beautiful sunny day on an island in Maine.

Anyway, here goes. This is what the snowflake looks like now. That's a 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper, just to give you a sense of scale:
My first step is to paint it with a couple coats of Gesso. For those of you who don't know what Gesso is, it's basically just cheap white acrylic paint. Here it is after the Gesso:
Now I'll pack it up, and take it to the island. I'll take pictures as I'm working on it, and post it once I'm back from Monhegan. We have no electricity there, so no blogging from the island.

Lady Liberty Illustration- Day Four

There, I think it's done. I'll keep it taped to the board for a while, just in case.

Lady Liberty Illustration- Day Three

Lady Liberty Illustration- Day Two

Here are a few pictures I took while I was working today. First I worked mostly on the foreground details, then started building up some of the clouds of smoke, going over everything with light washes, working from light to dark.

Lady Liberty Illustration- Day One

First I traced my sketch onto watercolor paper (Arches 300 pound hot press) using a light box. Then I lightly penciled in the illustration. I do this part with hard graphite, which works well because once I start painting, those first pencil lines are so light that they pretty much disappear. Of course, this part of the process might not make for the most entertaining blog post, since the lines are barely visible. Anyway, here it is. If you look very closely, you can see the pencil lines.

It's all penciled in, then taped with masking tape to a wooden board (so the paper doesn't buckle while I'm working on it). I also tape the edges of the picture, so when I'm done, the picture will have nice clean edges all around. This isn't really necessary, but it's strangely gratifying to rip off that tape at the end of each illustration. Somehow, I don't really feel like it's done until I rip off the tape.
Then I started painting. I'm starting each illustration in this book with a brown underpainting. Then I build on top of that with color. I go from light to dark, working all over the picture. I try not to focus on any one area for too long, especially at this early phase, when I'm trying to build the overall composition. Here's how far I got today:

And here's a shot of my whole drawing table, with paints on the right, my picture in the middle, and a bunch of reference photos scattered around.
Tomorrow I'll keep working on the underpainting, then start building up some color. Again, if you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear them.