The Book of Drawings. Illustrations experiments

For my book I wanted all the illustrations to match but I wasn’t sure how I wanted to achieve this. I knew that I wanted them to be hand illustrated so I began to do some experimentation. I began with a pencil sketch of a frog, this would be my design for all the experiments. The first attempt was created using a wash of ink and gouache paints over the top. I was pleased how the colours turned out but I think the painting looks very flat. I was over-working the paint which made the frog look out of shape. The second attempt was made using water soluble ink. I liked this one a lot more but I thought it appeared a bit cartoony. The colours are still nice but they don’t have the realistic look of the gouache paints. Instead they look very colourful which I think also works. The third attempt was made using fine liner pens and ink washes. I liked the look of this one because the frog appears the most realistic out of the three. I tried to dull down the colours to appear more like the gouache painting. The pen work was rushed but it reminds me of field sketches which works with the nature of the book.

Illustration Plan

Illustration 1

Illustration 2

Illustration 3

After some thought I decided to go with the third illustration. I feel this works with the idea of the book and it was the quickest to produce. I’m going to make all the illustrations in this way but they will be separate from the book. When the illustrations are finished I will insert them in to the final book pages.