Making Pictures
Paintings, drawings, and digital ephemera
For as far back as my memory goes, I have always loved making pictures. The techniques, mediums, and materials I’ve used have changed over time, but the enjoyment has remained the same.
Like all modern children, my first marking instrument was a crayon. I had to have been an easy child to watch. As long as I had blank paper, I was happy to sit on the floor creating imaginary worlds for hours on end.
From crayons, I graduated to working in pencil. This instrument was my tool of choice while I was learning to draw. Eventually, I transitioned to using a ball point pen simply because I wanted the challenge of not being able to erase my mistakes. Hubris? Yes, but I was a teenager. A certain amount of that is expected.
Making the switch from pencil and ink to actual paint took care of any arrogance my younger self might have had. This was a whole new world full of new materials and techniques.
I started with acrylics. I used them for a few years and then one day tried oil paint. Oils are majestic and wonderful. Absolutely everything I could ask a paint to be, but when my first daughter was born I became paranoid about the solvents and the possibility of hurting her young lungs. So, I switched to water colors.
I love water colors. I like to use them with an opaque white gouache. They aren’t as nice as working in oil, but they remain one of my favorite mediums.
Eventually, I started landing illustration jobs and had to incorporate digital painting into my workflow to better ensure that I could meet tight deadlines.
I have a love/hate relationship with digital painting. There are some distinct advantages to painting digitally. No cleanup. No on-going expenses related to buying more paint, new brushes, etc. However, there are some things that it’s just faster and easier to do traditionally. I’m not sure whether that reflects a problem with digital tools or if it’s because I’m more comfortable with their real world counterparts for certain things.
I continue to make pictures. Currently, I’m using an iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil and a variety of different art apps.
Most recently, I’ve been making coloring books. Last month, I published my first book. It’s a coloring book that tells the story of a cranky leprechaun who is forced to live among a group of happy pixies.
Most of the time, my process, in making these books, is to do a pencil drawing of the image and then ink it on my iPad. Here’s the sketch that I made for the picture of the baby dragon that Craddock meets in the coloring book.
And, here’s the digitally inked version of the same image.
I also enjoy using words to make pictures. In the months to come, I hope to share some of my fiction with you as well. Right now though, I’m focused on finishing up the last few images for my next coloring book which will be about zombies.
All of these books are self-published through my personal imprint Alicorn Press. Yeah, I know. Saying that you have a personal publishing imprint sounds really pretentious, but I had to set one up so I could get ISBN numbers for the books.
Why Alicorns? Well, I have two young daughters. Like many girls their age, they enjoy cartoons. There is a rotating set of cartoons that cycle in and out of favor, but one particular title keeps coming back over and over: My Little Pony.
My daughter’s disagree over which is the best My Little Pony, but they both favor any of the winged unicorns, known as alicorns, that make up the royal court of Ponyville.
So, I named my imprint Alicorn Press as an expression of love for my daughters because they love the alicorns in My Little Pony. As for me? I’m more of a fan of Discord, but I admit that at least part of that is because of John de Lancie and his work on Star Trek: Next Generation.
I will be using the Alicorn Press publication, here on Medium, to update fans of my work about current projects and share pictures of my works in progress. I hope you’ll consider following us.
Thanks for reading.
