2 Mar 2016, 22:49

I’ve seen some great master copies posted on here recently and it’s inspired me to try one myself! Lots of reasons to do one:

  1. I haven’t done one before.
  2. @Lee-White recommends them as good practice.
  3. @Will-Terry said in a video I watched recently, that “if you’re not doing things like master copies then you don’t really want it badly enough” - so that rather threw down the gauntlet!
  4. I’d like to infuse a bit of whatever technique I learn from this into my 3rd Thursday piece.

So, this is my choice - a piece by Catherine Rayner, one of my absolute favourite children’s book illustrators, www.catherinerayner.co.uk I’ve researched her technique before because I wanted to emulate it but never done a master copy..she uses acrylic inks, screen printed backgrounds and spatters and crayons and so on to add texture. I love her combination of inkiness and graphic.

catherine-rayner7.jpg

So, I drew the outline (no tracing!) and transferred onto paper. Then laid down undertones…

rayner1.jpg

..This is halfway through the midtones…

rayner2.jpg

Then the darkest bits and inky lines. She apparently uses a cocktail stick to pull the ink about, didn’t have one but improvised with tweezers and a dip pen. Here's the finished version:

rayner3.jpg

rayner5.jpg

And here's how the scans compare (fixed the eye blob digitally..)

rayner7.jpg

It’s not perfect but I do think it’s helped me understand much better how she works..it feels a lot different actually trying to emulate a piece, compared to analysing it visually. So hopefully this will help in future pieces 🙂