idea for a class for tradtional artists?
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I went to the scbwi Illustrators Day for my region on Sarurday and Marla Frazee was featured illustrator. She was telling us about how in one illustration she had 8 clowns and in th enext 10. Her editor wanted her to have 10 clowns in both and she had put a lot of time into the illustration already. She is a traditional artist. But, she had a trick up her sleeve and was able to patch in two extra clowns into the background of her exisiting illustration. Since I am also traditional I thought it would sure be nice to knwo some tricks for fixing up work that has already been done without havng to redo the whole thing.
Most people on here seem to be digital artists so it might not be a class possibility ut, I thought I'd throw it out. If not a class, maybe people could just share their own tips and tricks?
One fix I did once for an illustration for an alphabet book: I had done a watercolor painting and forgot to leave space for the text! I made a color copuy on my copy machine with a piece of tracing paper over it so that it would be muted, layed it ovef the area I needed to fix and taped it down with masking tape and carefully cut it out with an exacto knife. I then put the lighter copy set into the cut out and taped it from the back, touched up the edges to make it look better and, it worked!
Should have cropped them! Now you all know about my messy table top
Marsha Ottum Owen
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I work with gouache, so working in more characters after the fact would be a nightmare, since gouache reanimates once it gets wet again.
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I still haven't tried gouache. I use acrylics and watercolor. How would you compare the guoache to either of those. What do you like about gouache?
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@Marsha-Kay-Ottum-Owen There is an acrylic painting class coming out by @Will-Terry soon, per his post on his Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/willterryart/ (and I think mentioned elsewhere in the SVSLearn forums or social media profiles) Though, I'm guessing that this is not about fixes but painting from scratch-to-final.
I remember Marla Frazee talking about that mistake in a wordless picture book panel video on youtube: https://youtu.be/t-mqftfRXmc - Oh that had to be rough to find that out when they did!
My background started with traditional media, but I have done digital for a long time now. I am actually wanting to start incorporating more traditional into my work.
Obviously, the best is to do a lot of up front planning but inevitably fixes are necessary. I think that if I did a traditional piece and found that there were mistakes that needed fixed (like the addition/removal of a character/object), I think that the approach I might take is to paint that portion on a separate board, then "stitch" both together digitally (there will probably be a bit of masking and maybe some blending as well as some minor color & value edits to make it mesh well)
Of course, that is assuming that you don't need to have a "perfect" final, traditionally done physical piece. Also, it is assuming that the style, media textures, etc. allow for this to be done.
What you did for your watercolor fix is pretty similar to what I remember others doing. It is similar to what my digital fix is, with the exception that the 2nd paper/canvas/etc is adhered on top (that is, if the problem is too significant to just paint on top of what is there) and then there may have been some paint-over that went past the edge into the main painting underneath. I think this kind of thing was done centuries ago with oil paintings and today with art restorers where the "bad" portion of the canvas would be cut out and replaced with a revised canvas/painting piece. How they blend it to make it seamless or virtually seamless, I have no clue. I'd assume that it would have something to do with gesso, paint-overs, etc.
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Yes, that was the mistake she talked about. The Farmer and the Clown was it. I have very little in teh way of digital skills yet. I use GIMP to clean up dirty spots, etc. by cloning. I have a tablet, etc. but I am waiting until I am done with my current project to try it. I get a lot of stress with computer related work
Maybe I can make my next digital skill "stitching together" Marsha Ottum Owen
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@Marsha-Kay-Ottum-Owen There are sure to be some "photo editing" or "photo manipulation" tips-and-tricks and tutorials online that can perhaps give you help on "stitching together." Though they'll be about photography, the basic process is the same as with merging 2+ illustrations: Masking, Cloning, Levels/Curves Value Manipulation, Hue/Saturation & Color Balance, Opacity & Effects, etc.
In my opinion, this would be a great "next digital skill" for you to pursue as it could give you a lot of freedom with your traditional artwork, particularly for fixes, but also it may give you some tools/tricks for any desired enhancements or simply allow you to create pieces as separate elements (for instance, if you wanted to paint the character(s) separate from the background so that in addition to the digital merging of them for piece #1, you can use the characters elsewhere as a spot illustration or with another background and if you want to use the background elsewhere too without having to repaint them)
