Color Studies

Before jumping into painting, I like to do a few color studies to see what direction I want to go in. I first tried the one on the top left. I want to put a big shadow across the road in front of the main character, but on my first attempt I went too dark and so the road starts to get lost in the background against all the other details. I went lighter overall in the second study and I like it more. Except for the background hill which is too dark. I prefer the soft look of the hill in the top piece and I like how the distant houses on the right are in the sun, so they are bright against the green hill in the top one. So I'll do another study Frankensteining the two together.

I've got about two weeks to finish the cover art, the lettering on the inside of the book, and do the inside and back covers. These are all elements that I often forget, but that end up taking a lot of time. Graphic design does not come naturally to me, so I tend to go for more simple concepts as I'd rather the layout look simple, than that I am trying too hard to be cool.

Tomorrow I'll do one final study, then I hope to start the actual painting. I'd been debating whether or not to ink this painting and I'm still not sure. The inside pages are inked, but I don't necessarily need to be consistent with the cover. I'd wanted to go straight from pencils to watercolor, as I'm planning on doing with my Xiola book, but I worry I might lose my lines. We'll see. I've got one more day to think about it.