Painting the cover

My cover drawing is complete and I'm starting to paint it. I did the drawing on a watercolor block, so I planned on painting it right on the block, but after my first wash the paper started lifting off the block, pulling away from the glue on the edges. I'm down to the last few pages and this often happens to me with my blocks, so I'll need to transfer the paper to a proper art board and tape it off with watercolor tape, but I'll do that another night.

Starting a painting for me is like starting a marathon. It takes me a while just to get ready. I've got to mentally prepare myself. I have to feel completely comfortable with my surroundings and double check everything. Brushes from 00 - 6, a 12 and a flat 12. Plenty of light. Resource materials. Paper towels, a clean rag. I can't paint if I'm hungry, thirsty, too hot or too cold. It's a freaking miracle I ever get anything done at all.

I've got a bunch of photos of desert scenes and architecture, and my color sketch on my desk as reference for lighting and color. I've also taken some photos of my wife for likeness and lighting as my heroine Eleya.

And I always take a photo or do a scan of my drawing before laying down any paint. Just in case something goes terribly wrong I can print out the drawing and use my light table to transfer the drawing back onto a piece of watercolor paper.

Process:

I did a super light wash of Cadmiun Yellow across the entire page with my flat 12, making sure to leave a few areas of white on Eleya's face, necklace, the beasts mouth area and eye, and Eleya's father down at her left in the background. The drawing is purposefully designed so all my pieces of interest are in one line. The beast's head, Eleya's head and her father.

Then I went ahead and started to undercoat the background shadows with some Sap Green and Ultramarine. I use Windsor Newton watercolors. And that's as far as I'm going to get tonight. I will go ahead and continue with the background undercoat shadows at first. I like to warm up to the subject of the painting, doing minimal background stuff first. I used to do the subject first, but I'm a little out of practice and find that it takes me a while to warm up.

I'm going to heading out of town for two days tomorrow, but I hope to finish the painting up Monday night. I'll do a pass on Sunday evening and hopefully finish Monday late night.