Friday, October 16, 2015

Dummy Dummy Dummy

So, I bet you can guess from the title what I've been working on again. This dummy has definitely taken on a life of its own. I'm just hanging on for the ride and wondering where we'll end up. I've revised the text again and that means I need to change a lot of the drawings. I'm working as fast as I can so that I can send it on and start working on other things. That's why there haven't been many blog posts over the last few months, I'm just drawing and drawing and drawing and drawing….



This is a foolishly complicated drawing I just finished. I was trying to first show the reader the girl and dog in the lower right and then move up to the sled dogs and driver on the top right. That's why I made the sled dogs so much bigger proportionally than the country in between. Is that how you read the drawing at first glance? Or is it just weird? I really can't tell anymore!

I will try and come up with some fun blog posts that aren't just drawing drawing drawing. Do you, my very select loyal readers have anything you'd like to ask or like me to write about? :)


I wanted to share that I wound up redrawing this spread. I'm much happier with it! It's not quite so detailed and the sled dogs are in the upper left now and smaller so they make more sense proportionally. Thanks, Dow for the comments!

6 comments:

  1. Hi Jill! :) You are so funny! I don't have anything specific I want you to post about - I enjoy ALL of your posts. Good luck finishing up the dummy - I hear you on the drawing drawing drawing. For the above image, I think it's beautiful! My only thought is that if you were wanting to move my eye from girl to sled dogs, my eye would prefer to go across the page instead of vertically (girl in bottom left corner and sled dogs top right). As it is, I love and am impressed by the details and am taking it in left to right.

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  2. Hi Dow- you ARE the select loyal reader! Yay!!!

    I agree about moving visually across the page instead of up, but whew! I have to take a break for a bit on this one. I may redo it when I get a little further into the book. I put the girl and dog on the lower right because I learned something cool from Marla Frazee's book, The Farmer and the Clown. That book has a page turn with an element of timing. Every time you turn a page, the first thing you actually see is the lower right of the new page. I never realized that until The Farmer and the Clown! So as you turn the page, you see someone on the lower right and as you continue, a little surprise is revealed in the top left, the last spot you see. So my spread would probably work better if I moved the sled dogs to the top left instead of the top right. I may have to do that. Thanks for all of your help!

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  3. Oh! That is interesting, Jill! Marla is so smart and experienced. Another thought is to shrink the entire image to leave some white on the left hand side, and then it will be more like a single page, and the eye would easily go up. That would be the least amount of additional work! :)

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  4. Oh, I just went ahead and redid it! I'll post a picture. Thank you, dear!

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  5. I'm so impressed how patient you are to draw all that detail, Jill!

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  6. Thank you, Angela! But really I think I'm just nuts. :)

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