Learn What You Don’ t Know
My first children’s book had chapter illustrations. Those ended up being my own illustrations that seemed to suit the story. I was completely untrained. Quite honestly most of my drawings looked very child like, which was about the time I stopped drawing and coloring except for required science or social study worksheets.
I wanted to make my illustrations better. My imagination had better looking illustrations than I was capable of making myself. I thought seriously about hiring someone to do the illustrations, but the artists that I spoke with really encouraged me to practice art, and work on improving my skills. I had visions of what I wanted in my head, and they assured me that my skills could be improved upon to create something much closer to what I wanted.
Researching art skill courses and videos led me to the art course created by Betty Edwards1 (www.drawright.com) and after reading a little about it on Psychology Today 2 I ordered the course which came with a cd and various tools.
That helped me create the initial drawings for Bad Dream. It was fortuitous ( an adjective that means happening by accident or chance) for me because in 2016 I had a bicycle accident. Wearing a helmet, prevented a head injury, but did not keep me from breaking my forearm. After surgery, there was physical therapy and relearning how to make a fist and hold a pen. I struggled with using my dominant hand, but I did learn to use my other, so now I can draw and write with both. Now I am ambidextrous. (Ambidextrous means being able to use both left and right hands equally well.)
These are some of the original drawings.
This is the little boy at the beginning of the story
My original drawing of the Grandfather in the story.
This is from Snowball, the story about the little mischievous dog. (mischievous, an adjective that describes a person or animal behavior that shows their fondness for playfully causing trouble. In the story this little puppy’s mischievous behavior is getting outside of the fenced in yard to have people run after them. This is an early illustration.
These are foot notes. They indicate the source of information in the above blog post.
1 Edwards, Betty Dr. (first published 1979) Drawing on the Rights Side of the Brain. Website https://www.drawright.com
2 Davidenko, Nicolas PH.D (2019 November 20) Drawing on the Right (and Left!) Sides of the Brain. Website https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/illusions-delusions-and-reality/201911/drawing-the-right-and-left-sides-the-brain