When you fall out of love..
...with gouache
(FYI if you’re not into art supplies and nerding out on them, this post may not apply to you, but if you can connect art supplies with seasons of life you’ll get it).
One of the best parts of picture book illustrating is THE VISION - you’ve got the manuscript and the project is a little gem, fresh and new and full of possibility - a little blurry on the details but totally good time ahead, sun shining and wind in the sails.
Then maybe you hit the first speedbump with drawings not coming out just right, but you accept it after some redraws, knowing that projects have to take their own shape. Getting through ideating is usually my biggest hurdle and requires practically separating from my body into some weird ball of emotions and visualizing. It’s usually about two weeks of weirdo-ing to get those first roughs down. For Birdlore, as it’s a non-fiction, I couldn’t get too out there, but still tried to put myself in Florence’s place back in the 1800’s in order to get those sketches on paper. Very much don’t fight the process.
After getting those hard won sketches finished, it feels like you should be on course to refine them, maybe come up with more interesting bits, but nothing too taxing, and get on to the art. But what happens when a trusted medium you normally love using doesn’t feel right? And on top of that, the publisher might ask you for a full sample to see what the finals will look like. That second one is a big sigggghhhhh from me, and I’m just saying, while it probably gives the pubs a little reassurance, it adds so much time to the schedule with tests and self-doubt and have to fully commit to something that should be able to organically develop through a project. My best experiences and where I’ve loved the work the most have been those with freedom and trust that the art will be GOOD, and won’t vary too much from previous work. Of course if you really have changed the way you work, it’s important to tell the publisher/art director beforehand, so there’s no big surprises.
So yes, that can be a bit of a hiccup at the beginning, but back to those materials!
Since illustrating my first picture book I’ve been using watercolor, acryla-gouache, regular gouache, pan pastel, and color pencil. With that mix, I can get lovely washes of color, good texture, plenty of detail. So I started off with those for Birdlore, and also added in some brusho pigments for their unpredictability. But wow, everything I was painting felt so flat, so close in value, so lifeless. I’ll admit I was pretty depressed at this point in life as my mom had just passed and I was on autopilot at times, but still, the materials weren’t fully working for the project. The birds were so detailed and I hated how the acryla-gouache felt so thick and heavy when trying to use it for their faces and feathers. I’m a little embarrassed how long I struggled along this way, making decent spreads with imo unbearably bad sections that I later changed in procreate/ps. It was so frustrating.
One thing I could have done was work at twice the scale. The details would have felt more manageable and I could have scaled down the work afterwards. Haha, hindsight. But also, there’s obvious downsides to working so big when you only have so much space etc.
Instead, I carried on (deadlines!), bringing in other media here and there trying to find something non-digital to get what I wanted (nothing against digital, I’m just happiest with traditional materials, and my neck prefers it too). Truthfully I was so happy and content with a lot of the book at that point, the gouache issue wasn’t so bad. The book is full of rich scenes of wildlife, nature, pattern, and flowers that it’s hard to go wrong with what you use to make the art. But that initial vision from the beginning was still in my head. Damn perfectionism.
But then! I was watching one of my favorites on youtube, Heikala, and thought, yes!!! Transparency! Layers! Rich color! Line! Her work is so singular and incredible and the combo of her dreamy scenes with her paper and material choices makes total magic. That alchemy takes time and there’s no way to get there without a fair bit of struggle. So for me I sort of tucked that inspiration inside, got out my old inks, and kept going on the art while carefully starting to incorporate them into my work flow. I wasn’t sure how I would use them at first, but their flow and transparency had me so excited. Definitely what I needed mid-winter, mid-depression, and feeling the pressure to make something amazing.
The last thing I worked on for Birdlore was the case cover which I painted on an oversize sheet of watercolor paper with watercolor ink from Rohrer & Klingner. I love it so freaking much. I’ve already turned it into a pattern and plan to wallpaper something in my house with it :)
Maybe ink was a metaphor for what I simply needed at the time - something that required some skill but not so much effort, moving with the flow of water, rather than the gouache I pushed around with brushes.
I’m not tossing my acryla-gouache tubes of course, but after Birdlore I bought more ink and decanted all my old stuff into little glass bottles. So fun playing the chemist.
Have you experienced these roadblocks in your process? What were you doing and how did you get unstuck? Did you discover a good paper? A mindshift? An amazing pen? Maybe you’ve fallen in love with acryla-gouache lol. Let me know, I’m genuinely curious and nerdy about this stuff!
And if you’d like to purchase a copy of Birdlore, click the link in the footer below!
Till next time,
Xx Devon
Beautiful! Love the insight into your process - struggles and all
Love this insight Devon! Thank you so much for sharing 😍