I just finished this illustration for my diary of Hera’s stuff, and thought I’d share the simple technique I use for colouring pen illustrations in Photoshop. Clicking on the images below will bring up a close-up image.

Step 1 | Open the scan of your drawing in Photoshop, and create two new layers below it. One will be your background colour (I’ve used white here), and the other will be for painting in the colours of your drawing.

Step 2 | Adjust the brightness and contrast until the paper is as white as possible.

Step 3 | Select the background of the sketch with the magic wand tool, and delete it. Make sure all little bits of paper speckle are removed so the colour comes out nice and clean.

Step 4 | Set the drawing layer to Multiply. This will allow the colours below to show through your drawing, and make the pen work come out nice and dark as it multiplies over the colours below.

Step 5 | Use the magic wand tool to select the background of the sketch. Then invert the selection so that you have only the drawing selected. Feather the edges of the selection (Menu Bar > Select > Feather.) Click on the blank layer below the sketch (multiply) layer and fill the entire sketch with a predominant colour.

Step 6 | From here in, apply colour to this colouring layer whichever way you feel comfortable. Applying colour on its own layer(s) makes it easy to adjust the colours later while keeping your drawing in its original condition.I use a combination of the paintbrush and the magic wand / lassoo tools to select areas from the sketch and fill with colour. You can experiment and go as elaborate as you want with colour, shade and textures.

Here’s another illustration of a cute dress that sadly Hera’s grown too tall to wear, now part of my diary of Hera’s stuff. Ink with digital colour.

This was another of my favourite dresses of Hera’s, and was way too complicated to attempt illustrating with pen & digital colour, so again did a watercolour study of it for my diary of Hera’s stuff. I don’t feel I did the pattern justice, but at least captured the warmth & feel of this cute little garden dress.

This dress was one of those great eBay finds for like $10, and Hera wore it till it was falling apart and faded :) I liked it so much I decided to branch out from the ink & digital colour technique to do a watercolour & white pencil study of it for my illustrated diary of Hera’s clothes.

Here is my tribute to those beloved shoes Hera sadly outgrew a few months ago, now part of my illustrated diary of Hera’s clothes. Drawn with pen, coloured digitally, above is the after & before.

P.S. For those illustrator parents out there, crocs are the best shoes ever for toddlers in the summer, they can wear ‘em in the water, in the dirt, they’re easy to clean, and don’t fall off! I heart crocs. I think these faux crocs were like $5 at The Children’s Place, money very well spent.

Before starting my next project, I’m taking a break for a few weeks and spending some creative time drawing, including more of Hera’s outfits! I’m switching over to a plain old ballpoint black pen for my linework and love it, though you have to be careful not to smudge the ink while it’s drying. Colour is applied afterwards in Photoshop using my trusty dusty wacom intuos pen.

As another year fast approaches its end, looking back I realize how busy a year 2009 has been! I kept my paintbrush and pencil busy with completing just under 100 illustrations… wowsers, that’s a new illustration every three days! The illustrations include three children’s books (Celebrate! by Rubicon Publishing, Riley’s Lost Tooth by Diane Cantrell, and Spotty & Eddie Visit Percé by Lisa M. Chalifoux), a collection of green themed illustrations for ImageZoo, and several more little illustrations for my illustrated diary of Hera’s outfits. Looking forward to 2010!

I finished colouring a few more ink illustrations for my diary of Hera’s outfits. Enough distractions, back to drawing turtles for Spotty & Eddie!

Here is another of the new illustrations I’ve completed for my diary of Hera’s outfits… a simple graphite pencil drawing, with a colour layer tinted over top in Photoshop.

I’ve been busy the last few weeks working on revisions for Spotty & Eddie’s latest adventure, as well as designing the layout for Riley’s Lost Tooth. In between my creative banter with the two lovely authors I’m working with, I’ve been doodling a few more outfits for my diary of Hera’s outfits. More to come!