This illustration technique me feels like I’m a little kid again and colouring in the lines! I really enjoy this style, as I can take my time with my B-pencil & smudge stick rendering an illustration… and then hop on the computer and create the final black & white and colour print-ready files respectively in a matter of minutes. It is an ideal style for creating a lot of illustrations in a short amount of time, as it achieves a traditional feel without the time involved in creating watercolour paintings.

The step-by-step process I follow to colour my illustrations in Photoshop is :

• Illustrate the character with a graphite pencil on bond paper (I like printer paper as it’s smooth and fits on the scanning bed!)
• Scan each illustrations at high resolution
• Create a Photoshop file for the character illustration
• Remove the character from the background and place it on its own layer, carefully removing the whitespace with a soft edged eraser tool or feathered magic wand selection (see below)

• Adjust the contrast
• Save out a flattened, grayscale version as a TIFF (I’ve set up an action to do this in Photoshop automatically for me)
(Read on …)

I’m just getting started on a few more shell mosaics. Went to IKEA and they were sold out of the large frames! So I’m doing four little guys. And I’m gettin’ smart after a couple of these… (Read on …)

Glass tabletops, when lit from underneath, make excellent tracing tables. Simply situate a lamp underneath the glass surface, place your sketch on top of the table (tape it down if need be), and place your blank paper on top. With adequate lighting, you should have an easily visible sketch to work on top of.
I like to use this method when transferring to-scale sketches to Arches Watercolor Paper. Note to self : change that lightbulb to an energy efficient one!
Note : Be careful of overheating, as a hot glass surface can be dangerous / crack.