Learning to Draw Cartoons

Although I have been a cartoonist since I was a little girl, I have always been a “shy” cartoonist, keeping most of my cartoons to myself. That is until recently when I decided to risk showing off my cartooning skills in an arena that I knew pretty darn well – horses and ponies. Thus “Horse Life” was born.

Today, I thought I’d give you a backstage look at the development of some of my “Horse Life” characters. My sketchbooks are full of drawings like these, although many are less finished. Some characters seem quite chatty as sketches and always have something to say to me (usually in the margins!) When I was drawing “Privateer Princess” I had dialogs with my characters all the time, with various chatty characters frequently complaining about how I was drawing their hair, or about their lack of stage time, etc.. 

I think a lot of illustrators do this. It’s a great way of developing your ideas while staying in your characters' heads. It’s also pretty darn fun! 

The following sketches are from my most current sketchbook.

Horse and rider sizes and shapes.
Image copyright Sara Light-Waller, 2012

Horse and rider sizes and shapes.
Image copyright Sara Light-Waller, 2012.

Bucking sketches.
Image copyright Sara Light-Waller, 2012

Artists never stop drawing. Our fingers get too itchy if we try. It's a great thing when you can draw something near and dear to your heart, which is how I feel about drawing horses and riders. Perhaps one day I'll be famous for my cartoons, one never knows...but in the meantime, I can happily report that I improve with every sketch and am totally thrilled with the journey!

Making Black Horses Look Black

"Madison" - pen & ink, watercolor, and watersoluble crayon 

White and black objects are hard to show in art works. Why? Simply because white is not white and black is not black. White on white paper is a blank field, flat and undifferentiated. It’s literally, nothing,

Black on the other hand is just that, a flat color like India ink. Although this is fine for things like cartoons and shadow shapes, it is not as useful when you are trying to imply a color.

Last week one of the racehorses I worked with was a filly who was, according to Hoyle, was a dark brown roan. I recognized this unusual color because we had a mare of this color when I was growing up. She was a dark bay/brown horse with tiny, white hairs scattered throughout her coat. I had never seen a color like that before her. Unlike other roan mixtures she did not get more gray as she got older. Instead, she remained the same color, a brown with a small dusting of white hairs. Most of the time this horse looked dark enough to be almost black. She wasn’t black though, having a brown muzzle and a yellowish-cast to her coat when bleached out. Clearly a brown-bay.

The filly I worked with last week, was also very dark, nearly black, unless you looked at her very closely. For her sketch, I added a palette of colors including several middle blues, blue-violet, turquoise. and a hint of yellow-ochre. The overall effect “reads’ as black. In fact, there is some actual black in this sketch, as the ink I used for the base was black. But the colors you see are not. If I had used black watercolor exclusively, the piece would have looked very “flat.” Certain combinations of colors can trick the eye into “appearing” black even when they aren’t.

Isn’t that strange and wonderful?

Another Racehorse

"Mark" - watercolor and pen & ink sketch
in a Stillman & Birn Gamma sketchbook.

This gentleman’s barn name is “Mark.” He is a big, handsome, 3-year-old Thoroughbred colt. Mark is a dark chestnut color and I decided to prepare the paper in shades of color that would simply suggest his color. I added the drawing in sepia ink after the initial color was dry. As the ink (Diamine Sepia) was not waterproof, after inking I only added a wee bit more color on top in dry watercolor pencil.

I’m pretty pleased with this one. The overall color is light but still suggests Mark’s color. :-)

Oscar (not his racing name)

Despite what most people may think about Thoroughbreds on the track, most are incredibly well-mannered and are handled with great care. They are curious babies who know their environment and jobs quite well.  

“Oscar” is one of the horses I massage at the racetrack. I work at the track one day a week and massage a variety of horses, whomsoever the trainer picks out for that particular week. I love working there. I grew up with racing Thoroughbreds and I find the environment quite soothing.

“Oscar,” his trainer admits, “is his own worst enemy.” His flighty habits have gotten him into some physical trouble lately that I am there to help. Yesterday was his second massage and during his first one I was warned to look out for his hind feet and teeth. Sure enough, he tried to cow-kick once or twice and strike. (Fortunately not only I was knowingly out of reach, but since my own horse Percy was once a much more accurate cow-kicker, I have developed some high-level dodging skills!) The biting was forestalled by his trainer who put on a lip chain. But this week Oscar seemed very glad to see me and though he still wore a lip chain, the beastie stood quietly and didn’t raise a foot. (Well, he did paw once but what I was doing surely was painful.) I was proud of his good behavior and decided to sketch him for my journal when I got home last night. Here he is, sketched in watercolor pencil and Neocolor II in a Stillman and Birn Gamma 5.5" x 8.5" sketchbook. Well done Oscar!

From my journal...

Exciting news!

Merry Christmas a bit early!

As of today you can buy both the EBook (digital download) and spiral-bound (physical) versions of “My Day at the Horse Show” in my web store: www.flyingponystudios.com/Store_home.html.

Hurrah!
I’ve been getting a lot of requests lately for the physical version of the coloring book and now you can get your very own for $10.00 + tax.  These cute coloring books make perfect stocking stuffer gifts for all the junior horse lovers in your house (along with anyone else you know who loves to color!) As an added plus, if you’re local, you can get a copies directly from me without needing to pay for shipping. Wow! So stock up today!

In case you’ve not seen my video about the coloring book…you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/user/cresciangirl?feature=mhee#p/a/u/0/AV8lR4eEm3Q

Happy Veterans/Remembrance Day everyone!

Are you ready to color?

“My Day at the Horse Show: A Tell Your Own Story” coloring EBook is now available for digital download at my web store.

 

It’s been a long road. It’s taken a lot of faith. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve done a children’s book, and even though this one is self-published, it was no less work. But as the process of creation is completed I realize that I have really missed doing books for kids. A lot. Now that I’m back in the swing, I have several more coloring books, paper doll books, and a cartoon book in the design phase.

So what’s so special about this coloring book?

I put a lot of thought into how to make this coloring book a little bit different. I decided to make it an EBook because I wanted to give colorists a chance to re-use the pages. If you don’t like the way you’ve colored a page you can just print out another one and start again. Or, you can color different pages in different ways. It also allowed me to charge less per book. At $5.00 I felt that it would be approachable even in these tight economic times.

More features

One of the things I’m particularly excited about in this book are the fill-in-the-blank captions on every page. This allows everyone to make it their story, told their way. I have also included a helpful list of horse show terms to give you further ideas for your horse show adventure.

Too old to color? Think again

I believe that many artists have been set up for success in art by their early experiences with coloring books and crayons. The simplicity of the crayon is so non-threatening that even art-shy adults can use it with confidence. With fine art crayons you may feel the specter of “making a mistake” looming behind every corner. Not so with Crayolas. Try them for yourself and see. With crayons come a sense of artistic freedom plucked straight out of childhood.  

You’re invited

I invite you to visit my shop and take a look at the new coloring book. If you like it please give it a try. If you really like it please recommend it to friends. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun to play with and I hope that many will. After all, what else is a coloring book for?

Cheers to all!

Sara

P.S. I have put up a new information page about the coloring book here on my blog. You can find it under the "Resources" tab on the right hand column. While you're there you'll also see pages that collect my How-to and Art Supplies product review articles. Check them out!

My Day At The Horse Show

Here is the cover of my first coloring book, "My Day At The Horse Show." It will be available as an EBook for digital download next week from my website store. More details to follow... *happy smile*

What about coloring books for kids?

Like so many other kids, I grew up with coloring books. I did love them. It was my first venture into art! I still have a healthy collection of Dover coloring books (http://store.doverpublications.com/) on my shelves to use as reference of historic scenes and certain natural subjects (like hawks, for example.)

The best coloring book artists do a wonderful job producing very clean and easy-to-read line drawings. There’s a great deal of technical skill in those drawings and I have always admired them. So much so that I have decided to create my own line of e-coloring books for kids. The first one will be called “My Day At the Horse Show.” I hope to have some hard-copy prototypes ready to present at one of the largest Hunter-Jumper horse shows in the area next month.

I'm quite excited about using an e-book format for coloring books. Not only will it be economical to produce but it'll also be a great way for parents to get multiple uses out of each page. Mistake…? More than one child? No problem! Just print out another page! ;-)

Here is a detail from one of my images. What do you think?

Image copyright Sara Light-Waller, 2011

Sketching hounds today

I grew up in Potomac, Maryland, home to the venerable Potomac Hunt. Two out of my first three horses were fox-hunters and although I have not been on a hunt in a very long while, it is difficult to forget the good times and excitement of hunting season.

I remain of fan of hunting art and yesterday was reminded of the late 19th and early 20th artist, Cecil Aldin, an artist famous for his hunting scenes. In his honor, I couldn’t resist doing a page of hound sketches. Unfortunately these are not from life, as I don’t have connections to the hunt down in the Fort Lewis area, but they do bring back memories from my teenage years.

These sketches are a mix of pen & ink and colored pencil on craft paper.