How I Design A Book Cover Part 2: Choosing the right medium and surface

One of the best things about being an older and more experienced illustrator is that I have a lot of tools in my tool kit. I can make better decisions about what medium to use on which surface.

Star Map Inspiration

I’ve chosen the create a star map as part of my book cover illustration. The inspiration is a Tibetan Star map I found online. Because the map is highly technical I felt that paint wouldn’t be the right medium for it. I’ve used colored pencils on dark paper many times with great success. So I decided to do some color tests to see if that would be the right medium and surface for this piece.

Some of my colored pencil pieces on medium and dark Canson papers.

As it turned out the Prismacolors weren’t giving me the effect that I wanted. The colors were too dull, and the color harmony was off. I experimented with Neocolor II Aquarelles, next. They worked better, giving me the pop of color I needed with the added benefit that you can sharpen them for technical work.

As Canson paper won’t hold up for wet media, I dug out a sheet of black Stonehenge paper. This heavier paper can handle light and medium washes just fine and will be a better match for the Neocolors. Another advantage to using these watercolor crayons is that I’m able to give the girl’s face a more painterly look.

Color Design Tests for the Book Cover

Art is no mystery. It’s a series of carefully considered decisions.

Foliage Tests

"Foliage study," casein, 6" x 11.5"

Today, I wanted to experiment with using a palette knife to create foliage. I used the same casein colors I've used in the previous two paintings but, in this case, I neglected color theory in favor of an exploration of plant shapes. It proved an interesting experiment. The palette knife concept worked but at the same time took me way out of the abstract and right back into a tight representational art style.

For me, the results are mixed. The marks are convincing, but the color cohesion is poor. This tells me that I'm not yet ready to go back to painting in a representational art style. Not yet, anyway. Instead, I'll return to my lessons in abstracting nature. This seems the better choice for the moment.

Plein Air Painting on Ebey Island

"View of the Trestle" 6"x 6" gouache in a Stilman and Birn Beta sketchbook

Today, we visited our dear friend Mac, who lives on Ebey Island which is just a few minutes away from Snohomish. Mac has a pear orchard and the trees were brimming with Asian pears, plums in two varieties, apples, and of course the bushes were filled wild blackberries. There is a family of osprey nesting on the property and their voices added a lovely accompaniment to the “little Woodstock” music festival next door. It was pretty idyllic and of course, I had so do a painting. 
 

Sara and Mac clowning around

Ebey is very flat and I wondered if I could capture it properly. I decided to give it a try. I still don’t have a complete set of gouache colors so this painting is done with two pairs of complementary colors and one other color that I don’t yet have the compliment for. I used lemon yellow, permanent green light, viridian, quin. violet, dioxinene purple and white gouache.

Painting in progress

P.S. Did I mention that we brought a big bag of fruit back with us? Yum!!

Painting of the Day — "Nightflowers"

"Nightflowers" 10" x 14" watercolor
Copyright Sara Light-Waller, 2014

Recently I began experimenting with color triads in watermedia. Color triads are three colors spaced evenly around a 12-color wheel.

Although "Nightflowers" is painted using the same three colors as the previous, 'Sunflowers" — Cadmium Orange, Phthalo Turquoise, and Magenta (which is close to Quinacridone Magenta) the effect is entirely different.

Beyond gaining a better understanding of how to use color triads, I had another goal for this painting. I wanted to simulate a common color scheme used by Golden-Age illustrator Edmund Dulac (1882 – 1953). His night and undersea scenes have a particular green-ish tone that I wanted to understand better. 

Illustration by Edmund Dulac

I think I got pretty close to it with "Nightflowers." Clearly, Dulac was using color triads in at least some of his paintings. Such a tricky boots! ;-)

Me and Edmund Dulac

Illustration from "Beauty and the Beast" by Edmund Dulac

I have long been an admirer of French illustrator, Edmund Dulac (1882 –1953). Dulac is one of the premier children’s book illustrators of the Golden Age. Some time ago I theorized his palette (Analyzing the color choices of Edmund Dulac) based on colors he used in his paintings. However, when I tried to reproduce his works I had only partial success. There was something he was doing with color that continued to elude me.

Today, while studying trios of analogous colors and their complements, I think I finally figured it out. Dulac appears to be using analogous colors in duos or triplets (and their complements) in his paintings. Generally, he only used one or two full intensity colors (commonly blue-violet or dark cadmium red) to highlight otherwise neutralized paintings. The full intensity colors stood out like beacons, enlivening the subtle colors in the rest of his neutralized color scheme.

My watercolor palette showing direct complements

When I made this discovery I was using a limited palette of six watercolors: Magenta (Stephen Quiller), Ultramarine Violet (Stephen Quiller), Ultramarine Blue (M. Graham), Permanent Green Light (Daniel Smith), Azo Yellow (Daniel Smith), and Cadmium Orange (Stephen Quiller). These six colors represent three analogous colors and their matched complements.

[For those who may be interested — my complete color palette (seen above) has twelve colors, those listed above as well as: Pyrol Orange (Daniel Smith), Cadmium Red Light (Stephen Quiller), Quinacridone Rose (M. Graham), Phthalo Blue (Daniel Smith), Phthalo Turquoise (Daniel Smith), and Viridian (M. Graham.) This is the twelve-color palette recommended by Stephen Quiller and I can’t say enough about it. It’s the most effective watercolor palette I’ve ever used, especially for the direct neutralization of complementary colors.] 

Here are two examples by Dulac's work demonstrating common color choices. The colors in both are analogous and the paintings are pretty neutralized (although the originals may have been brighter, I suspect these reproductions aren't too far off), with only the blue (in the first) or red (in the second) highlighted.

Dulac illustration from "The Snow Queen."

Dulac illustration from "Fairies I Have Met."

It’s taken me several months to work this out but I feel quite pleased by the discovery. Armed with this knowledge I think I can reproduce Dulac’s paintings much more effectively. And I'd like to learn from him. He was a master of the art and although long dead, still has plenty to teach me.

The Diversity of Color: part 3

"Storm cycle", watercolor.
Copyright Sara Light-Waller, 2014.

This week, as I continued to explore the use of color to create mood, I had a breakthrough. I realized that by using photographs as “absolute” reference, we limit ourselves to the moment when the photo was taken. This is potentially alright, if we took the photograph and if we’re lucky enough to remember the day, the mood, the weather, etc. But what if it’s someone else’s photo? What if your husband took it? Or your friend? Then you’re working with what you see in the image only. There’s no feeling beyond your response to the image. This is fine for as far as it goes but, as I understood in a flash, by introducing my own feelings into the piece, I moved beyond the photographic image and into something greater. Art? Yes, of course. But more than that. I brought forth a story to my viewers, a feeling memory.

Does this seem painfully obvious? It seems so to me now. But these “Ah-hah” moments strike like lightning and sometimes they set your hair on fire.

"Summer Storm" watercolor, 9" x 12"
Copyright Sara light-Waller, 2014

As with the other two entries in this series (Part 1 and Part 2), I used only two colors — this time, compliments Cadmium Red Medium and Phthalo Turquoise. As before, I used the same subject to experiment creating different moods through value scaling and color intensity. But this time I went further. I moved beyond the photograph and remembered the feeling of being in the desert during monsoon season. I heard the approaching thunder and blinked as the lightning popped like flash bulbs exploding behind the mountains.

These three paintings are memories of something that never happened at the site of the photograph, at least while I was there. But such storms do happen and I remember them well. It occurs to me that I could add one more painting to this series - the evening calm after the storm. That would be the next one to do. Perhaps some day. But for now I move through the storm and fall back into stillness, this time using words, not paint, here in my blog.