Friday, August 10, 2007

The Months - March - Rough sketches






These are the first rough sketches I did for the March spread of The Months. I realize that their are only very minor differences between these four thumbnails, but often I will sketch the same composition over and over. It helps me to refine the visual idea and helps to uncover nuances which may have never surfaced if I hadn't sketched out the composition 20 (or 40) times. Sometimes when you hit a certain threshhold in doing this exercise, the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Sometimes I'll find the right composition by piecing together several of these initial thumbnails, sometimes one of them says everything I want it to say, and then, sometimes, if my composition is just not working no matter how many sketches I do or how many details I tweak, it's time to just try something different altogether!!! :)

This concept was used for March, and the composition was too, more or less. The gutter was a major concern for all of the spreads, but it wasn't something I was initially concerned with - - it was my first book, and I was learning on the fly, so it wasn't at the forefront of my mind on the first pass of sketches. In the final composition, certain elements have been rearranged and reworked to allow for gutter room!

2 comments:

Jannie aka Chickengirl said...

These sketches are full of energy and action! Thanks for sharing.

Renee Kurilla said...

Kathy! Nice to hear from you...I didn't know you had a BOOK coming out. That's so exciting! Your illustrations look sooo great. Can't wait to buy it :)
Hope all is well!