Creating a Buggy School - From Start to Finish

Work-in-progress shot of the ladybug

I finished a custom illustration for a preschool auction in Colorado, the other day. You might remember the t-shirt design I showed a few months back (click here) for the team Alex's Angels, as they biked in the Courage Classic race to benefit the Children's Hospital... well, this illustration was a request by Elizabeth, who I worked with on that piece. I loved designing the Alex's Angels illustration and was more than thrilled to work on this one - and thought it would be fun to share my creative process from start to finish.

My style is very... scribbly - and if anyone were to ask me what my technique is I'd probably have to say I'm a blendy scribble-scrabbler. Kind of like a preschooler, so its appropriate that this picture is going to benefit a preschool!

Okay, there are a going to be a lot of pictures, with the final, finished illustration at the end, but I wanted to show the layers of color/blending that went into this piece. For the other color pencil artists out there, I used Prismacolor pencils, and my time spent on this illustration, which measures 11 x 14 inches, was about 7 hours (time gauged by my 60 minute CD played 7 times - its a good mix of music).

SNAIL

Layer One: A little bit of Cool Grey 20%, little bit of Limepeel, little bit of Goldenrod.

Blend, then another layer of color:
Little bit of Burnt Ochre, Pink, French Grey 70%, and Grass Green

Blend, then another layer of color:
Little bit of White and Warm Grey 70%

Lots more blending.

Okay, at this point, I can't move forward with the snail until I get the background around him finished. So here comes some Spring Green grass, some Light Cerulean Blue sky, and French Grey 70% of the eyes.

Okay, I skipped a couple of steps, but I think you get the idea. Shade with Grass green, blend. Shade rock with Violet Blue, blend. Outline with black, blend. Add white to highlight.

Done!

BUG SCHOOL

Yikes, what a mess. Okay, Spring Green grass, Cool Grey 20% rocks, Crimson Red school, Burnt Ochre roof, and Spanish Orange windows/door

Blend!

Okay, I clearly skipped a lot of layers here, but I shaded similarly to the snail/rock, with the exception of adding Tuscan Red (I heart Tuscan Red!) to shade the school.

And then BLEND!

Here is the finished school. The flag features the caterpillar logo of the preschool this will be auctioned for, and was the inspiration behind the entire piece.
Is that not the cutest logo you have ever seen in your life?

As for the entire illustration... well, I won't go in detail on each step, but here are some work in progress photos, as well as the final, finished illustration.

Aw... its just a baby! Here's my newborn sketch. Quite a bit will be changed and polished. Like the bee - I didn't really like him flying upside-down. Also, I made the snail, caterpillar and ladybug larger for the final illustration. You can see in the next picture that they take up more of the foreground than they do in the sketch.

Ah, here we are at the gawky teenage years of my illustration's work-in-progress life.
Very scribbly, half blended, and a little difficult imagining that it will turn out cute in the end.

Now it's a full blown college student, somewhat confident, but still finding itself in the big, bad world of illustration. We have a long way to go before it graduates into a finished illustration.

DONE! (click to see larger, if you want!) Yay, it got its diploma and is ready for a job. Way to go.

Before I go, let me just say... If I can creatively inspire people with my illustrations, I feel like its been a job well done. Four-year-old Gracie, who loves pulling up a chair and working next to me, was inspired to create a little buggy school scene of her own, and I've just got to share.

Nothing is cuter than the work of a preschooler!

Okay, I hope you liked seeing my process from start to finish! If you are interest in seeing more of my work-in-progress posts, click on the link: Inside The Artist's Studio

And if you have any questions about my creative process, just ask!

Enjoy!

xoxo,