Christmas cards 2021

 I know it's still a little early, the pumpkins aren't even carved yet, but I'm getting organised this year.  I still have a book to finish so my Christmas cards have come early.  

There are 4 new designs, each made in Procreate, and sold as a pack of 4.  You can buy them here

Last year's Christmas cards are also available as a pack of 4, or sold individually.

 

Mr. Darling and Wendy

 

This is an image for J.M Barrie's Peter Pan.  Mr. Darling is trying to calculate whether they can afford their baby, Wendy.  I always find it a very funny moment as it's obviously too late.

This image was created in Procreate.

The Owl and the Pussycat

 

This is an image I created using limited colour.  There are two plus the outline.  I wanted to try and recreate the looser work I'd been making using paintbrushes but digitally.  The outline is hand drawn  but the colour is added in Procreate. 

Digital work makes it very easy to erase mistakes but they're often the lines that give images their charm.  So I did my very best not to hit the undo or delete button.  Does anyone else find it hard to just leave their artwork as it is and embrace the imperfections?

You can see more of my limited colour work on my website megmclaren.com

Peep! Bookstagram reviewers

I wanted to say thank you to all the reviewers who took the time to read Peep! and review it.  

See my previous post to find links to all of them by CLICKING HERE

They are all on Instagram and love children's books.  Do look them out.

Peep Bookstagram

Peep! is now out in the world and there's a Bookstagram Tour next week if Instagram is your thing.  Huge thanks to all the bloggers and reviewers for taking part.  It takes a lot of time and effort to write and post about books, when you could be doing so many other things, so I really appreciate everyone giving their time for this. 

Here is where you can find the reviewers @ReadingWithKids @TeenyReaders @Booksb4Bedtime @Home.Read.Play @ThisBookIsBrilliant and @KidsBooksToLife who I had the pleasure of speaking to.  The chat can be found on Faye's Instagram feed by CLICKING HERE

One more day to go

Peep! is out tomorrow.  To celebrate I made this little gif of Dot.  She is patience personified.  Unlike my own dog who only stares out the window to bark at passing cars, the postman and the wind.

Peep! is published by Andersen Press and available to buy wherever you get your books.  But please support your local bookshop if you have one, or take a look in your local library.  Libraries and bookshops are the best.

The View From Here

This was my #colour_collective for this week. 

It's the view from my village woods across to the Black Isle.  I made this sketch sticking to the three colours I planned to use.  More and more I prefer to draw from life in my sketch book and only work from that image, as opposed to working from a photograph.  Sometimes I will take a photo for reference but, for me, a sketch really focuses in on what I noticed and what I liked about the scene in front of me.

When I got home I painted separations in black and coloured the image digitally.  Using a black layer for each colour means that it's hard to predict what the final image will look like.  I like the surprise of this.  I also like painting the layers because I'm not very good at it.  My brushwork isn't tidy and my hand isn't steady.  There's an element of it that I can't control and I really enjoy the results of that.

You can see below how layering them on top of one another starts to create the final image.  Colouring digitally does mean I can change things and you may notice that the big expanse of white water isn't in the separations.  That's because I painted it in the blue colour layer but removed it digitally as the image looked better without it.

I wasn't entirely happy with the result but after tweaking the colours and leaving it for a while, I much preferred it once I'd had some time away from it.  Some pictures are like that.