Painting an illustration- a video

I have just made a video of myself painting an illustration for "Sometimes Sofia Gets Angry When..." for those of you who may be curious about my painting process (or perhaps just a laugh at my expense!;)). This is really for those of you who are not trained artists but would like to see a simple way anyone can create illustrations using watercolor.

I suggest 'fast forwarding' every now and then if you just want to get a quick glimpse of how I work.

By the way, I thought I was looking at the camera lense... it didn't turn out quite that way....

An one story with an added illustration, another with added text.

I have added a new illustration this week.

Nearly finished!


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I also added the text to my "Monster Splash" story.


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A new story, "Joel is so grown up..."

Hello,

As you may have noticed most of my stories are about my daughter Sofia. I have been meaning for a long time to add to Joel's collection of stories. Over the next few weeks I am teaching a 'How to write and illustrate a storybook' course and thought I would take the opportunity to do the homework I set my students and create a new storybook- this time for Joel.

The first week's homework was to write the story.

Here is my first draft.

Joel is so grown up...

This is Joel.
Joel lives with his mummy, his daddy, his big sister Sofia...
and his cars.
Joel is very grown up.
Infact, Joel is so grown up he can drink from a cup without a lid.
Joel is so grown up he can wash his hands all by himself.
Joel is so grown up he can put his shoes on all by himself.
Joel is so grown up he can go down the stairs all by himself.
Joel is so grown up he can put things in the bin all by himself.
Joel is so grown up he can choose his own bedtime stories.
Joel is so grown up he hardly needs any help from Mummy, Daddy or big sister Sofia at all.
But sometimes, when he decides, it is quite nice not to be so grown up...
And have a big cuddle with Mummy.

I have allocated one sentence for each page for this particular book. It looks like the book will be 13 pages in all. This is a good number of pages as it is few enough for me to realistically complete the illustrations within a few weeks.

The next step I need to complete in order to finish my homework is to draw a rough sketch, an idea of the illustration I would like to have on each page. I'll show you my work in a blog post in the next few days.

Using leaves and flowers to create illustrations!

This week I have to admit I haven't added a new illustration to “Sometimes Sofia Gets Angry When...”, however, I have something else to share with you which I think you may enjoy.

The other morning I went for a walk in the forest after leaving the little ones at nursery and was getting inspired by the nature around me. I collected some leaves and flowers with the idea I could somehow use them to make some paintings with the kids.

When the little ones got home I got out a big piece of paper, the water colours and told Sofia and Joel about my plan.

The plan was to:

Put the different leaves and flowers on the paper.

Paint around them with different colours.

Make pictures out of the resulting shapes.

This was really fun for all of us. We couldn't find the paint brushes so used cotton bud sticks instead. I have taken photos so you can see, I took them with my mobile phone camera so appologies for the quality.

I thought this would be a really fun way to create illustrations for a storybook. Create shapes by painting outlines around things and then making the shapes into pictures to illustrate your story.



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A new illustration every week and "Create A Book For A Child"

A couple of bits of news today.

Every week I am adding a new illustration to a book for my little girl. This book is called "Sometimes Sofia Gets Angry When...", a little further down in this post you will find the illustrations including this week's addition.

My other news is that I am in the process of changing the name of my social network from Piggy Publishing Adventures to Create A Book For A Child. Even though I love the name Piggy Publishing Adventures (and I am still keeping the name to use later) I realized it doesn't really describe what my social network is about. It is not really about becoming a published author but about creating something unique for your child for the pure joy of it.

I am still in the process of sorting out changing all the URL details etc... But I thought I'd let you know of the change and if you have any feedback would love to hear it.

Anyway, here are the illustrations... enjoy...


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Have a great day.

Nina

A picture from my daughter

This morning when I left Sofia and Joel at their nursery there was a piece of paper on Sofia's shelf. Sofia had drawn a picture for me.

I have never seen Sofia draw with such attention to detail before and I just really loved the image and couldn't resist sharing it here.

Another new illustration add to the book!

I am very proud to say I have completed another illustration this week. Would love you to have a look!


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