“Gabrielle” by Erika Lynne Jones
Meet Gabrielle! She is a character I’ve created for a the book I’m writing on organic baby care. She’s one of four characters I’ve created to help mamas journey through the Ten Building Blocks of Organic Baby Care. Obviously she is a yogi, but she’s also carrying twins and wants to make all of the healthiest choices for her baby. You’ll learn a lot more about her as I share my progress in the book. For now I thought I’d share a little bit more about my process for creating the character.
I’ve actually written the manuscript and had a full paragraph describing the character’s preferences and personality so I had plenty of inspiration to start with. I was still a little intimidated about my ability to draw her though. So as usual I signed up for another illustration class just to make sure I knew everything I needed to know. That’s kind of my perfectionist, paralyzing habit that I’m trying to shake, but anyhow that’s how it went.
Ultimately, I’m glad I took the class because it helped show me someone else’s process. I also learned a more about anatomy and how to gather and draw from inspiration. If you’re interested here is a link to the class. I’m not an affiliate of the website, but I do enjoy their classes.
So I started by drawing in my big sketch book with pencil. After that I figured out from another course that I could use tracing paper and graphite paper to transfer her to a mixed media paper that I can paint on. You probably already knew that. It was my aha moment to have though. I found each time I “re-drew” her I’d get more clarity around the details and fix “mistakes” I hadn’t seen before.
Once I was satisfied with the drawing, I used color pencil to plan the color scheme before actually painting her. Another Aha from the class I took. I used to just start mixing and applying paint and figure it out along the way. End result very little cohesiveness in the color palette. So once that was settled. I went and drew the other three characters. Ha, I have my ways of stalling, but they are all freaking productive, okay?
Finally, the other day I decided I was ready to paint her. I used gouache paint. As you can see in the rough draft (above) I played around with ink. I ultimately prefer the sketch lines of the pencil so I went with that, figuring I could play with the tone and weight of it once I scanned it into Photoshop.
So that’s my current process. It will evolve over time. I think I’m shaking off the fear of experimentation and messing up the more I create. Do you ever find yourself stalling and/or avoiding a creative project for fear it wont turn out like what’s in your head? Let me know in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe if you want to meet Gabby’s sister-friends.
Love and Blessings,
Erika Lynne Jones
