These are my sketches for a page spread that I am doing for my children’s book course. I had a ton of ideas and I did a bunch of thumbnails, but I opted for the simplest design in order not to get frustrated, and could complete it within the time frame allotted. Advice that I received from Koosje Koene many moons ago…. Keep It Simple Stupid, and that’s what I did.

I didn’t realize I had to include text, too. I added that at the end.

My scene will have seagulls. I have tons of reference photos that I have taken over the years…and I took more to ensure I had enough poses. Seagulls are easy for me since I have sketched them so many times before. My favorites are laughing gulls and they are all over the place here so that was a no brainer for me. I think there are laughing gulls in half of my sketchbooks.

These are my process sketches on how I developed my page spread:

Thumbnail…which you will probably look at and say “Whhhhaaaatt?” Yes, this thumbnail led to the following sketches:

Below is the next stage. They don’t quite look like seagulls, do they? I put notes about where to look for my references…I actually had to go in and find all my seagull photos that I have taken over the years and name the photos so I could find them easier. I really need to do a better job organizing the photos I take with my iPhone.

Here is my draft. I sketched the gulls in pencil on vellum so that I can erase easier. Those two lines in the middle are the “gutter” where the page will be split for binding so I have to allow for that. I transferred this image to two 9×12 mixed media sheets of paper so that I can scan the final product on my scanner. I will show the final on tomorrow’s post.