How a Colouring Page is born...

I am so excited that the work for my first Colouring Book is almost completed! Just a few more weeks and it will be available on Amazon!!

For every single one of the 30+ pages I am going through exactly the same process. At the end all picture pages will be reviewed as I pick the final ones to be included in the book.

So how does a Colouring Page come to life? Let me show you! The following 11 steps are taken for every single page:
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1. Deciding on the subject – which animal am I going to draw? I am trying to include a variety of animals from all over the world!

2. Planning out overall composition – will the orientation be portrait or landscape? How will the subject(s) be arranged? Do I need a frame, a background, etc?

3. Sketching out the basic shapes in pencil while looking at reference pictures and living models if necessary. Below is just a rough sketch, but getting it right at this point is important. After this step it becomes very difficult to fix positions, composition or elements.

​ 4. Building up the rough outline of the subject(s).  I like using geometric shapes to construct an animal!

​ 5. Drawing the actual subject over the sketch. Adding until I am happy with the result!

​6. Adding the details and erasing/cleaning up.

This gives me the pencil drawing of the subject!

7. Sometimes I have to go back to sketching and studying if it seems like the overall composition is missing something…  A frame in this case. I did not remember how to draw a basic knot, so I had to tie one for a reference.

8. Starting to outline the pencil drawing with black pen. For me this is surprisingly difficult.  I have been taught that in real life things do not have an outline, so when drawing I purposefully avoid this. But here I have to narrow my sketching lines down to the one line which defines the object.

9. The Big Erase – once everything is lined the pencil drawing is erased. 

10. Scanning and digital post-production – the scanned image is ‘cleaned up’ using image-software. Smudges and spots are removed and small corrections made – like thinning a too-thick line or adding a bit of line where my pen did not reach all the way. It is very important to me when colouring that all areas have closed borders... if you understand what I mean?

11. All done and good to go!