Doodling on the pages
Today, I'm showing you the process of how I created an illustration for Chapter Three of Doug Karr's novel Dwelling. As I'm reading the manuscript he sent me I make notes and doodles across the pages and on scraps of paper, recording the visual images that come to mind as I read the story.
But as with most of the building’s predicaments, the weight of the disappearance matter had fallen on Ndusen. In the absence of anyone else even taking notice, Ndusen had been the one to file the missing person’s report down at the 7th precinct. The hardest part had been overseeing Sal’s daughters when they came to pick up his belongings. Not much had remained by way of a legacy. The furniture was mostly laid to rot, but they did find a few antique books that they seemed pleased with. Little solace for the mysterious loss of a father.
Creating a drawing
... a few antique books
I started off the process of creating my drawing by piling some books up to make as still life to draw. I don't really have any antique books, but my copy of Alice in Wonderland has a nice old fashioned style red cover, and I found an old book from 1914 with a lovely dark green cover. I decided these would suffice for my drawing!
I sketched out my image lightly in pencil and then masked off the areas I wanted to keep white.
I applied layers of ink washes to build up a range of tones, before using drawing ink applied with a dip pen to draw in lines and details.
On the top book I drew a figurative design which is inspired by the book cover of 'Dymer' by Clive Hamilton (C.S.LEWIS), which was published in 1926.
The furniture was mostly laid to rot, but they did find a few antique books that they seemed pleased with.
'Books' -ink on paper
You can read the 3rd chapter of Doug Karr's novel Dwelling now!
