“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” — Dr. Seuss

So I promised to stop and take a few screen shots while I was building and coloring, or as some call it, illustrating, on the computer. It’s pretty intimidating to show this when I know illustrators who do far more amazing work than I ever will. But this works for me, and for this project.

I try to keep things in separate layers though sometimes elements have to be moved around to they’ll go behind or in front. You can see the layer palette in the illustration below:

I have a hard time drawing a straight vertical line, go figure. Instead of turning the paper around like I’d do in real life, I just draw horizontally then use the rotate tool to flip it 90 degrees.

I borrowed the sunflowers from the cover to plunk into place, you can see them peeking up below.

All layers off while I work on some background. I usually do the main bits first then fill in, but not always.

White boxes to neaten it up. It’s not done, too bland looking. If this were watercolor, I’d ruin it and have to start over.

I’m reasonably happy with this for now. Note above garden and below children’s feet will be text. You can see the toolbox, color and layer palettes here.