Welcome!
Each Wednesday check this blog for a strategy, process, or reflection for illustration with the iPad app ProCreate. This Wednesday Wrap Up is a wrap up of my children’s book project for the past week that may also help others. Hopefully, you can add ideas as well — check and add to the #warmup4art hashtag on IG or Twitter.
Art Prompts
As my readers know, I illustrate daily art prompts with my CLmooc friends. In January and February I chose prompts from Lisa Bardot’s #makingarteveryday. Lisa provides tutorials on many different styles of art, which she shares in her long blog post 30 Art Styles to Try in Procreate. This month the theme is “Animals,” with each week a different category: Forest Friends,Farm, Pets, Wild.
What to do with daily art?
What do you do with your daily art? Keep an online journal or portfolio? Print them? Add to Print-On_Demand [POD] products?
I do all of these. My art is organized into various albums on Flickr, along with other photography and creative projects. I print them into postcards to mail to family and friends. And I share the ones I love as products in various POD stores.
In the very first prompt for “Forest Friends,” I created this bear— and added a butterfly in for interest and “action,” so the doodle illustrated a bit of a story. For the entire month, I’ve kept that same butterfly in each illustration with a similar sky in the background. For information about the illustration brushes and strategies, see this post: FebDoodle Owl and Fox.
After that first week, I decided to keep the butterfly in each animal doodle because each week will become a different “book” for my first great-grandchild, little Elijah. As a young toddler, his mother loved the book by Eric Carle, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? With the constant inclusion of the butterfly, I thought I could create a similar book for Elijah, but personalized at the end with a picture of him by creating an album in my Google Drive Photos and organizing the illustrations into a photo book.
This might be something you could do as well—a personalized photo book for family and friends.
The Plan
That was the plan— a “Butterfly, butterfly, what do you see?” book. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite plan out the drawings for the same story, so I adapted the story to fit the illustrations I had made.
The Story
I wrote the text copy for the first week, but called it, Butterfly In The Meadow:
Butterfly in the Meadow
Butterfly, butterfly, where did you go?
I flew to the meadow to see friends I know.Butterfly, butterfly, who will you see?
I see brown bear looking for me.Butterfly, butterfly, who else will you see?
I see big-eyed owl looking for me.Butterfly, butterfly, who else will you see?
I see red fox looking for me.Butterfly, butterfly, who else will you see?
I see the mule deer looking for me.Butterfly, butterfly, who else will you see?
I see grey squirrel looking for me.Butterfly, butterfly, who else will you see?
I see raccoon looking for me.Butterfly, butterfly, who else will you see?
I see stinky skunk looking for me.Butterfly, butterfly, who else will you see?
I see Elijah looking for me.Butterfly, butterfly, what will Elijah see?
Elijah sees a brown bear.
Elijah sees a big-eyed owl.
Elijah sees a red fox.
Elijah sees mule deer.
Elijah sees a grey squirrel.
Elijah sees a raccoon.
Elijah sees a stinky skunk.Elijah, Elijah, what can you see?
I see butterfly in the meadow with me.Butterfly, butterfly, where did you go?
Sheri Edwards
I flew home before the night stars glow.
The Illustrations, Organized
I had the illustrations for the butterfly/animal, so all that was needed was to add the text to pages that fit around those illustrations. I duplicated the meadow from the mule deer as the constant for those pages, created the Elijah pages, and added a night ending page.
Pages to create, exporting each as pngs:
- Cover page
- Title page
- Introduction and Answer for first two verses.
- Question Template [Butterfly, butterfly, who will you see?/ who else will you see]
- Answer Template [I see a…]
- Elijah pages [I see…; Elijah sees; Elijah question/answer]
- Conclusion page [Where did you go/answer]
Next I uploaded all the images and organized them into a photo album in Google Photos. Finally, I ordered the book— should be here next week. I can’t wait for Elijah to see himself in a book! I may even make a video of myself reading it aloud.
Here’s the album without my Elijah pages and images [for privacy].
https://photos.app.goo.gl/eba8Qa6qKepQDher9
Try It
So, that wraps up this Wednesday Wrap Up. I hope it gives you ideas for your own daily doodles. I look forward to your sharing, and please continue to be a part of the #warmup4art series to learn and enjoy our work together! See my sharing at IG @42Sheri and Twitter @42Sheri.
I wonder, if I draw a line... 