Watercolor has always felt like the 'right' medium for illustration to me. My mom is an accomplished watercolor painter, and she introduced me to the medium when I was still in gradeschool. Although I also love to paint in oils, and have recently dabbled in acrylics as well, I keep coming back to watercolors for illustration work.
I work on Lanaquarelle hot pressed paper using a variety of watercolor brands. Like most illustrators, when working on a book project I start with thumbnails, move to full sized sketches, and then jump to full color watercolor drafts. My sketches tend to be loose, and I usually transfer them freehand to the watercolor paper with a water-soluble colored pencil. I find that tracing the sketch usually loses the spontaneity that I strive for.
The toughest thing about working in watercolor is making changes. I sometimes start all over again if there is something I don't like about one of my illustrations.
My Secret Bully
When I began work on My Secret Bully my first challenge was to create the characters. After long discussions with the publisher and the author, I began to sketch the main characters and their friends.
Early in the process, I received the finished manuscript. After reading it several times, I broke it down into two page spreads. I then drew thumbnail sketches showing the flow of action from one page to the next. I sent these thumbnails and my character sketches to the editor to make sure they were approved before I began to work on the final art.
First I refined my sketches, and transferred them to large sheets of hot press watercolor paper.
I painted each spread in watercolors, completing each spread in about 1 day. In several cases I started the whole spread again if I was not satisfied with something about the artwork.