Mmmmmm! Nothing like pure, fresh-squeezed orange juice! And I noticed I wrote the typo on the label only just now as I was posting it… D’OH! (Click on image to enlarge.)

The hardest part about this week’s Illustration Friday topic was coming up with an idea. My husband helped out with a great brainstorming session, which is one of my favorite parts of the creative process.

I started getting a little overambitious with this week’s drawing — I went back to pens on paper, where that’s easy to do. Getting to the finished inks stage took a little over 3 non-consecutive hours. Not too bad, but last year that time kept creeping up on me until I couldn’t do it every week. So to make up for it I did the colors really quick and simple, less than half-an-hour. I was coloring all my drawings this way for a while; it’s a lot of fun and the end result reminds me of printmaking.

Spending the time on the ink drawing allows for a lot of flexibility at the coloring stage, and my body appreciates alternating between the drawing board and the computer. I sit at a computer all day at my day job, and anything else is better after a while. Last week’s all-digital drawing really drove home the need to simplify and/or change my mark-making process if I want to work that way; even though ultimately it’s more efficient it’s also uncomfortable and the inability to arc my strokes just so was frustrating. But I really do love the warmth of the marks the pen makes on the paper anyway, and I can just go nuts with texture, so I don’t think I’ll be getting rid of my pens any time soon! (Tho on some of my larger drawings I sure would have liked a “clone” tool…)