Blending old and new

Work is progressing steadily on the illustrations for my children's book. Most mornings, as soon as it is light, I head up to my studio and immerse myself in the story, surrounded by reference sketches and notes, and work on the tilt of a head, the detail in the clothing, the lay of the land.

I have published newsletters and magazines in the past, in the 'olden days' when cut and paste meant, literally, scissors and glue! In publishing poetry books for myself and others I relied on desktop publishing and much of the work was done on the computer, although for layout I still reverted to hardcopy for corrections, and always trusted my eye far more than what any program attempted to dictate.

And now I find myself, in this as in so much else, blending and weaving the old and the new, hand and eye coordination primarily, a little tweaking on a scanned image to see what may work better, then back to the drawing board for touch up.

A lot of work. Solid steady work. One image at a time. One page at a time. And always the ocean and the shoreline to remind me of where my story takes place, and the magic that is found there.