I’m old-school about a lot of stuff–anybody who knows me will tell you so. I fought using an e-reader for a long time. I insisted that there was nothing that could replace the experience of a “real” book in your hands. Then I got my first Kindle and everything changed.

I’ve gone through a similar metamorphosis with art. I’ve been struggling with how to illustrate stories I wrote for my kids when they were little. I’ve tried all kinds of media–colored pencils, soft pastels, and watercolors. I’m someone who’s dabbled in art my whole life, but that doesn’t make me up to the task of illustrating whole books (what was I thinking?). But I’m not giving up.

I know that a lot of book illustrators now use software like Photoshop to create their illustrations. I’m a bit tech-phobic. And old-school, remember. So I wasn’t interested at all, at first, with the idea of using technology to create art. Honestly, I do love the feel of the brush on the canvas or paper. I love the challenge and freedom of mixing colors, and seeing what interesting, unexpected things can happen when those colors meet up on the canvas.

But I’m still overwhelmed with this whole illustrate-a-whole-book(s) thing. And, I do have Photoshop. But I’m intimidated by Photoshop–it’s so complicated! However, I do pay that $9.99 every month for it. I should make use of it, right?

So I Googled how to use my laptop to create art with Photoshop, and learned that I’d need to buy a graphic drawing tablet. I figured they’d be expensive (and so I would get off the hook about using Photoshop), but then I found drawing tablets on Amazon for really reasonable prices. With good reviews. And part of Amazon Prime. Uh-oh. Just click “buy now” and it’s in the mailbox tomorrow! After calming down the panic that I would now really have to figure out Photoshop, I did it. It was on its way.

Now I had to figure out Photoshop. I went to my favorite place to learn, the University of YouTube, as I like to call it. There are lots of videos on how to use Photoshop, and some of those are nearly as complicated as Photoshop itself. These are clearly people with backgrounds in graphic design. Or people who have a way better understanding of how to use basic stuff like their computers and software.

I found an artist, Jess Bircham, who explained how she uses Photoshop to create her art in a way that even I could understand. Thank you, Jess!

I decided that my first try would be with a watercolor painting that I created recently, copied from my old Mother Goose book. In a recent blog, I explained how I decided to practice watercolor by replicating a piece of art in the book (see here).

I uploaded the watercolor into Photoshop. First, I removed all the color, so I basically had a drawing. With the help of Jess Bircham’s video and my new drawing tablet, I replicated the Mother Goose art again, this time digitally.

The results are below. The one on the left is the watercolor, the one on the right is Photoshop.

In the watercolor on the left, I was trying to stay true to the muted colors of the original art in the Mother Goose book. On the right, I didn’t worry about staying true to the original, Instead, as I got the hang of it, I had fun with layering the colors.

Am I going to give up my brushes forever? No. But will I use Photoshop to illustrate my children’s books? Definitely.

All I have to do, STILL (see previous posts) is to figure out how to create a cat who looks-mean-but-isn’t-too-mean-for-little-kids. Sigh.