Saturday Sketch
Today's Saturday Sketch comes from Lita Judge of Born to be Giants...
One of the challenges I enjoyed about this book was capturing the immense difference in size between baby dinosaurs and their parents. I started the illustration process by drawing loose thumbnail sketches, exploring different compositions to convey the scale of dinosaurs.
Then I began refining these ideas into detailed drawings and final art.
Throughout the sketch process, I try to keep ideas fluid. In this case, I thought an aerial view of a parent next to 5 school buses would show the immense size of a mother Argentinosaurus. But I thought there might be even a better to way to show her scale. Then I calculated that a parent weighed as much as 17 elephants. I love drawing elephants, and thought the idea was better.
Originally I sketched backgrounds around the dinosaurs. But the thing I wanted to emphasize the most with each illustration was life-like gestures of the dinosaurs. My editor, Deirdre, and my art director, Danica, suggested I try a white background around the art. I loved it!
The negative space also helped tie the layout of the book together. The book has a pattern of 2-page spreads. The first offers clues (or facts) that scientists have discovered. The second is a full spread conveying educated guesses about how baby dinosaurs and their parents behaved. Combining all these details worked with this layout.
I loved creating illustrations that demonstrate how dinosaurs must have behaved like animals alive today. The challenge was to tie illustrations of living animals with dinosaurs and show their similarities.
I chose poses that were reminiscent of things we’ve seen in the animal world. For example, a dinosaur nest seen from above, as if you were looking down into a bird’s nest.
The cover – that’s always the most fun! Here are just a few of the thumbnail sketches I drew to explore how to create it.
Art
Reader Comments (2)
There's a lot to love here! I think my favorites are the baby peering into mama's eye and the margin of elephants by the feet of the Argentinosaurus.
Love it!