Media and Technique

I was still unsure of the ratio of collage to paint that would work on my design, but I knew I wanted my character to be entirely made from collage so I decided to make my character for a few different pages and experiment digitally with the backgrounds.

I then started playing around with with backgrounds using photoshop. I didn't really find any patterned paper that worked as a background, as it seemed to distract from the image, so I tried painting washes of water colour paint onto thick paper and scanning this in. 

I found that this had the right balance between texture and simplicity, as it was textured enough that it looked effective with the image, but so plain and simple that it didn't distract from the main character. 

I also experimented with fading the background colour out and making it bleed to the edges of the page to see which was more effective. Although I quite like the faded out experiment, I think that once the illustration is in book format having the image reaching to the edge of each page will have a nice effect, especially as I intend to include the text within the image. I think that if I was to design the book to have the image on one page and the text on the opposite page then fading the image out and having a white border would look effective, but as I am having the image over a double page spread and including the text within the image I think the most effective technique is to make the image full bleed. 

For my research project I had experimented with texture, and had discovered that scanning in real leaves to use within an image added a lot of texture and interest to the page. It also adds tones and colours that I would struggle to create myself using paint, so I decided to use them for the falling leaves.

However, the scanned in leaves didn't layer up very well to go onto the trees or make the piles of leaves on the ground, so I had to think of another way of doing this. I painted more pieces of paper using watercolour paint, this time using lots of layers of paint to create different tones and colours rather than the flat washes of colour I had done for the background. I used red, purple and orange tones, as if the leaves are falling from the trees then they had to be Autumn colours. 

Having scanned in a few sheets of painted paper I started to randomly select small areas in photoshop, making sure there were holes and gaps in each shape that you would be able to see through. I then copied some of these shapes into the image I was working on, and layered them up on the "ground" by her feet. This worked really well, as the colours and tones matched the leaves, and the paint was uneven enough to look like there were lots of leaves in the pile. The gaps in the shapes helped to create depth as they made the shapes blend together easier, and look more 3D.

I think collaging painted paper to make a background is what I will continue to do, as it compliments the character well, and adds texture to the image without being too overwhelming and making the image look busy.