Storytime Watercolor Painting from Start to Finish
(Characters Created by Dan Waltz for his book Dragon•Fly)

All paintings start as an idea. The idea I had was to give my readers of my book Dragon•Fly a visual of some of the main characters in the book. So I took that Idea and started sketching. Charlie is the garden gnome leaning up against a tree and reading a book. Pac, the rat was relaxing on his arm with Frankie the Fox looking on. Delilah the dragonfly patiently awaits the next spoken word while the Jack the rabbit gets comfortable on Charlie's legs. This was a rough sketch of what I was thinking.

I thought the sketch was a good start but felt it needed more details, like some mushrooms, acorns and leaves. I then also added two more characters, Myrtle the Turtle and Claries the bluebird. At this time I was happy with the sketch even though it was still pretty rough and was ready to transfer the lines to the watercolor board and start painting.

I first started roughing some areas in with color. This was for a kid’s book so I wanted to keep it a little cartoonish and with bright colors.

Here I added more and more details as I went.

More details painted and more colors roughed in.

More details added in the fingers and the bluebird and minor areas throughout the painting.

I then added some grass in the foreground and again more details here and there. For the most part the painting is now done.

I then scanned the painting in the computer and manipulated the cover of Dragon•Fly overtop of the brown book. Now Charlie is reading his own story to his woodland friends.

Hope you enjoyed this demo.

Signed prints are available for order.

Signed Storytime Print (Great for the kids room!)
11" x 14" image size $24.95

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