Sing a song and sing along

I have illustrated a songbook for children. It is to be used in danish schools by children from second grade to tenth grade. The books and cd´s just arrived from the printers.

The books and cd´s just arrived from the printers and what a better way to test my brand new camera than to make a blog post. I just got the new Canon EOS M camera which is really awesome quality wise =18 Megapixel. It also has fancy touchscreen features so all the movements I am used to on my iPhone are the same here, I can swipe from picture to picture and even zoom and take pictures by touching the screen. Right now I feel like I am in the middle of a love story, I can feel this new friend will have a great impact on my future but first I have to get to know it a bit better. Love at first sight.!

I had a great sensation when I was asked to make the drawings for the new songbook from Dansk Sang I got totally artistic freedom. YAY so much fun!!!! Before starting the drawing process, i read the songs I was told to illustrate and brainstormed on with images I thought would be cool and appropriate. I wanted to be sure that I interpreted the songs in the best way possible. I decided to do the drawings by hand and color them in Photoshop. When I was drawing by hand I used several different pencil types, with different tips. Some where soft and like coal, others were hard and gave a more darker line. I also used a fine black marker for the effect of contrast.

The reason that I chose to color the illustrations in Photoshop was that this was the best way for me to control the colors. If I colored them by hand and afterwards would have to scan the drawings, the colors would change and this would be less desirable because the final output would be harder to control.

I really wanted to make some illustrations which were packed with details and texture. The reason for this is that I thought of how boring it must be for these children to have to look at the same songbook for 8 years in a row. I hoped I could make it a bit more fun, by really pumping the illustrations with colors, pattern and textures.