Studying Jane Davenport.

PICTURE A.

To my dearest friends and followers,

This month is THE month!! It's the month I have set in my goals to begin publishing my book!! The exact goal is before March 31st, and I'm getting there!! As I shared last week, I have begun working on a character reference that will go in the front of my book. Also, my husband has finished reading my manuscript, so it is now my turn to go over it yet again. After that, I'll probably give the entire book another go-over just to polish it up. I am also thinking of a title change, and have been playing with a few different ideas. I'll share more on that another time...

I am still working towards designing my book cover, but I've been making progress. As most of you probably know, I have been doing a study of Jane Davenport's art style for a few weeks now with the intent of designing a "Jane-style" cover. I think her whimsical techniques would match the story exceptionally well.

PICTURE B.

A few weeks ago, I shared a few faces I had drawn in her style. I've been working through her book Beautiful Faces and think I've made immense progress since I started. Besides just trying to imitate her work exactly, I began making some notes on what she says about her work in addition to some things I've noticed. All my notes are as follows:

PICTURE A.
- Head/face starts as an oval. Shape of head added by color pencil and shading.
- Distance between the eyes is same as the length of the eyes.
- Eyes are positioned halfway between the head.

PICTURE C.

- Nose is positioned halfway between the eyes and chin.
- Mouth is positioned halfway between the nose and chin.

- Far edges of the mouth should exceed the "points" of the eyes only slightly, if at all.

PICTURE B.
- Smaller/rounder chin = a more childlike or whimsical face.

PICTURE C.
- Lips are rounded, rather than being pointed on top. Middle line has lots of shape too and is a similar shape to the top lip.

PICTURE D.

PICTURE D.
- Don't erase until paper is 100% dry...XD
- First time doing natural colored lips. Nice "innocent" effect.
- Made manga character Touka Kirishima (created by Sui Ishida) into a Jane-style drawing. Really pleased with how this turned out!!

**Something I've been really enjoying is combining different mediums like Jane does, such as watercolor, graphite sticks, color pencil, and pens (a uni-ball Signo 207 gel pen, and a Sharpie pen in fine). I recently got a few more supplies to try out, such as a spray bottle to wet my paper and art tape, an art sponge for moving and soaking up water, three Gelly Roll pens, and a Uni-ball Signo broad white pen. 
I've still been working in an art journal, but my husband recently pulled out an old board which will serve as a surface to tape my large watercolor sheets onto to work on. The board still needs to be cleaned, but I'm almost ready to begin working on larger surfaces to make the book cover on.
Thank you so much for reading!!

Yours truly,
Me

Additional:
Jane Davenport 

Related Posts:
Five Manuscripts
Painting With Watercolor 
Working On Beautiful Faces