Last time I talked about my memoir with pictures, I showed a few pencil sketches of some pages I had nutted out. I have now sketched more pages, attempting to make a storyboard of the tales I wished to tell, or portray. This bit was easy. I love sketching in pencil and plotting scenarios based on my experiences when young, that was no trouble what so ever.

I studied other graphic novels to get a feel with how I wanted mine to look: a mixture of double pages in colour or black and white, and several pages with smaller images, as you might see in a comic, with speech bubbles etc., But then, I decided I should do at least one trial page in full colour as I imagined the larger pages should look. But, what medium to use?

I visited the art store, brought new tubes of gouache at great expense, which I declared (to myself) would be perfect for the background of my finished pages. I went home and sketched more roughs for the proposed storyboard, and told myself it was time to stop messing about and just get the trial colour pages done! So, I laid out a beautiful A3 sized page of Fabriano mixed media paper, popped a little dob each of green and yellow gouache on a plate, and with a wet brush moved the colours across the page, following the curves I’d sketched on the rough. I left room at the top for the sky, but now needed to wait for the page to dry.

Okay, finally I got the sky loosely done and again left the work to dry. Later I sketched the figure of the girl, using pencil, at bottom left. Now what to do? First go of using layers of gouache just didn’t work for me. So, I scrunched the page up and chucked it in the bin…

Back to the thinking ‘what to do’ again. And I finally had it! I started again, leaving the wash with gouache out. I sketched the figure and scenes lightly across the paper, marking out the precise size I needed for each page.

I used aquarelle pencils this time, and sketched the background in loosely, pulling water through with a brush. I left it to dry and after, began filling in a little more detail using Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils this time.

There is more detail and colour to add, to the grass, sky, clothes and house. In addition I shall print the words in the speech bubble with more clarity. Now that I have a better idea as to what I want, and how I wish to do it, you may well see more of this new project in the weeks to come. And last, I thought I’d pop in a different page of rough sketches here, to give you more of an idea what the book may contain in the future. (She says with fingers crossed).