Here's a look at my two page Dream skit and some of the steps I took to color them from my line inks. The inks can be viewed near the end on this blog.

One note of value is paper choice. I did these on 60 lb. sketch paper. Its not bad for inking, but murder when trying to apply watercolor washes. However, since this particular skit became an experimental piece after inking, I jumped in with one of my favorite quotes..."In for a penny, in for a pound." Next time I shall take time to run into town and invest in some 140 lb watercolor paper.

These were done in a hurry, one week and two days from concept to script, character sketches to storyboard, finished pencils and then inks to full color washes. Why? Because I had come across a request for submissions to an exhibit. It was mentioned Neil Gaiman might attend. The theme was DREAMS and of course it was love at first thought. Dream after all is my middle name. Well, not really, but it ought to be. I had hoped I'd be able to enter in time, but alas a week's notice wasn't quite enough. School just started and since I home school...

In any event, the real challenge was keeping this story (that had stepped into my heart) to a mere two pages. There's more to this tale (there always is when these characters are born), but time and space constraints forced me to trim it down to its bare bones.

One learns a great deal under pressure, which is the second reason I challenged myself to this task (the first reason of course was Dreams and Neil Gaiman). Nothing is ever really lost and effort is never wasted. Here in these two pages of my little skit I have the making of a short story, or even a novel. These two pages are already set up. I think of them as a sort of visual outline to a story. All I have to do now is fill in between the chapters of her life. Yes, I know seems rather strange, but when I conceive a character their whole life, possibilities and potentials play through my mind. Now if only I could write and illustrate as fast as the visions...