The Cramps!

This vignette is a sample of my picture book style as it is today. The technique requires several layers of ink on coarse-grained paper, with coloured pencil brushed or (more often) pressed over the top, and then highlights added if needed. It gives strong images, but it's actually quite a strain to keep up the pressure in the tips of my right fore and index finger, and thumb. This might sound surprising, but try keeping that very localised exertion up across twelve spreads (with backgrounds) and a cover. By the end of a project, I usually have shooting aches up my arms and across my back, and increasingly my hand gives up altogether and won't allow me to press with the pencil at all! This is one of the reasons I'm looking for a change in style.