How I turned my sketches into a children's book portfolio piece
And made the process less daunting
If you’ve read my previous posts, you know that I’ve been sketching daily since January, 2024. For more than half of the past year, I followed the daily prompts created by others, such as
or the Inktober drawing challenge. Once the sketch habit was established, I began creating my own prompts. I cut paper into small strips and wrote down the subjects (like animals) and the actions—choosing variety of actions I wanted to challenge myself to draw. Then, I mixed them up and picked one subject and one action from each group. Some of the combinations turned into interesting sketches.
To get better at drawing kids in more natural, dynamic poses, I intentionally began sketching them in actions last year. Interestingly, I found that I really enjoyed drawing kids playing sports. After a year of daily sketching and three completed sketchbook, I realized that while I had created hundreds of sketches, I hadn’t finished many full illustration pieces. At that time, I was hesitant to turn sketches into a finished work—and now I understand why. Back then I was primarily painting digitally, but I was having so much fun sketching with traditional media that digital painting no longer excited me the way it once did.
I’ve been wanting to illustrate scenes of kids at school. Since I really liked the sketches of children at the pool, I decided to create a swim lesson scene. It usually feels daunting when working on a piece with many figures but this time was easier because I could use the individual sketches I had already done. I treated them like puzzle pieces and assembled them into a complete scene. It felt a little backward working this way compared to how I usually create illustrations for my portfolio. Typically I have a scene in mind, then sketched the characters and the setting. Earlier this year, I learned from my mentor that characters can naturally emerge from playful, daily sketchbook sessions. Then, you can brainstorm to develop them further and imagine the different scenes they might live in. It’s a much better way for creating a piece with a strong narrative—especially for a children’s book portfolio. Maybe I was onto something when I created this piece (Probably not). I just wanted to turn some of my favorite sketches into a finished illustration.
Here are the sketches I used for the swim lesson scene.
Looking at it more closely, the swimmer on the right should be positioned a bit higher so it doesn't look like his knees are right on the edge!
She's about to belly flop!
I moved the girl on the left to the far left on the canvas, made her taller with a slightly stronger frame, and flipped all three kids to face the opposite direction.
I placed the little boy to the left side of the canvas and made him taller and older.
I added the group of kids and the fearful kid to the composition. Including the child who’s scared of diving helped deepen the narrative. I could also add another kid showing him empathy.
While drawing the kids, I made sure they were not standing stiffly, with knees locked, and heads facing straight forward to make their poses look more natural and believable. To help keep the focus on kids’ action, I chose a muted palette for the background. Yellow sky suggests the warm temperature, adding to the atmosphere. I enjoy using a limited palette to keep my illustrations cohesive and uncluttered. I varied the characters’ skin tones to show diversity. For painting, I used four of my favorite procreate brushes: Grubby Noise, Gravely Noise, Grungy Streaker (from the Nostalgic Illustration pack) and Bardot Pencil.
As you can probably guess, it didn’t take me very long to complete this illustration. It’s not my best piece, but I was happy how the scene turned out. Now I have a school scene in my portfolio! If I were to change something about the piece, I would make the fearful kid stand out more by having the other interact with him.
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I’m always delighted to hear from you and your thoughts about my post, art, or anything in general. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments. 😊
I hope you are having a great summer so far! Here in Florida, the daily thunderstorms have begun—the lawn is soaked, and my dog refuses to go outside because he hates getting wet.
If you are in the U.S., Happy Fourth of July!
I think you've nailed looseness in your sketches with neocolors, which is not an easy thing to accomplish! Also the colors are really interesting in those sketches and less traditional in a sense, which I really like :)
Your sketches are wonderful, and maybe more than sketches. The very zen lion with coffee, who doesn't love a paddleboarding penguin, and the volleyball-playing girl stand out to me. The idea you hit on is brilliant... taking sketches and using them in a larger piece. I understand how that made the goal less daunting. It reminds me of what language teachers call chunking. I am currently studying a new language and I would say it is much the same concept. I learn pieces/phrases that can be used, altered and used, and then combined to make a whole new "thing." Your meta thinking about your art, and your devotion are the combination! I wish you much success and enjoyment ahead.