This is a final version of a page in Janet's next book (My Big Dog). This page shows one of the stars, and the narrator of the book (Merlin) in a difficult predicament. The process Janet used for this book is different than for any in the past. She used a computer for a significant part of the work. This "Page History" demonstrates some of the ways she used this new tool.
The first step in the process is drawing the first draft of the final picture. This comes after many rough drafts and experiments in the dummy phase of the book. Janet does this in the usual way, with pencil on paper. That drawing is then scanned in using a HP 4C scanner. We want to preserve the detail in the drawing, so we end up with a grey tone in the background of the picture and some specks of lead that we don't want. Those are removed using an eraser and leaving white blobs on the image.
	The fabric in the shirt Merlin is wearing was scanned into the computer and a "clone" tool was used to paint the fabric onto Merlin. The shadows were drawn onto the fabric by Janet. This picture shows half of a button and the shadow underneath it. The buttons were scanned in separately, recolored, and added to the front of the shirt.
The grey background was adjusted to white and background colors were added in two stages. First, the line was turned brown, like on the bow in the center of this picture. Finally, a slightly different brown was added to the cat, like in his tail in the right part of this picture. Note that there is a little "slop" around the cat, brown areas that shoud not be brown. That gets cleaned up later.
	At this point the computer work is almost done. The fabric and the color have been added, there is just a little bit of cleanup work to be done. Janet does that using an eraser and a tablet with a stylus (like a pen) that works as an eraser.
This is the final image, all cleaned up and ready to go. This image is printed out of the computer onto watercolor paper. This is done on a special ink jet printer that can handle thick paper. Adjusting the print so that it looks like the digital image is very difficult.
	After the drawing has been printed out, Janet fills in the rest of the color with watercolor and colored pencil. The possibility of printing out several copies of the final digital piece makes it easier for Janet to experiment with different colors during this final stage. Experimentation is important, even at this late stage.
This is the final drawing ready to send to the editor for a final check!

These pictures are available as: A Tour showing one at a time. A Contact Sheet showing all at once (could be slow).
	Suggestions or Questions? Please send me a message at rhinoink@aol.com