My Sister, The Little Spoon in Color and Block Print - Process

I decided to redo My Sister, The Little Spoon (original ink drawing here) in color.  I also did another block print, but I think I could've done this without it since I ended up tightening up lines and brushing over it.

First I sketched it out in pencil.  I tried tracing at first but I hate tracing paper.  I hated it as a kid, and now that I've tried it again I have renewed my hate.  So  I had to freehand it, which was fine for the most part but I had difficulty getting the face right.

I did a block print for just the blanket.  I contemplated doing it for the carpet and walls but decided to keep this one smaller and quicker.  I kinda like the look of the ink sketch with the stark single color print on the blanket.

Then I painted in the rest using my gouache paints.  I like watercolors better than gouache generally but when I'm doing the ink prints, I feel like gouache is safer for layering with the ink but to get the watercolor effect is tough since the gouache dries so quickly.

I decided the blanket looked too messy and so I smoothed out the ink using just water and a brush, and then added some outline to the blanket and pattern.

Looking at the finished product I realized that I probably wasted time doing the block print since I could have just painted this.  I think I might use the block prints in a different way going forward - like above with just the ink and the single color print.  It's a bit more stark and stylized so the imperfection in the print doesn't look so unusual like it does when it's juxtaposed with traditional paint.  I dunno - I'll just keep playing around with this and see...