Trench Kids

watercoloured

pencil under-drawing

Children sheltering in a trench during the Battle of Britain over
the hop fields of Kent, 1940. Photo by John Topham

It's so many years since I used watercolours, I felt a bit apprehensive, but I think this has come out all right.

- The blue of the middle boy's jumper was far too strong and knocked everything else out of balance, but I've toned it down a bit with glazes of white. I'm looking forward to doing loads more pictures because by the end of it I'll probably be much more confident with both watercolour paint and using colour.

- I thought the drawing looked a little bit manga, a bit Studio Ghibli in the faces, but it looks less so now that there's colour.

- This is on cold-pressed paper (the difference between cold-pressed and hot-pressed paper).  The painted areas look nicer and the pebbly texture is appropriate for the dug earth.  But I think if I'm working in fine detail, it would be better to do most of my work on smooth hot-pressed paper.

- What to do about the lines?!  I'm wondering whether to go over all the lines with black ink.  I like the delicate quality to the image as it is, but I'm worried that the forms are getting a bit lost.  I have a good command of line, I'm much better at line than colour.  Some of my favourite illustrators like Janet Ahlberg, Axel Scheffler and Helen Oxenbury would go over it in ink.  But the problem with ink is that once it's done, it's done; no going back.  I could spend a whole day on a picture, put on black lines and then realise it's wrecked.  So I think I'm going to do a few more watercolours first and then decide whether overall, as a group, they'd look better with ink.