Breakout Session: Illustrating Stories Digitally with Juanita Londoño

Illustrating Stories Digitally: From Concept to Final Artwork 

with Juanita Londoño

About this Breakout Session:

In this workshop, participants will learn how to develop a final illustration using Procreate and how to use value, color, and composition.

During this session, Juanita worked on an original illustration for the webinar, since she doesn't usually record her process.

CONCEPT | CONTENT | COMPOSITION

"They occur simultaneously, but its a good idea to understand them separately"

"What the illustration is about"

Writing down what you like is a great way to keep track of your interests and subjects to draw. As you pare it down, start to brief on your own, or if for a commission, write what the concept is, defining ideas, limitations, and guidelines.

"What will be represented in the illustration"

This is the stage where you define what you want to have in your piece. 

For this particular illustration, Juanita wanted to do something with fantasy and magic. Since she loves magical realism, she wanted to incorporate those elements into her piece.

"What if dragons existed amongst us, sort of like pigeons?"

With these ideas from the brainstorming, Juanita then created a mood board.

Her prefers to use Pinterest, where you can create folders to group together images for a mood board.

From there, she begins to draw her studies. Here she starts building her visual library, strengthening her memory, and honing her skills around any particular subject matter. This will help you understand what you're drawing so you can translate it into your illustration. 

Here she did some studies of dragons that will be in the park.

Here she made studies of children, which would become the focal subjects along with the dragons.

"How the content will be arranged to tell the concept"

This is where you begin to explore composition to enhance the feeling of the sketch. Here you decide what composition you want the story to tell.

Composition Structures: Shape, Repetition, Balance/Hierarchy, Dimension, Focus, Contrast

Below are some examples:

Once you choose a composition, it's best to test it out with your concept. Here you want to work small. Thumbnail drawings allow you to stay loose and fast while you discern if the composition is compelling or tells the story you desire. 

Then Juanita explored Value & Color

"The lightness or darkness of a color"

Juanita broke the value scale into 9 parts, going from the whitest white to the blackest black. 

All hues fall within a range (1-3, 4-6, or 7-9) and different values can help your main point of interest stand out.

"Conveys mood, enhances storytelling, evokes emotions and guide the viewer's eye"

Juanita broke the color wheel down into three sections, Hue, Shades, and Tint, defining what PRIMARY, SECONDARY,and TERTIARY colors are and how they relate to one another. ,

After experimenting with many different values and hues, she whittled it down to a select few.

 

Once she decided on the best color palette, she showed us her painting process.

Later, Juanita walked us through a few Procreate features, the brushes she uses, and even how you can edit pre-existing brushes to get the results you want.  

IN SUMMARY here are the steps we took to a complete illustration:

For those illustrators who LOVE the process, this is the webinar for you! Super informative and so helpful to see step-by-step decision-making. A must--by-watch for all of those starting out in Procreate but also, those who want to sharpen their skills!

JUANITA LONDONO GAVIRIA
Author, Illustrator

About
Hey there! I'm Juanita, a children's book illustrator from Colombia. I absolutely LOVE infusing my characters and environments with magic through vibrant colors, textured details, and deep emotions. My passion for storytelling and whimsy shines through in every piece I create. Growing up, I cherished bedtime stories and delighted in recreating the images from my favorite books with a pencil. Today, those beloved childhood stories continue to inspire my work. When I'm not illustrating or writing, you might find me dancing, singing, exploring astrology, or napping under the sun. ✨Let’s work together and create something magical!✨ juanitalondono.com