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The Great Escape.
Have you any idea how much two little characters can absolutely take over ?
Bob the dog and Pat the cat.
Oh you really, really don’t.
Pat is obsessed with my paint box, I had to redraw so much of the book because she could not keep still. Bob isn’t really that much better and being constantly watched in case I pull out a nice biscuit is most distracting.
It’s very, very hard working around this chaos.
To make things worse, while I was drawing, they climbed out of the window. Tracey is going to kill me, I was meant to be keeping an eye on them. I’m in big trouble.
I wanted my nice quiet space back but I think that may be a thing of the past now these two are on the loose.
They were last seen sprinting down a side road near to me after the ice cream van so they could be anywhere by now.
Send help, (and ice cream) because Bob is on the way and will be hitting the shops very soon and will hopefully be out of my studio so I can tidy up. If you do see them, please send me photos so I can track their whereabouts.
Making Bob.
I know you all know how I am happiest when I am drawing in my sketchbooks.
Bob came out of my sketchbooks so here’s a little gallery of how I developed the drawings from rough sketches.
She started quite wolf like. (Obviously my own dogs had a bit of a say here and Pat the Cat is looking a bit like Renee…) Bob is a very clever dog and I felt the best place to start was with a smart pair of pointy ears… I drew Bob doing awesome things. (predicting sunny weather in Wales is awesome ok?)
And then I tried making her legs shorter and her ears fluffier. There was lots of room for expression here. I gave Pat a white face so we could see her better.
And then I added some colour…
And then, make some roughs.
Bob isn’t any particular breed of dog, I didn’t want to draw a specific breed, I’m probably biased towards mixed breed dogs anyway haha but I like the fact you can’t tell what she is. She is simply Bob and rather brilliant at solving problems in her own way. Pat is along for the fun too, in her very cat like way, (there under your feet and then gone in a flash).
A sneaky peak inside…
I thought you’d like to have a peak inside the book…
Bob and Pat live in a big, busy city but there’s lovely parks to run and sniff in.
I wanted to create a busy, city landscape.
The park is based on Brockwell Park in London, there are amazing views of the city of London from here and I wanted to draw that tree lined city scape. I started with the brush pens I use for Doodlemum initially but the finished drawings are in watercolour and pen.
To Bob, everything is big too, she’s not a huge dog but if there is a problem, she’ll find a way….not the obvious way….Bob’s way!
Doodlemum 