Jun 05, 2011
Richard Scarry's 92nd Birthday
This Doodle’s Key Themes
I had a lot of fun working with the folks at Random House — including one of Richard Scarry's actual art directors, as well as his son, Huck — to create an original pencil and watercolor piece depicting Busytown. There is so much going on in Busytown that I thought I'd show a few closeups here as well as talk about the process.
The drawing was done in pencil, then scanned digitally and printed out in solid black on clear film, or acetate.
The drawing was then transferred to illustration board in blue pencil so I could work on the painting on a separate layer.
Scarry's technique allowed him to work pretty loosely with his watercolors, and he'd frequently paint off-register, that is, not quite up to (or way beyond) the line drawing. This gave his illustrations an even more lighthearted quality. In our case, it's Richard Scarry's Best Google Doodle Ever!
posted by Mike Dutton
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The first Doodle launched in 1998, before Google was officially incorporated.
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