Hand Painted Backgrounds for Zaza’s Perfect Pizza DreamsHand Painted Backgrounds for Zaza’s Perfect Pizza DreamsHand Painted Backgrounds for Zaza’s Perfect Pizza DreamsHand Painted Backgrounds for Zaza’s Perfect Pizza Dreams
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Zaza's Perfect Pizza Dreams, Zaza at School

Zaza daydreams of pizza at school

Hand Painted Backgrounds for Zaza's Perfect Pizza Dreams
Zaza's Perfect Pizza Dreams, Zaza at School

I really like working hand-drawn elements into my designs.  My background is in graphic design, but whenever I can, I paint or draw something to include in my design work.

With Zaza, I already have the hand drawn illustrations, but I wanted to add in some painted backgrounds to give the overall look and feel more texture.

In my first book, Zaza’s Perfect Pie, I used watercolor for this purpose. I created some loose, unstructured, and drooly watercolor backgrounds to combine with my illustrations:

Zaza stomps tomatoes

I didn’t feel like watercolor was a good fit for Zaza’s Perfect Pizza Dreams. Since this is a graphic novel, I needed more structure overall. So I chose acrylic as the medium. With acrylic paint, I was also able to achieve some texture with my brush strokes, which I think adds some dimension and interest.

I haven’t painted a different background for every page - that would be madness! But I have a rotation of 3 favorites, plus a few extras that I use in special circumstances.

turquoise painted background
white painted background
turquoise background 2

For the most part, I use one of the above three backgrounds. I can alter the colors in Photoshop if necessary to accommodate any color palette changes required by the spread.

For some, I have created unique backgrounds, like the below for the sunset and sunrise panels in “C is for Cauliflower”, and Zaza's kitchen floor and counters. The final background on the right is the only water color background I used in the book for Zaza’s night sky and “P is for Pineapple”.

Sunrise background
sunset background
kitchen floor background
water color background

The painting process is so relaxing…just putting colors on paper with no other goal in mind is very freeing. It also delights me to be able to add in more hand-painted elements to this book, making it uniquely my own.

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Recipes
  • Zaza sitting at her desk0
    Graphic Novel Word and Thought Bubbles
    December 23, 2022
  • Zaza's Perfect Pizza Dreams, Zaza at School0
    Hand Painted Backgrounds for Zaza’s Perfect Pizza Dreams
    December 23, 2022
  • 0
    Pizza with Zucchini and Fresh Herbs
    June 23, 2022
  • 0
    Bruschetta Pizza
    June 23, 2022
  • 0
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