I went crazy with some Crayola paints today and made swatches for future art collages:

In today's art journal collage I'm working on integrating richer layers using paint, paper and stamping:

Today's art journal collage:

Another try... I'd like to find a digital ink tool in Painter that has a bit more variation in line, so I'm still refining the process.

This was another graphic novel style tryout using the same character reference I used last week. This time I created the graphic digitally in Corel Painter:

Today's art journal collage:

I've taken a little break from character style tryouts to do a loose ink and colour sketch:

Another day of trying character styles. This was my first attempt using my own style (I'm undecided as to whether or not the attempt was successful!):

Today's art journal collage – my rant about the latest attacks on women here in Calgary:

I spent the day trying out comic book styles as research for my graphic novel. So far, I'm still undecided about the exact style that I'll use for the graphics panels, but it's fun to try other artist's styles in order to get a sense of just how complex and time-consuming they can be.
I'll be blogging sketches of my characters when I establish a style for the graphics, but until then, here is a link to the blog of one artist I particularly admire, Joëlle Jones.