illustration friday: skinny

scanner back up!

Hickory dickory dare,
the pig flew up in the air.
The man in brown soon brought him down,
Hickory dickory dare.

(I was illustrating nursery rhymes a little while ago and this is one I never felt completely happy with. But I scanned it in today while trying to fix the problems I was having with my computer and figured I may as well post it. Apparently, I ran out of memory so the scanner wasn't able to scan anymore. John just gave me some RAM today and ta da, I'm back in business. Thank you John!!!)

IF: fast

Super fast painting I just made of the boys eating lunch. You know how fast boys eat, I really didn't have much time.

chubby puppy

Sketch for a four page story I'm working on. Plan to start submitting things (like this four pager) to publishers soon! Is a scary step but I have to take it at some point so it may as well be now.

(Also, have re prioritized my schedule and discovered that keeping up with this blog and illustration friday is not on the top of the list. So, may be posting even less in the coming months, but hopefully that will mean I'm being more productive than ever.)

wordstock

I've been at Wordstock all weekend, going to writing workshops, how exciting! It dawned on me last week that, oh yeah, I'm a writer, I am writing a book after all! Maybe I should check out a writing conference?! So, off I went to discover the world of writing workshops. It was great, I learned a lot and feel incredibly motivated to get to work!

I went to workshops by:
Dawn Babb Prochovnic, author of this book and a number of others in this series.

Marie Mutsuki Mockett, author of this book,
and David Michael Slater, author of this book and about 15 other picture books,
All three of them were lovely people that gave very informative workshops on the business of being a writer. Interestingly, although they all had different approaches and things to teach, they all had one big point in common. It was: Expect loads of rejection, it is part of the job, you will probably be rejected 95% of the time. Getting published is not only about talent, it also takes a lot of perseverance.

Ok, am taking a deep breath and getting back to work.

(By the way, exciting news! I finished my first dummy! Ever! Hooray!)

scanner!!!

It's so exciting! John is lending me his scanner. Look how great this came out, I didn't even do a thing to it after it was scanned in. Until now I've had to take a photo of my drawings and then mess around with them to make the paper white, which usually makes the drawing burnt out or off color or something. This bear looks almost exactly like the original drawing, soo exciting!!!

It's fall, I love it. I'm working on all kinds of things but none that I'm ready to share yet (although this bear is part of one of my books, but that's all I can say for now.) I've been working less and painting more and just really enjoying life. Hooray!

illustration friday: pattern

It's interesting to think about what pattern in clothing does to your perception. Your brain adjusts for the difference in value and color in the pattern and can see that a pair of pants is one object. It's kind of amazing. But in the right environment pattern can deceive, as it does in military fatigues.

(It is also interesting to think about how rare it is to see someone dressed like this young boy, different patterns that don't match! oh my!)

anatomy of the foot

I took a class today at Hipbone studio on the anatomy of the foot. it was really interesting and I even got to do a little drawing from a model. it was quite fun. I think I understand toes more now than I ever have. will have to try drawing some children's feet next!

illustration friday: welcome

welcome doodle. (am not sure why I drew that bean next to him. maybe he's a very tiny boy?) he's supposed to be saying, "welcome, you may enter." or something like that. (he's a little wonky anatomically I realize, oh well.)

**chris just pointed out that his arms are humorously long, which seems obvious to me only now. i think sometimes when you're drawing something your brain can only see the parts and not the whole. maybe i should start tacking my drawings up and looking at them from across the room the way i always did with paintings.

Welcome #2
shorter arms, much better!

doodles

Some quick doodles. I've been really trying to relax and enjoy drawing again, it's so easy to let the pressure to produce make me tighten up and get stressed out. One way to combat that feeling is to doodle as much as possible. I'm also looking into places in town to draw from a model, it's been a really long time since I've done that. I think it's a great way to remember how to relax and just draw, also it's really fun.

illustration friday: strong

Ants are strong!

"Compare their strength to that of a human being: we can pull about 60% of our weight, but ants can pull 50 times their weight." (According to someone at the University of Kentucky Department of Entomology.) Pretty amazing.

I brought an ant inside under a glass to make these drawings. It was harder than drawing children from life, those little buggers do not stop moving!

little jack horner

Little Jack Horner sat in the corner
Eating his Christmas pie,
He put in his thumb and pulled out a plum
And said, "What a good boy am I!"

illustration friday: magnify

hooray for earthworms!

the coast

Monday was my 30th birthday. Chris and I spent the day on the beach at Seaside. I made this little painting at the end of a long day in the sun, in between a nap and a refreshing dip in the chilly water. It was a lovely day but I still can't believe I'm 30 now. I feel like I was 22 just last week! But Nana gave me some good advice as usual, she said, "Try being 84!"

I haven't been posting much of the work I've been doing lately, it's a little too experimental to share. Also, I've been busy with all kinds of trips and visitors, but now I'm back to work and a nice regular schedule. So, hoping to post lots more soon!

comics

I finished reading this book a few days ago. It's really well done. McCloud defines children's picture books as a type of comic, which never occurred to me before. So, I checked quite a few comic books out of the library to research. One of my new favorites is Gasoline Alley by Frank King. I made a few copies today to try to get a better sense of how his drawings work.
King is a brilliant draftsman and the strip is great. It's amazing that the relationships between people are the same now as they were when this was written ninety years ago!

I've been working on writing and laying out a story. It's still too sketchy to post any images of. And I'm off to the airport right now to pick up my mom. She's visiting for a week and we'll be driving around Oregon seeing what there is to see!

flat stanley

My cousin's sons Ben and JP sent me Flat Stanley! I'm to dress him up and take photos of him about town and then mail him back to them with information about Portland. It's a really cute project and I had fun making clothes for him today. Rain gear and bike gear, the two things one will always need in Portland.

dummies

I made these book dummies today to layout two picture books I'm working on.

pattypans

I painted these lovelies today, picked fresh from our garden! Grated up the big green one and made it into basil cheddar zucchini bread, which is baking in the oven right now!

the garden

I'm so proud of our garden I just have to post a couple photos. It's not exactly an illustration but it's something I created! In this photo you can see our beautiful rainbow chard, nero di tosca kale, chamomile, pattypan squash, oregano and the very small jalepeno peppers. This is in our front yard and I think is even lovlier than the flower garden!

And here's all the chard I cut yesterday! It was a bit infested with worms, so I tried to cut all the nastiest ones and we salvaged a small amount for dinner last night. It was delicious. If you live in Portland, come by and visit and I'll load you up with kale and chard and squash! We have much more than we could eat ourselves.

maira kalman

(the "he" is thomas jefferson.)

This is from Maira Kalman's illustration project, "And the Pursuit of Happiness" in the New York Times. It's about American democracy, and a new set of paintings is published on the last Friday of each month. It's really wonderful and like nothing else.

I'm off to Colorado for a week tomorrow. And then, oh and then, it'll be July! July the month I will spend painting painting painting! I can't wait!

sea doodle

A sketchbook drawing I made today. (As you can see, I really need a scanner!) I love working with ink, maybe I'll do some experiments with mark making tools this week. Am wondering how I can change the ink color in Illustrator... maybe I'll research that as well. So, much to do and never enough time!

illustration friday: craving

Has this ever happened to you?


(Ok, so I got a little bored following my book's lessons on Illustrator in order and just jumped in and made this. It's two ink drawings I put together and manipulated a bit. Soo exciting!!! Want to go back in and mess with the contrast and perhaps figure out how to add a little color. I'm actually still very confused about important basic functions like select tool and bounding box, but no matter, I managed to do what I wanted anyhow. Hooray!)

paintbrush

Here is my very first digitally produced illustration! My brain is a bit overwhelmed by all I've started to learn about Illustrator. Doesn't it seem a bit excessive to have 76 tools and 34 panels?! To be perfectly honest I'm not even really sure what a panel is just yet, but I know there are 34 of them. This paintbrush is a practice exercise from the text book I'm learning from. Isn't it amusing that I've drawn the very thing that can be made obsolete by using Illustrator?!

hawaii drawings

Penny and I made this one together.
I do love plumerias.


I had a really lovely time in Hawaii and am glad to be back. It's getting to be too hot for me to stay in my studio all day, will have to start working out on the front porch. Am planning to spend the next couple weeks writing and learning Photoshop and Illustrator. Wish me luck!

new swimsuit

Here's my new swimsuit! It is really old fashioned, but I love it. I'll be in Hawaii in 2 days!