They Draw and Travel You-Topia map contest

I have entered a submission into an illustrated map contest:

http://www.theydrawandtravel.com/maps/travel-topanga-canyon-blvd-in-los-angeles-gail-buschman

I had a ton of fun working on and creating the map these past 3 weeks and practically created a new illustration style for myself on the fly! More to come...

On the artboard

Illustration Friday: Prepare

He was prepared to enter the water, but he was not prepared to meet a new friend!

I had a lot of fun with this one, even in the initial sketch stage. I think that the only thing that would make this illio even better is a yellow duckie tube around the belly. It's tempting, but I'm not sure if I want to possibly mess up the illio for that.

The scanner is down for a couple of days, so I had to photograph it. I will post a scanned version of this once technology is back online...possibly with a duckie tube.

UPDATE: He has an inner-tube!

(still a photograph)

5 years in the making...

I finally completed our collages from our trip to Japan in 2006. It was a fun process, even if it was very start-and-stop.

I used matte medium to decoupage the bits and pieces of the receipts and maps and ticket stubs from our trip, then used colored pencil over the textured acrylic. Once done, I sealed the colored pencil with more matte medium, which caused it to blend together more while remaining transparent enough to see the collage below.

B3 - Bumble Bee Belly

Just having fun and practicing my new approach to illustrations. I was doing good on the time until I thought he should be fuzzy....and then i undid the fuzzy. oh well. On to the next one.

Bully Bot

I'm trying to explore a looser, quicker technique to my illustrations. Here's my first attempt that may or may not turn into a larger project. Expect more robots to come.

This is also doubling as the graphic for my funny new years party invites.

What do you think? Does it need more polish? More color?

Woodland Nursery gift

My coworker is having a baby soon, so for her baby shower gift, I made her nursery art!

The baby will be a girl and the nursery will have a woodland animals theme, and will include toys from Skip Hop. I had fun trying to put my own spin on a provided theme.

Hungry Giraffe

Artwork! I had fun with this one, and I tried to push the darks more than I'm normally comfortable. The second image was my initial scan before I went back and reworked the dark areas. I'm much happier with the revised image. And this guy has already found a new home, for a friend's birthday!

And to give me a direct tie in to Illustration Friday, I'll pull in what I told my friend earlier last week when it was still in progress, "He's not finished...he just hasn't been spotted yet!" (i know, bad pun)

Illustration Friday: Stay (Prehistoric Surprise)

This little guy has gone to stay in friend's nursery. Their theme is, unsurprisingly, dinosaurs. He was supposed to be smiling at whoever was in the cave, but he ended up looking more surprised than happy. Our friends were very happy to receive him as a baby shower present.

This may be a loose interpretation of this week's theme, but it is a rare occurrence for me to post finished, full-colored art.

I originally planned to crop this much tighter, but when I was at the frame store, I ended up liking the look of the panoramic matte rather than the standard 8.5x11. Luckily, I gave myself plenty of bleed area to try out different framing options.

I feel I've sufficiently mastered the dark-medium-light variant of basic composition. Next composition must be different, so I can study all 6 basic variations of foreground-middle ground-background lighting arrangements.

Baby bug illustrations

With my eldest sister's first child on the way, I got a bit carried away creating original artwork to decorate the nursery. She was very obliging to pick a theme at which I excel: cute insects. I couldn't be happy with just one insect. I created 5! She was very excited to receive them, and they are already framed and hanging on her wall.

I think my favorite is the bee, but I really like them all.

Two of them are also doing double-duty as her baby shower invitations and thank-you cards.

it is DONE! or Illustration Friday: Savour

I've been very quite for the past month, but I have been working hard!

I worked all month (read: weekends and sporadic nights) on my recipe submission for They Draw and Cook's Holiday Recipe Contest. Not only did I work on the illustration, I made LOTS of pumpkin cookies in search of my perfect cookie. My coworkers sure enjoyed that part of my project.

It's been fun, exciting, nerve-wracking, and exhausting, because it definitely came down to the last minutes before the submission deadline. I achieved most everything I set out to do with the piece. I have strong characters, strong composition and focal point, and I added/modified things up until the end to make it just right. I also used dark colors, which is still the hardest thing for me to do. I wanted to hand-letter the title, but I knew when to throw in the towel and fall back on my graphic design abilities.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone!

My first post of 2010 is both good and slightly unfortunate. Good because you get a finished artwork post; slightly unfortunate because this is the fleeting turtles illustration that I entered in the SILA Illustration West competition...it didn't get chosen. Oh well...I plan on doing better next year and hopefully enter multiple pieces. I think that will definitely help me increase my chances of getting a piece of work into the competition. I still may enter it into the Communication Arts illustration competition, but i'm not 100% sure i'm going to submit...the deadline is in just a few days.

I feel that I've improved 10-fold over the first SILA submission I entered in a few years back and I'm hopeful that my future entries will show as much or more improvement from the current piece. It probably also didn't help that I was entering into the unpublished category, which is the category with the most entries and the largest range of styles. I can't help thinking that I really need to get some artwork published, even if it is for a small publication.

I got a really awesome gift from one of my friends this year: Do it Later! A 2010 Planner (or Non-Planner) for the Creative Procrastinator. I'm excited to see if I can fill it up or use it to motivate me and keep me going strong with all my plans for the year...including of course keeping everyone entertained by my sketches/doodles/artwork :) It's going to sit right on my desk and glare at me whenever I'm sitting there, asking me why I'm writing on my blog rather than working on art... hmmm... i should go.

Without further ado, the art:

Happy Holly Days!

The old year is ending and this will be the first year I've actually created a holiday-oriented illustration! yay!

This has been a busy year with work as usual but also with all my new classes. In addition to a half year of taekwondo twice a week, I've taken many classes at The Animation Guild:

Traditional Animation Basics 1 & 2

Life drawing (twice)

Animal Drawing at the LA Zoo

Character design

I started the year strong with my sketchbook, and although it dwindled off as the year progressed, I hope to have renewed drive in the coming months. I'm planning on posting daily sketches again as well as working on my first children's book (which won't be posted)

2009 blog recap:

82 posts

115 comments! woohoo!

40 daily sketch posts

16 Illustration Friday posts

Posts with most comments: Illustration Friday Flying and IF Germs at 8 comments each; IF Germs also generated the most visits in 1 day: 54

Goals for 2010 blog:

1. Post at least 116 posts: one for each comment in 2009 plus one (for effort!)

2. Post more than 41 daily sketches

3. Post more than 16 illustration friday posts.

To everyone who has commented this year: YOU ROCK! thank you for all your feedback and I hope to grow my blog more in 2010.

Have a happy holiday season with family and friends!

Teaser...

I have entered the completed Fleeting Turtles as an unpublished piece into the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles annual competition, Illustration West. It's been about 4 years since I last entered this competition. I didn't get accepted then, so I'm hoping I've improved enough to get accepted this year. I don't know whether or not I should be showing this work before the show, so I'm going to keep the finished piece a surprise until I know the results.

I will give you a teaser:

I had a lot of great feedback from friends and family on final tweaks to make my illustration as refined as possible before entering it into the competition. I thank them all for their great input and suggestions!

Fleeting Turtles: stage 1

I'm working on a finished illustration of the Fleeting turtles post I did for illustration friday back in April. This picture is about 1.5-2 hours into working on it, although I didn't include the final line art in my count. I'll post more pictures as it gets further along, but I don't get to work on this as much as I would like to because of my art classes.

I've gotten a lot looser and bolder in my work since I started working in colored pencil a few years back. For an illustration of topiaries I did a long time ago, I meticulously rendered each tiny leaf ON the trees. I ran out of time and I had to loosely lay in a background, and I remember getting more compliments on my background leaves then any of the meticulously rendered leaves. Go figure.

I'm also using this nifty invention for artists called a grayscale chart! It tells you how dark (or not) your colors are, so you can get the proper values in your work. I've had this chart for years tucked away in a drawer and I came across it again recently. Since I've long had the trouble of working too light, I'm going to try ACTUALLY using this chart for once to give my illustrations more depth and presence. So far, I've only hit a 4 in my tones--10 being white, 1 being black--so I still have further to go to push the darks.

Dragon Blossom

This is my newest piece, Dragon Blossoms, created for our very very good friends Jenny and Philip and their son Gavin. I've been promising them a piece of art for years now, and I finally made good on my promise. We gave it to them today, and they loved it and I got an "ooohh" and a giggle from 2-year-old Gavin. Obviously, it was a hit all around!

The blue pattern/color on her kimono matches a plate I got for them years ago, and this piece is a nod to my first oil painting of a little girl in a kimono holding a giant umbrella while tea rains down and turns into flowers. Philip always liked that piece and wanted it or something similar. I tried a couple of different compositions, but wasn't happy with any of them, and once I drew this little girl, I knew I had the perfect drawing for them.

If only it had a ladybug or frog....well, Jenny, maybe next time!

Sneak Peek...

Well, I should finally have some finished art up for you soon! I'm estimating that I will be able to get finished up with my current project and have it all scanned and ready by early next week. In the meantime, here's a little hint of what is to come:


Next, I think I'll be working both on my Fleeting Turtles piece and on Onion Boy. I think I want to have them both going at the same time so I don't get bored. Also, I'm starting Onion Boy off with a LOT of sketches and studies. I want to get his face more expressive then the original images, and get him a better dog....I'm thinking a beagle, because I want one. Also, we have one that lives in our complex that I like to pet and say 'hi' to.

Illustration Friday: poise

The cat burglar had to use poise and balance to haul away all the goods.

It's been two weeks since I posted any artwork! Eeep! Up until then I was doing so well at posting regularly. I guess I'll just have to draw more and get back into the daily posting mode. I'm going to the zoo tomorrow, so I should be able to post some great sketches this weekend, as well as some I did earlier this week that I didn't get to post due to technical difficulties.

In life drawing, I've been having trouble with building the structure and getting the squash and pull to look right, so here's some practice. This was the second attempt, since the first one was feeling a little stiff. I'm very happy with this. I think I may try to do a repeat of the 'Legendary' post and do a finished version in color...and perhaps with an outfit and some hair too. Maybe a slight tweak to the left arm, moving the elbow up to see the back side of the arm a bit.

Any suggestions on hairstyles or outfits? should my burglar be a guy or a girl?

Illustration Friday: breezy

I enjoyed drawing this sketch a lot, although I think the legs need a bit more work. I wanted more of a perspective on them. I think the main thing is that she's too skinny for her legs. But overall, still happy with the sketch. Also the clump of hair across her chin bothers me; maybe it should have covered her mouth, but with the chin/neck visible. The boots are because I'm obsessed with wearing my boots as often as possible.

Daily Sketch 22: male, 9-10

Original Image. (will be posted as soon as I find it again)

Analysis: I got a new toy...a touch-screen laptop with drawing pen. I decided to try my daily sketch digitally. There is some disconnect between the pen tip and the screen. Also, I either drew too small, or have the image at too low resolution (it was set at 150 dpi). I'm also having issues with the angle of the pen; if it is angled too much, it doesn't register on the screen. I'll need to practice more.