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.

Illustration Friday: Highlight

Differences only highlight the uniqueness of each and every family.

This was a Christmas gift for a friend who loves both penguins and rabbits.

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.

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.

Avatar! (not the blue kind)

I am finally finished with a project I promised my husband many months ago. A new avatar for his online presence. The direction he gave me: a viking ninja robot. The robot got lost somewhere along the way, but I mostly got the viking ninja, in stereotyped fashion. He was pretty fun to work on, although the drawing got put on pause many times for other projects.

Like many of my pieces, I overworked the rendering and am still not completely satisfied with it, although there are parts I really love, like the folds at the waist and the belt. The rest is kind of stiff, although I felt I learned a bit more about skin tones in the process.

Hopefully the gesture drawing class will help me loosen up on my process/rendering.

Illustration Friday: Deja Vu

deja vu!

Yes, your eyes do not mislead you; there are two of him. This project is over four years in the making! We went to Japan with our friends in August 2006 and while we were there I collected all my ticket stubs, receipts, pamphlets...everything! They've been sitting in a paper bag for 4 years, being sporadically relocated throughout the house. Every time I saw them, I kept thinking, "I should do something with these..."

I knew when I saw this week's IF topic that the time had come, so I bought a canvas 2-pack and pulled out my matte medium and started tearing and pasting and sketching. I had no clue if this would work, or if my colored pencils would stay on top of the matte medium, but I had hope because my friend and great illustrator, Siri Weber Feeney, works with colored pencils on top of gesso. A number of hours later, I am at a point sufficient to post, although I am not finished yet. I ran out of matte medium just short of finishing the second collage, although there was enough done in the area I was planning on drawing over. I plan to add some loose sketches/doodles across remaining portions of the canvas, and maybe add a bit more color. I just wanted to get this posted with lots of time for feedback before a new IF topic was posted.

The two guys are not identical: the legs on the original sketch looked off, so I shifted them when I transfered the sketch the first time. It still looked off, so I ended up going back to the original placement for the second drawing. I guess some times, it all depends on the angle you are looking at it.

As far as the inspiration for the drawing? Simple: we saw him in Japan! It was one of my favorite photos that we took in Japan. I would like to say that I took it, but we had 2 cameras and 4 people, so I don't know for sure. I love the juxtaposition of the modern and traditional. If anyone happens to know this random guy photographed, please tell him a couple of Americans think he's really cool!

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.

Illustration Friday: Old Fashioned

He was less enamored then she at the fabulous old-fashioned apron and bonnet in the trunk.

I was out of town visiting family, and had our cousin return with us for a couple of days. I kept doodling this duo while I was away, trying to get them exactly like I saw in my head. It came out fairly well over all.

Still experimenting with mixing marker and colored pencil. What I'm liking so far is when I nail the value I want in marker, then all I need to do is match the value with the color of my choice. Any lighter/darker colors will work to cover up any mistakes I make with the marker as well. You can barely see all the attempts to get her back arm in the right position now. Still need to pop the darks more, and possibly more saturation of colors.

I also forgot to draw the trunk in the background...maybe I'll go back and add it later. and possibly flowers on the apron.

Illustration Friday: Adrift

I drew the initial sketch on Saturday and it was a cat...just an ordinary cat, with a flat head. Then we went to the zoo on Sunday and watched the snow leopards play in the snow. They were so much fun to watch, that when I came home, I redrew the head, and added lots of spots. Finally got it colored.

Illustration Friday: Muddy

I was sick for a good portion of last week, and I'm still trying to get back to my normal operating schedule. Still have a stupid cough. It's been wet and rainy and cold here, but the perk of that is the mountains are starting to look so green and beautiful. I really enjoy my drives to and from work right now.

I think that the guy looks a little weird, but he looks different then the faces I normally draw. I keep trying to expand my range of expressions and features. His face was the result of a drawing session with some friends. We did 2-minute drawings and one set of them were blind/continuous line drawings where we couldn't look at the paper. We really enjoyed the results, which were often funny and Picasso-like. This one was my favorite:

There is a certain quality to the scribble that I lost in the top drawing, but it was still fun working with an image I don't usually draw.

Illustration Friday: Clumsy & Marvin the Marvelous duo

Marvin the Marvelous donned his pointy hat, secured his wand, opened the door, stepped out, fell on his nose.

This Marvin piece seemed perfect for this week's IF topic: Clumsy. For those who don't know, this is a project that I'm working on with my husband. He gives me a sentence each week and I have to illustrate it with my wizardly character, Marvin. I'm planning on doing one a week in between working on my first children's book project.

Marvin's character is a work in progress, and I'm using him to explore getting more movement and expression in my work, as well as more detail. I've always loved those wonderfully complex characters with elaborate outfits and gadgets and stuff everywhere.

I'm not quite sure what's up with the perspective on the background...it's wonky, and it is what happens when I freehand a background in ink after developing the character. I also couldn't decide which angle I wanted to draw Marvin at--the anticipation or the fall--so you get both! His arm also got slightly disjointed when I redrew the image on bristol using my light box. The bristol board is thick enough that with a light box I get a general idea where the line is, but it's not extremely precise. I ended up just redrawing the hands rather than tracing them.

Next time: make the color looser, and ink AFTER color.

Marvin the Marvelous colored

Marvin has been colored!

I may end up tweaking the colors throughout the course of this project...I am still putting a bit too much detail in the work. He's supposed to be colored loosely. I colored this one at the same as the Marvin piece for this week. I need to try my third Marvin piece drawn loosely with the pen instead of tracing it off the sketch.

Illustration Friday: Renewal

Re-cycler Squirrel

I had fun with my little squirrel. The thumbnail at the bottom of the page is the initial sketch. There are elements from the initial that I like better, including working in the recycling symbols. If I ever do this as a finished piece, I think i'll try to work it with those arrows as the framing device. Mostly, I love his ears and the bottle cap.

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!