Make Art That Sells Bootcamp

This month we are starting the MATS Bootcamp with vintage dolls & faces as our first assignment. I love nesting dolls and thought a Little Red Riding Hood would be a fun take.

And then I moved on to Alice & Friends. 

And revisited them as tiny dolls. 

Which led to a page or so of flower sketches inspired by the talking flowers from Wonderland. These are my favorites. 

Which ended up back with nesting dolls. 

These are all just for fun and to warm up for our big assignment for the month. 

Stay tuned! 

Monday Sketch

Let's get busy with the making and doing this week!  

Forest Friends

Inspired by yesterday's nature walk.  Hello.

The heat is a welcomed change to the air conditioned world I have been existing in for the last few weeks.  I'm spoiled by Michigan's cool nights and sleep with the window open, but during the day the humidity wins out.  There is a dryness here that is strange compared to the lush spring that graced the land. 

Michigan has a simple beauty in the forests and along the lake shore.  It makes you slow down and stop to see what's really there.  There are breath-taking areas, but it's the small things that catch my eye the most.  The paper-thin periwinkle petals of the chicory, the playful bounce of Queen Anne's lace as the wind rustles across the field, the fiery day lilies that pop up everywhere - both wild and cultivated, the stark and graphic patterns of the birch trees - I could spend days and days drawing and studying those four elements. 

I feel like my quality of life greatly increases when I stop to take notice of the world through sketching and my camera.  I read this other day and it rang like a bell though my life:

"Many begin (keeping a journal) when they feel their lives accelerating and slipping away; they have a vague sadness that so much seems lost.  They sense that they aren't deeply affected by things, and don't remember enough.  The want a deeper connection to the world." - Hannah Hinchman (A life in Hand)

Bedtime Stories

These two little fellows popped up in my sketchbook yesterday.

Which had me thinking about when my girls were little and our bedtime rituals. 

Which of course, included a nightly bedtime story.

One that sticks out in my mind that captured my heart when my girls were little was Kiss Good Night by Amy Hest and illustrated by Anita Jeram.  Anita illustrated Guess How Much I Love You, this book is night and day from her light and playful watercolors.  It's filled with rich, painterly color and a sweet night time, fall-inspired mood that makes you feel all snuggly.

If you haven't had a chance to read this one, take a peek at it.

My youngest was 5 when this book first came out and we enjoyed cuddling up for a good snuggle while we read this story together.  Sometimes my older daughter would read it to us.  Those days passed so quickly.  I wish I could have slowed them down and spent more time in those moments.  It's funny how a picture book is now a little snapshot of that time, with it's words and illsutrations it can conjure up those memories and feelings. 

What an amazing honor to be a part of a family's history in the form of a beloved bedtime story.  I hope one day new moms are reading my stories and sharing my artwork as they tuck in their precious little ones at night.

Garden Sketches

Illustrator's Sketch Day

Yesterday our SCBWI illustrators packed up our sketchbooks and pencils and headed to the San Jose Mission here in San Antonio.  This is a reoccurring event for our group, gathering at different locations in the city to sketch for a few hours, chat and enjoy being out of the studio.

The mission is a beautiful place, while the Alamo is the most famous mission in San Antonio, the San Jose is the most impressive.  It's a massive fort, still mostly intact.  And it also the site of the oldest church west of the Mississippi river.

Our Sketch Days are loosely based on the International Sketch Crawl idea.  Check them out - you may decide to start a sketch day of your own.

Our first Illustrator's Day was at the zoo, our next one will be at the Botanical Gardens.  We try to pick visually interesting places where we can also sketch families & kids with the attractions.

I took way better photos than sketches, but that's okay.  It was good to get out of the studio and meet up with other artists.  Not every day has to have a finished product - it's okay to enjoy the process with no end results.

Before we started our sketch session local painter Terry Puckett gave us a refresher on perspective.  She brought along a book on Maurice Utrillo to share with us.  I had never seen his work before.  I love his colors, playfulness of line and strong perspectives - he was a bit obsessed with one point perspective in his work. 

Click here to read a short biography on Utrillo and here for a list of his paintings online.

Autumn Sketch

Hope you are enjoying some fall fun - pretty soon it will be time to carve pumpkins and enjoy caramel apples!  I have been shopping at local craft shows - that always puts me a fall mood since we don't have the change in seasons here in Texas. 

The Start of Story

A quick little bit of research on Amazon yielded over 2000 books for kids about bears and 800 about squirrels.  Here is a list of some of my favorites.  So what happens when you want to write a book about a topic that has already been done 2000 times?  You get right to the heart of the story and find something unique and universal told in the relationship of your characters.  Easy as pie.  Ha.  Oh muse hurry along...

Bears and Birches

This sketch is one of those surprises where you start with something (bear engrossed in a book) and then some little character just moseys on into the picture. Which prompted the lifting of the eye and falling leaf and hmm, there is a story there - I will have to work on that. It's funny how just the smallest change can tell a completely different story in an image.

I have been working on some ideas with black bears and birch trees with glowing yellow leaves. I think I will try them in both block print and watercolor, see which ones suits me better.

I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

-Robert Frost (Birches)

Building a Visual Vocabulary

In keeping with my no short-cut theme, I have been working hard on building a visual vocabulary in my sketchbook.  I've ordered a few really cute kids clothes catalogs and have been sketching the wee folk and their stylish duds.  Of course the trick is to change their facial expressions to give them some life, no we don't want kids looking like they crawled out of a JC Penny catalog. 

You can't really abstract something until you know it - you have to be able to draw proportions and have a hint of truth in simplified or stylized drawing of kids.  So while these will never be anything more than exercises in observation they are an important step in improving my drawing skills.  It also helps me expand my idea of what kids are wearing and improve upon my small stable of hairstyles.

Of course drawing from life is great too, but good luck getting a toddler to sit for any longer than a doodle!

Welcome Fall

I'm so ready for days like this! 

I created this little sketch for our fall banner over at the The Sketchables.

Girl Doodles

A random collection of doodles - back to school girls.  One thing I've been trying to embrace is less than perfection in my sketchbooks and being able to share them.  It's okay to work out the junk in sketches and show them!  Each sketch is a lesson, a step closer in knowing a subject or expressing an idea.

I do have a belated conference recap to share with you. I will work on that this week.

A day at the beach

Yep, that's the life.

Can't wait to see these worked up...off to carve more!

Studies

More watercolor studies.  Practice, practice, practice. 

It's really Heather vs. Watercolor as I try to make this stuff behave. 

I need to find out what else tween/teens do besides listen to ipods. Mine are weird - always drawing, writing, working on the computer drawing and writing. My youngest is a craft hurricane. (I have no idea where they get that from...hmm, hmmm.)

And monkeys making banana splits for breakfast.  This one will be fun as a block print. 

So two more studies that will make their way into the world as prints, hopefully soon. I'd like to spend the weekend carving.

Do you go crazy working on new pieces for your portfolio before a conference?  Is it just me?  Do I have some weird manic procrastination disease?  You know, you wait until the last minute and then think, omg - I need new work for my portfolio right now.  Just me?  Okay, I will accept that.  I find procrastination incredibly inspiring.  : )

A Random Sketch...

Yanked from my sketchbook.  I would like to move a little more into the middle grade/tween market with my illustrations.  So what does one do when they want to expand?  Create portfolio pieces.  I would like to have a series done before LA.  We shall see.  Today is July 1st, so the clock is a ticking and I have a dummy book to finish too. 

The Sketchables

Hop on over the Sketchables blog to find out what question this illustration answers!

The Sketchables is a new group blog that we formed and this is out introductory week.  I'm super excited to work with such a talented group of illustrators.  We'll be sharing our sketches, sketches from our favorite illustrators, sketchy tid-bits, interviews and more. 

The Sketchables include Priscilla Burris, Diandra Mae, Kelly Light, Joy Steuerwald and myself.

Busy, Busy!

Three little beachcombers doing exactly what I'd like to be doing at this moment!

I had to take a little blogging break while I prepared for a national bead show.  It was fun, but now it's time to switch gears and get a new round of postcards out the door and work on finding an agent.

I also have a slew of SCBWI events coming up in the next few months.

I will be attending the Golden Kite Exhibit and SCBWI events next month.  Mid-July I will be leading a roundtable discussion on marketing at our July SCBWI meeting. At the end of July I'll be heading to LA for the national conference with my peep Kelly! In September I will be hosting an Editor's Day here in San Antonio for our chapter.  I will also be presenting a breakout session on Creating a Winning Portfolio at that event. 

And in between all that I have two dummy books to finish with samples.  So you should be hearing quite a bit from me over the summer as I work my way through these events!

Tiny Lands

A little diversion from the old to-do list. Do you do this - there are deadlines and project you know you should be working on, but then an idea pops in your head and darn if you don't suddenly have a little extra time to fit that in too?  Maybe that's just me.  I like to call it procrastination inspiration. 

Owl Sketches

Two random owl sketches.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Illustration Friday - Fearless

Experiencing failure and finding your passion can lead to fearless abandon when you discover your joy in this world.

A little sketch that is awaiting my printmaking magic.  I thought they were a good fit for this week's Illustration Friday.