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.

Taking Care of Business

I signed up for this awesome online class starting this week.  Multiple Streams of Income Ecourse with Laura Bray. Details can be found here.

Check out some of the guests for the class:

Teaching - Claudine Hellmuth will talk about teaching your craft

Children's Book Illustration - Priscilla Burris will share lots of information about getting started

Licensing - Tara Reed will talk about art licensing

Selling Online - An article with Tim Adam will help you get your online store generating income

There is much more and I can't wait to get started.  This is so what I need at the moment.  Eggs in many baskets is a good thing when you are earning your living as an artist!

Zero2Illo Challenge Week #4

I've been following along with the Zero2Illo 12 week challenge.  This week's task is to complete two pieces for our portfolio. 

Here are some character sketches for a dummy book I'm working on for a story that I wrote.  Finally some beads, I know right!!  I'm counting the dummy book as one of the finished portfolio pieces, because as a children's book illustrator the dummy is essential if you are going to submit a manuscript that you wrote and want to illustrate. 

So the completed dummy and one sample piece are my goals for the rest of the week.  The dummy has already been laid out in storyboard/thumbnail form.  Can't wait to draw more beads, fun stuff!

Just for Fun

Hmm, my life often resembles a circus. 

This was a fun piece to whip up over the weekend. A little looser and primitive in style than I usually do, but whimsical and aimed at a younger crowd.

What else did I do this weekend?  Why I updated my portfolio:

http://www.humblearts.com/

What do you think of the hand-lettering.  I worry, are there rules to hand-lettering that I'm not following?  Is there some secret designer font rules I'm breaking?  Or is it just a free-for-all-do-whatever-the-heck-you-want kind of deal?  I suppose I could plead ignorance and then we can call it outsider art.  Oh wait, that trusty art degree negates that.  I better do my research on the matter then...

A few of my favorite things...

Here are a few tools in my studio that I can't live without:

My new favorite tools!  I bought these a few years ago, but never really tried them out until recently.  I was using my trusty speedball lino cutters.  If you are into printing, I recommend picking up a set.  The fine tipped tool allows for great detail and the other tools help me carve my blocks lickety-split!  They are called Palm-Grip Carvers and they are saving my poor old hands.

My box of Sennelier pastels isn't looking quite like this picture anymore.  They are now well loved nubbins!  I need to order some replacements, stat.  They are so rich and creamy, they are like the chocolate truffles of oil pastels.  Yum!

While I have several different types of colored pencils, these are by far my favorites.  Lyra Rembrandt Oil-based Colored Pencils are wonderful, no waxy build-up and the colors are so beautiful. And on the sketch pencil front, I'm strictly a 2-B and above gal.  Sure the others are nice, but I need some heft to my lines.

This is Blick Wonder-Cut Linoleum and it's probably not the highest quality stuff to print on and if I were doing large print editions I'd have to rethink what I use.  But it carves so fast!  I like to call this stuff Wonderflonium.  (And if you don't know what that is, watch Dr. Horrible right this minute!)

And finally I couldn't do my job without my trusty Speedball Water-Based Inks.  I've been enjoying experimenting more with mixing my own colors and printing in multiple colors.  They dry fast, so I must work fast.  But they clean up with water and I'm all for using less chemicals in the studio.

So there you have it, my art making essentials! 

All photos from the Dick Blick website, where i buy most of my supplies.

Fireflies

Dreaming of summer nights at dusk, chasing fireflies and the joy of carefree days. 

I had to lay out the color in photoshop to wrap my brain around this mutli-color printing.

The final print - but now that I see it in digital form, I think I may reprint it in a lighter teal and there are a few parts that need to be cleaned up.  I used to make changes in photoshop, but lately I'm a purist and insist the print itself looks great, not just the digital image.

SCBWI Summer Conference

Hey, want a crash course in writing and illustrating for the children's market?  Then make your plans now to attend the SCBWI summer conference.  I'll be there!

Illustrators - you can hear from E.B. Lewis, Ashley Bryan and Loren Long.  Take workshops with Priscilla Burris and David Dias and get tips for portfolios and promotion with Pat Cummings and art director Cecilia Yung.  Or you can take one of the advanced tracks.  There are two for illustrators this year, one on graphic novels and one on digital illustration.  Not to mention all the authors, editors, agents and art directors who will be there.

Registration opens today, check it out at the SCBWI website.