Happy Holidays 2019!

This year's card image -- elves on the bookshelves.  Hand drawn on paper with Pigma Micron pens in various sizes.  The touches of color are watercolor.  The greeting inside is a simple "Happy Holidays!" in the same red that the elves are wearing.  Once again, the printer of choice was moo.com.

Illustration Friday: Sweet

For this week's Illustration Friday: a kid in a candy shop. (Click on the image to enlarge and to view with clearer definition.)

How I made this picture:

As usual, I started with a Dick Blick sketchbook and my trusty Dixon Ticonderoga #2 pencil:

I scanned the sketch at 300 dpi, partly to make it suitable for printing (you know, just in case I want to put the final in a hard copy portfolio) and partly to have better refinement options when I zoom in close.  The final at the top of this post is saved at t lower resolution for the sake of speedier loading.  

I inked the image in Painter 12 using the crowquil and real variable width pens in a variety of sizes.  I chose plain old "black" from the color palette.  I also do a lot of drawing--or undrawing--with the eraser tool.  My comfort with this combination of tools has increased a lot over the past couple of months.  I may try to stretch my skills with some new inking tools next Friday.

For a little something different this week, and to highlight the sweets (and the obnoxious food dyes that will probably give this kid attention deficit issues), I colored the candy in Photoshop.  I chose not to use Painter for this because their colors have behaved in a glitchy, unstable sort of way on my PC.  Photoshop (CS 5.5) has been quite reliable, although I miss Painter's realistic brushes.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go binge on chocolate.

Illustration Friday: New

Here's to the hope that newness brings! 

2012 brought me new software--Painter 12--and I am having a blast with it. Best new toy ever!

More play with Painter brushes today for this week's Illustration Friday prompt: "New." 

I know I need to spend gobs more time learning this stuff in 2013, but I am excited--not daunted--by the prospect.

My Tomie de Paola Illustration Award Contest Entry

You may have noticed that my last post, yesterday's Illustration Friday, was a Christmas card image from 2011.  I drew and painted that just before Thanksgiving, over a year ago.  So I did not create a fresh "snow" picture.  I decided to slack off and post an old one.  

I have excuses. It's been a hectic week at the day job what with all the year-end donations to process and the  preparations for our annual holiday party.  I've put in a fair number of extra hours the past few weeks.  My daughter returned from college yesterday.  And on the weekends, I've been working on this:

This is my submission to the SCBWI's annual Tomie de Paola Illustration Award contest.  It's a scene from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, rendered in Photoshop using the scratchart method I've been trying to perfect recently.  The challenge was to illustrate a scene of your choosing from Tom Sawyer, Little Women, or The Yearling in black and white.  Since one of my goals is to illustrate middle grade novels, I thought I'd better enter the contest this year--you know--put myself out there.

If you'd like to see some of the other entries, take a look at the blog the SCBWI-Houston Illustrator Coordinator, Diandra Mae, set up: scbwicontest.blogspot.com.

Illustration Friday: Stretch

Reaching for that book on the very top shelf . . .

This is a re-posting of a pic I drew in 2011 for the portfolio.  I don't expect to generate any new Illustration Friday pieces until the submission deadline for the Tomie dePaola illustration contest has passed.  

Yes, you read me right.  I am daring to enter this year.  I figure the challenge to do a black and white illustration for a classic middle grade novel is right up my street.

IF: Tall

Wow. I haven't posted in, like, forever.

But I have been working . . . My middle grade novel is finally coming together and I expect to start sending it out on submission to agents soon.  I want to do one last read-through, for any glaring problems, first.  I've been letting the manuscript sit a bit while I play around with illustration possibilities.  The above is from a scene and seems to fit this week's Illustration Friday theme ("tall").  The image below is also based on characters in the novel.  I began it as an answer to last week's Illustration Friday theme of "teacher," but didn't finish the inking in time to post it on the site.

Now that I have a pretty good sense of how I want the characters to look, I think I'll work on developing some more dynamic compositions and perhaps a slightly more simplified style that would read better when reduced in scale.

Bookshelf Pics with Wash

Not a huge change, but an improvement I think.

Pic 1, before:

Pic 1, after:

Pic 2, before:

 Pic 2, after:

This blog was pretty quiet in August.  You may be wondering what else I have been up to.  Well, I recently wrapped up a round of revisions on a novel work in progress.  It is with a critiquer at the moment.  I have a new short story off on submission to a magazine and have just gotten another ready to submit as well.

In the drawing department, I've been sketching characters in preparation for my next promotional mailing. I want to get a batch of postcards in the mail by the end of the month, but I'm struggling with getting the characters to a level of dynamism that satisfies.  My people aren't quite interesting enough for the market I'd like to get into.  If you, dear blog reader, have used any resources - books, websites, blogs - that have helped you get your characters to the next level, please, please, please leave the names of them in the comments. Thank you!

The Companion Piece

I've finally got the companion piece to the bookshelf picture where I think I might actually like it. Click on image to enlarge.

I drew the pair of pictures with Copic Multiliner waterproof pens on Arches watercolor paper blocks. The pictures are still attached to the blocks and are sitting in plain sight on my drawing table. The more I look at them the more I am thinking of using a neutral gray wash to define the figure better and to play up some of the shadows. 

Bookshelf picture

Here's what I think is the final of the bookshelf picture. If I tried to do more to it at this point, I'd probably kill it.

As usual, click on the image for a closer look.

Next up, I plan to work on a companion piece to this one with the same characters in a different arrangement with a clearer view of the girl's face.

Treehouse interior

For the next spread in my Sketchbook Project book, I decided to take a look at an interior room:

Click on image to view larger.

Shadows rough sketch

Before I did the mixed media version of my "Shadows," I worked out the composition in the pencil sketch below:

That sketch has been in an open sketchbook on my drawing table for the past few days. It has been catching my eye everytime I pass by. I kinda like the noir look of the black and white image.

I haven't been doing much sketching (okay, not any) since Saturday. I've been trying to write a short story, but it's not coming together very well yet. Perhaps I need to goof off to get the creative juices flowing better. Time to pull out the treehouse sketchbook again and play.

Illustration Friday: Shadows

For this week's Illustration Friday picture, I went with a mixed media approach.

That means I couldn't make up my mind. I started in pen-and-ink, but then thought the shadows would be better depicted in a wash. I used watercolor for that, but only for that. In order to get my witness character to show up a bit more in the dark, I brought her out with colored pencil. I also used some warm yellow colored pencil to set off the cold shadow drama.

I may try more mixed media work in future. I kinda like it.

A pair of drawings in pen and ink:

Another picture redo:

More drawings from old sketchbooks:

Pen-and-ink with a neutral tint watercolor wash:

Drawings for The Enchanted Cornerstone:

There's no story to go with these pics. Just made 'em up.