my wish list

I am always spotting amazing learning opportunities online for becoming a better illustrator, more versed in Kitlit but I often don't have the time to sit down and read everything or have to take time to consider whether it's worth it to buy the next lesson etc...I would be buying up everything otherwise!

My blog has often acted as 'bread crumbs' for me to re-find these great resources, but of late I have stopped dropping breadcrumbs.

Today is catch-up day, and here are some spots I need to revisit...

An article on Tara Lazar's blog about stopping the procrastination! Will Terry also guest posted an article for Tara Lazar after PiBoIdMo this year...and of course I love Liz Garton Scanlon so let's not forget her post.

There there are some digital tutorials I am eyeing...of course these are great Christmas gift ideas family peeps!

•  I have refered to ctrl+paint many times for it's free photoshop tutorials, so it's time to give back and there are some amazing downloadable videos available in the ctrl+paint shop for $10 each.  I have always been impressed with the free video so I imagine these will be fantastic and worth every penny....the problem is which one to choose? I want them all!! :)
• Will Terry created the Folio Academy, and it has just exploded with great video tutorials covering all aspects of art creation, so whether you want to paint, draw, do digital art, there's something for you there. I have purchased a few of Will's videos and have learned lots from both of them. My favorite was "Digital Painting in Photoshop", but be sure to watch the bonus video after Chapter 1or 2 instead of at the end!

HoHoDooDa Day 5

Back to Canada

HoHoDooDa Day 4

HoHoDooDa Day 3

Today I played around with Photoshop. Color scares me, but it's about time I get comfortable with it!  Our tree goes up tomorrow (hopefully).

HoHoDooDa Day 2

I am super behind getting Christmas decorations up, so it's on my mind...

HoHoDooDa Day 1

okay, first sketch for the month...I'm a little embarrassed by this because this idea of a skater came to mind, but later when I was checking out Linda's blog...well, that is obviously where the idea came from.  But since I'm playing catch up, I'm leaving it, but please check out Linda's very cute image.

SkaDaMo Day 30

...okay I am cheating by one day. This was actually drawn on Dec 1 at the Kahului Airport at about 2:30 MST which I tried to stay on rather than HI time. I was a little punchy as we waited for our flight, but I took the opportunity to sketch some of the other travelers around us.

I have loved the SkaDaMo challenge. Thanks again to Linda Silvestri for leading this again in 2012. I had so much fun I think I am going to continue on with her groups HoHoDooDa challenge through December.

SkADaMo Day 29

Our second last day in Maui we drove the amazing 'Road to Hana'. It should take between 2-3 hours depending on traffic. There was very little traffic Friday, but we took our time, so much so that it took us not 3, not 4 not 5 or 6 but 7 hours to get to Hana!!  (and then 2hrs to get back). I was pretty spent by the time we arrived in Hana, as was Matt, so we drove our jeep down to the waterfront and had a catnap before heading back.

Anyway, along our journey to Hana we stopped at the Ke'eane Arboretum which is a beautiful free garden. There we came across this little guy...which I had to draw for me sketch for day 29.  We have been traveling the last two days, so I am catching up on my posts.

SkADaMo Day 28

Today I sketched out by the poolside, a little architectural drawing of our condo... 

SkADaMo Day 27

SkADaMo Day 26

SkADaMo Day 25

Well the day started early-3:45 to go see the sunrise at Haleakala. Cold, but absolutely beautiful.This afternoon we of course had to stay in to watch the Grey Cup as our home team is playing. So here is my sketch while my honey watched... Note he looks nothing like this.

Check out all the other SkADaMoers here.

SkADaMo Day 24

Yesterday we had our first surf lesson- so fun! But crazy enough I somehow had a bee caught in my sleeve- luckily at the wrist. He stung me but I quickly got him out and drowned him in the seas water. The sting didn't really bother me surprisingly, perhaps the sea water saved me twice!

SkADaMo Day 23

And yesterday's sketch on the lanai just after sunrise at 6:30am, we overlook some beautiful gardens. I'm afraid until the end of the month a similar theme might creep into my sketchbook, we'll see...

SkADaMo Day 22

Okay I have fallen off the band wagon a bit with my daily sketching. It tricky when you are preparing to leave the cold north for Maui and making sure everything is organized for the sweet grandparents who I'll be looking after ones three little boys at home while you are away.  But now that I am here and settled and not cares in the world, no excuses!

Here are some sketches I managed to do on the plane...

SkADaMo Day 17

This morning I went on a beautiful run with my peeps around the Glenmore reservoir.  As we headed down into the Weaslehead we passed through a beautiful grove of Aspen trees.

and check out the other SkADaMoers here.

SkADaMo Day 16

Today I have been working on a responsibility chart/ 'Daily Contributions' chart for the boys. Since it's a visual chart, I'm going to include this for today's sketch.  Let's hope the boys embrace it!

SkADaMo Day 15

This is a sketch idea for PiBoIdMo...

SkADaMo Day 14

Day 15, and testing the technology, can I do this on an iPad?...  Yes!  After try #4 and after a Google+ download.  Not pretty but it will do.

...ahh, much better! Thank you Photoshop!

SkADaMo

So I am a late joiner to SkADaMo, but when I heard about this challenge I couldn't pass it up. So thank you Linda Silvestri (who is the brain child of this event) for bringing it back in 2012!

This as been a bit of a crazy few days, so I am going to post my very rough sketches for the past few days in this post and hopefully going forward I'm going to be able to post daily.

 Day 10

Day 11 - "Lest we forget"

 

Day 12

 

Day 13

More videos from Will Terry

I just finished watching Will's first Digital Painting in Photoshop series. It was really fantastic. And considering the price - $29.99, it was extraordinary. The only thing I would suggest would be to watch the Bonus video after the first or second video. These are the videos that go through the most detailed instruction on his process using Photoshop.  In the remaining videos Will paints an image working from the thumbnail sketches through to the final image. During the painting of the image he shares tons of great information on tone, color,  composition, etc... but less on what he's actually doing in Photoshop, but after watching videos 1,2 + the bonus video, you'll easily be able to follow what he is doing.

I would highly recommend this video series, and look forward to his new video coming out next month on creating ebooks with TaleSpring.

To the left is my first image after having watched Will's video.

Trunk or Treat

Here's a fun little sketch/invite I made this morning for our church trunk or treat this year...

Folio Academy 2.0

If you are familiar with Will Terry, you will be excited to hear that his Folio Academy website has been updated and is expanding their offering of instructional videos. This is good news for both accomplished artists and beginners alike.  There is currently a 'call for entries' for artist who wish to create instructional videos and beginners will soon have a variety of new videos to choose from.

Currently the site offers a variety of courses, all at a great price. There is a vast selection of courses includes drawing, painting and sculpture as well as creating images through digital media.

This is definitely a site worth checking out!!

Alla Prima Watercolor Tutorial

I have been a silent fan of Tiffany Varga for a long time. Recently I saw this tutorial that she posted on Youtube. It's amazing and a style that I need to practice. She has a number of other video tutorials that one can find through the "Video" page on her website.




I also found a three video lecture series that Tiffany has posted, below is part one...



This post was particularly enlightening. Tiffany explained a concept that I have never heard of before.  She was introduced to the concept herself apparently after art school while reading a book by Richard Schmid entitled "Alla Prima".  The concept is basically conserving value by turning the form with color, which in the process also maximizes the readability of the piece.  If that makes absolutely no sense, watch this video and you'll totally get it.

Thanks for posting Tiffany!

Watercolor video

Here is a short little demo video that provide tons of great info on painting with watercolor.

I loved this tree, and Peter Wolley describes his palette and his thought process.

Free Drawing Texts from the Masters

While working on lesson 14 for Mark Mitchell's Mark's and Splashes course I came across this link to some now out of print but apparently fabulous references on how to draw the human figure (incl. Bridgman).  Here's my latest bread crumbs...
http://www.drawingbooks.org/
http://www.fineart.sk/?show=n&s=184&cat=13
http://www.alexhays.com/loomis/

Progress

It's been a busy week, and I suppose every week should be this busy when I am working on the 12x12 challenge, the PBDummy challenge and the Marks and Splashes course.  I am finding it really hard to put in all the time required, balancing it with day to day responsibilities and being a mom. But from last week's Kitlitart tweet chat I have come to realize that I am certainly not alone, tons of illustrator moms are doing it, so I just need to buck up little camper and get it done! :)

So that was my attitude this week. Some mornings I woke up early, some nights I worked late, but the list got done...and that was during spring break when the kids were home. So pretty good I'd say. 

The big things completed this week were my 12x12 story draft for March (just finished it tonight so under-the-wire but complete), chapter 13 of M&S and a few medium sized compositional and color panels for my picture book dummy. My goal is to complete composition and color studies of all the panels in med size this next week and then I'll have a month to do full scale drawings of the panels.

Better get to work!

Manga hair

Hair has always been a challenge for me to draw. I seem myself getting better as I practice, and Matt from DTO has some great tutorials that have given me some insights into how to draw hair more realistically. But for those times when I want to draw realistic hair that is a little more 'cartoony' I seem to gravitate toward Manga hair.  Here is a great tutorial by Mark Crilley on drawing Manga hair that I watched today.

more photoshop tutorials

Just a quick note of some great tutorials that have been posted by classmates at Marks and Splashes - thanks to all for sharing!

Monster Cutie has posted links to 20 'mighty fine' tutorials, I have tried a couple and loved them all I highly recommend spending some time looking at these.
drawinghowtodraw.com has some great stuff on photoshop, illustrator, using a wacom tablet etc...
Digital Art Secrets has a great post on using traditional painting techniques in Photoshop

tweet chats

In my attempt to take more advantage of social media and learn as much as I can about illustration and kid lit I have been participating in some tweet chats of late. How GREAT is twitter! I came hesitantly into the world of twitter but have found it a wealth of knowledge. But it's the tweet chats that I have been most surprised by.  I have faithfully joined the weekly 7pm MST tweet chat at #kidlitart for the past month.  For illustrators of kidlit it's an amazing resource of author/illustrators sharing knowledge and experience. I highly recommend it. In addition to this tweet chat, Katie Davis, Diane de Las Casas and Elizabeth O. Dulemba host a tweet chat the first Wednesday of each month - with the hash tag - #kidlitPRChat.  Sunday nights there's a group that chat about epublishing and story apps - #storyappchat which my online classmate Syliva Liu often raves about.

So, just to sum up here are some quality tweetchats to tune into, perhaps I'll find you there...
#storyappchat -  9-10pm EST Sundays
#kidlitart - 9-10pm EST Thursdays
#kidlitPRChat - 6-7pm EST the first Wednesday of each month

create your own success

Here is a really great post from The Visual Storyteller's Studio. It's an interview with Bas Waijers who among other thing turned a struggle with publishing a picture book into a successful experience creating a app.  I loved his advice at the end of the post. So much so that I'll include it here:

"Strive to be as good as you can be. And draw as much as you can draw. Each and every drawing makes you better as an artist, never worse. Always keep learning more and absorb the world around you because anything can inspire you. Sketch and save your ideas. And then sketch some more! Put your work out there in the world for people to see. Don’t keep it to yourself! Have a strong and clear online presence. Be objective and only show good work.

Define what you are most passionate about and focus on that, whatever it is. Because that’s most likely what makes you unique.
And most important: Make Believe!"

just for fun

After reading Helga and Amy's comments on my last entry I thought it might be fun to post the original 'auntie' character sketch I drew two years ago, so here it is, which one do you prefer?...The new chic Victoria Beckham-ish version or the 'wild and whimsical' hippie-like version??

...I'm thinking now something a little in-between the two.

Step 3 - Character Development

We are getting deep into the #PBDummy challenge at Kidlitart, just finishing the third step, two weeks of working on our characters. It has been a fun experience, but a real challenge for me. I have had an advantage in that I have been thinking of these characters for a few years, and some of the characters are based on people I know - it's their experience the story is based on. So the mom and the aunt were relatively easy....although the aunt is perhaps looking a little too chic with those sunglasses - in the story she has been described as being 'wild and whimsical'.

My main challenges are - drawing the character so they look like themselves sketch after sketch, and drawing in a consistent style - I bounce back and forth between drawing realistic characters and more cartoony characters.  Although our character development phase is over I am going to have to revisit a few of these characters for that reason. The little boy and the mice seem more cartoony than the mom and the aunt - which probably won't match up very well. For now, I'll leave them as they are.

If you have any feedback on how I can improve these characters, please leave your feedback in the comments.

On to step four - storyboarding!

maximizing your online presence

I just finished reading a great article from theabundantartist about maximizing ones online presence. I am not at a point where I am ready to start marketing myself, but when that time comes it certainly makes sense that I not only need a blog but a website as well where I can display my portfolio, contact info etc...This article speaks to the need to have both ones blog and ones website linked together to ensure that your web traffic is directed to both sites. There are also links to tutorials on how to merge your current blog with a website. Great info to reference when the time comes!

Lately I have also been overwhelmed with social media. It can be so time consuming to keep up with it all!! Below are some great articles that can help maximize ones online presence while at the same time cut the amount of time spent maintain ones blog, twitter, facebook, linkedin accounts, etc...

from the Abundant Artist  ("How to use social media and still have a life") who then links to an article entitled:" Streamlining your social Web presence in six steps", "Free services to streamline your social networking experience", and "It's about time: 5 tools to streamline your social media". Tools like twitterfeed, igoogle and using google alerts are suggested.

My first award!

Last week I was surprised to find my blog was awarded - the Liebster Award, granted me by Kerie Miller at illustration junky. Kerie is an illustrator and an online classmate of mine. It was a thrill and honor to receive this little award, so thank you Kerie. Now I knew very little about this award and what it represents so I had to do a little digging and discovered that it's an award for 'up and coming' blogs that have less than 200 followers. (I certainly fit the second qualification and hope to live up to the first).

As part of the tradition of this award I apparently need to share 5 things about myself and pass the award on to 5 blogs fitting the criteria.

As far as 5 things about me...I am a land-locked girl who loves the ocean (married to a dear man who has a phobia of large bodies of water)...I love to run with my girlfriends that way I have weekly guilt-free social time...I speak three languages, one being Chuukese - officially an "unwritten language" which, living in Western Canada has surprisingly never come in handy....I am trying to be healthy but chocolate is my nemesis...I am happiest when I am outside either sketching or participating in an activity with my family.

And now I officially pass on the honor of the Liebster Blog Award to:

Helga Pearson
Sylvia Liu
Jaqueline Hudon-Verrelli
Lynne and Melissa 
Ken Teghtmeyer

(Now honestly I can't tell how many followers some of these blogs have, for some blogs it's not obvious and if you are over 200 followers my apologizes but these blogs are deserving of recognition!)