portrait study...half way there

Matt at DTO has created  6  excellent chapters of instruction on portraiture. I'm just finishing chapter three.

Session 8 & 9

For my "Marks and Splashes" course, this week I was working on research - a scavenger hunt of sorts to find reference images and videos for our book (Amy's words, my illos). What a fun exercise this was! The next image that I am going to work on is for the page that will read "pesky, scary mice". I have had the image for this page in my head for a long time, but have never collected reference photos for it. I was looking online - Google-ing and scrolling through Pinterest (how lucky we are as illustrators now with the internet and thousands of images at our disposal in seconds), and then I thought why not set up a still life of this image in my head rather than looking through tons of photos? So I went to the one room in the house that has the door opening the right way and set up various items, used a flashlight to get the shadows I needed, got my boys helping me, one as a model, one holding the door and one as a cheerleader (although he did let me borrow one of his "Pet Shop" character which was the stand in for the mouse in our story). It was such a fun exercise to do and I think I'll enjoy drawing the image all the more since it's more personal with our familiar household items in it.

Session 9 was a review on perspective. Not very long I ago I did a few chapters on perspective with Matt an instructor at SVA in NYC and creator of the online drawing class DTO (highly worth investing in by the way!), but good to address perspective again and take the opportunity to consider composition and value at the same time...there is so much to think about when creating an image that work!...My next thing about perspective to master = to throw a character into the perspective mix (scene/person/animal/action all working together)

I am feeling a bit like a illustration junkie - trying to take advantage of and collecting all the learning I can. This week I was trying to win a copy of Will Terry's 6 video session on designing an image. I was so diligent checking his blog multiple times a day, but the one night I got sucked into working on our family blog I missed the window of opportunity! Oh well, I have heard such great things about his class too, that will be my next investment...thank goodness I have a supportive and patient husband. :)

Failure

Here's something all creatives need to read, a post by Sara Zarr

Am I keen or what??

Okay, my plate is full - I just signed up for a second challenge, this one from Kidlitart. 25 weeks to create a picture book dummy. What a great challenge. So if all goes well by July 1 I will have Amy and my book ready for submission!

12x12 in 12

So here's a new challenge for me. On top of keeping up with family/home responsibilities and two online art/illustration courses, I am going to try to come up with a story idea every month this year. It's a challenge Helga introduced me to - one initiated by Julie Hedlund. Helga made a very good point - as one who wants to be an illustrator of children's books, there will undoubtedly come a time when I will want to write a story of my own, so why not start generating ideas now!

Art of the Masses

I have been a fan of Emily Grandin for a long time but had let way too many months go by before returning to check her work at Art of the Masses. She has done some amazing work this year, including a very cool advent calendar and a Sketchbook Project. Here she explains her process.

Session 7 - Opening the Palette

Last week I felt really constrained sticking to two colors, but this week when I had four colors to work with, yikes! I was wishing for just two.

I'm not as happy with this painting as the first, especially the grass, but it was a great exercise.

Session 6 - Two color watercolor study

Helga P has inspired me to get going on my homework for our online class How To Be A Children's Book Illustrator. So thanks Helga! Here is my homework for this week. I am going to try and keep up with Helga who is apparently very dedicated to getting her assignments done weekly.

Painting an image using only two colors was a fun exercise. I loved the process of mixing the two colors to get the color and the tone I needed.

Creativity

Need I say more...

Tutorials

Why is it always hard for me to keep up with the drawing and the learning that I want to do?? I have had a Wacom tablet for a couple years and I still haven't spent much time figuring it out!! Well here are some tutorials that will give me a chance to try it out (although the tablet is not necessary) to do it.

The first tutorial is learning to transform a sketch into a Vector Illustration featured on Geomediazine, an ezine I need to spend more time on.

The second tutorial was featured on Digital Arts website and has some great Photoshop effects to try out. I plan to start with this one.