Scott Gustafson and Jon Foster

This past week I had the opportunity to listen to two great illustrators speak- my sweet hubby watched the kids while I went to both of them. :) I took a few notes so I'll share some thoughts and gems of wisdom with y'all.



Here I am with Scott Gustafson! He has been a favorite illustrator of mine since I first saw his work. And besides that he's such a nice guy. The things that I love about his work is the personality he gives to his characters and the ways he uses color- so many colors to make one color. I can also tell he has studied the work of and is influenced by great illustrators such as Norman Rockwell, Howard Pyle, N.C. Wyeth, J.C. Leyendecker and the list goes on.

He shared his process with us. He does a lot of things that I do when working out sketches, except he uses a photocopier and wax and I use photoshop- moving characters around, shrinking and enlarging etc. It was really fun to see his process of oil painting- he showed us a day by day progress of an Alice in Wonderland piece he did.

A couple words of wisdom from Scott: If something isn't working in your illustration, leave that for a while and work on another area of the piece. Give it some time and then you can come back and work on it later. If you give it time, you can usually work it out better. I also commented to him that I really like his use of color and he says that he often relies on a color wheel to show him what colors he should use next to each other. That very night, I dusted off my color wheel.

The other illustrator I was able to listen to this week was Jon Foster. He fantasy illustrator. The thing I like about his work is his amazing compositions. I like his teen novel covers. Some of his work was inspired by N.C. Wyeth and J.C. Leyendecker also.

Here are a few things I learned from Jon. Fear will keep you from fully experiencing the things that you want to experience. It's funny, and I thought about this. I think a lot of times I procrastinate starting my jobs or doing all the art I would like to do because I have a fear of not being able to do it good enough. I need to get over that fear and just make art for the joy of making art. He encouraged us all to have fun with art and experiment. It's all about enjoying the process of painting. Play with paint, value, form. Try starting with a small amount of color and see what you can come up with. Doodle and have fun. Everything doesn't have to be rendered or it won't have life and energy so let some things go. If something is too rendered, go back in and chop things up. Experiment with different color pallets.

Jon also talked about not comparing yourself to other artists. While he was in school, his teachers told him that he was only the middle of the field, and he put a lot of work into getting only meteocher artwork. It took him 8 years after he graduated to get his first illustration job.

He also talked about how you learn a lot more after you graduate- which I agree with. You get the tools you need while you're in school, and then after school you get the experiences that really help you learn how to use those tools. You meet people and see new art that influences you for good. Now that I've been out of school for 5 1/2 year, I am realizing more and more every day how true this is. When I first graduated, I thought I should be able to illustrate a trade book right off, but now looking back, I am glad things didn't happen that way, because I've learned so much from the smaller jobs I've done and other experiences I've had.




Randomly, (you can't even tell what this picture is about) here is a little glimpse of my studio while I'm working on sketches for a book. I tape all of the sketches up on the wall. That way I can come back to things and fix them later after I've worked on some other things. It also lets me see if any two pages are very similar and how well the book is going to flow. Well, that's enough of my chatter! Signing off!

SCBWI Conference 2009

Sherry, Manelle, Laurent, Me, and Elise

This weekend I had the opportunity to go to the SCBWI (Society of Childrens Books Writers and Illustrators) Conference. This is a pretty fabulous conference to go to because they bring in an art director from a major publishing house! This year they invited Laurent Linn from Simon and Schuster. A portfolio critique directly from art director is definitely one of the most helpful critiques I've ever had. I love hearing the new ideas and suggestions from someone who really knows what's marketable in today's industry. Elizabeth Law, editor from Egmont U.S.A. was also there, and she also had some great things to say. It was a great weekend. I learned a ton, and I'm pumped and ready to make my work better!

Selections from The Wind in the Willows

Here are a few illustrations from The Wind in the Willows, available January 2010 through Magic Wagon, a division of the ABDO Group (www.abdopublishing.com) or your educational wholesaler. I really had fun with these ones and I like how they turned out!

Selections from Peter Pan

Here are a few illustrations from Peter Pan, available January 2010 through Magic Wagon, a division of the ABDO Group (www.abdopublishing.com) or your educational wholesaler.

On Grandpa's Boat

Heres a few selections from the book I illustrated last winter for EECI Inc. entitled On Grandpa's Boat.

Peter Pan and Wind in the Willows available in 2010!

Here are the covers for the two books I have just finished up: Peter Pan and Wind in the Willows! They will be Available January 2010 through Magic Wagon, a division of the ABDO Group (www.abdopublishing.com) or your educational wholesaler.

Ice Cream and Tap Shoes

I know it's been such a long time since I've posted. Well the reason is because A. I've been swamped with illustrations jobs, which is good most of the time except for when B. I've been moving. Yes, 'tis true. We've been living in a 3 bedroom condo for the last 5 years and we were finally able to move into our very own house! I love our house, but it was quite an ordeal getting here (there was complications with the selling of our condo) and having 10 days left to finish up my sketches and finals for a book I was working on (a chapter book rewrite of Peter Pan).

So here we are and I'm posting a couple of illustrations I did for The Friend magazine that was published in this months issue from an article entitled "Ice Cream and Tap Shoes." If you have a magazine tell me if you can see the difference between the original and the published version. Laters!

Happy Fourth of July!!

Happy Fourth of July everyone! I am a bit exhausted from the day have opted out of seeing fireworks this evening.

As promised, here are some more pictures from Colonial Days. Firstly, here is another picture from Thursday. It is me and my good friend Manelle in our stylin' Colonial Costumes. Check out her blog to see what she did! Doesn't she look like she could be in a Vermeer painting?

Here I am today in my not so well fitting fatty costume. This time I decided to do a drawing of Paul Revere's Midnight Ride. That cute little girl hanging out by me is my little one!





This drawing was a bit more of an ambitious undertaking, and because it has been such an exhausting week, I didn't care as much about this one and just kind of wanted to get it over with. The frustrating thing about working with chalk on asphalt is: 1. It's a black surface which is quite a bit different than the white surface I am used to working on. 2. It's a bit rough! 3. You get quite sore and exhausted from crouching on the ground. and 4. It's frustrating to not have the colors that you would really like to work with. But all that said, it was a fun experience and a great holiday!

Colonial Days

I am so grateful to live in the U.S.A! And I love the Fourth of July! This year I have the fun opportunity of participating in Colonial Days in Provo Utah- part of their Freedom Day Festival- as a chalk artist! If any of you are in the area, I will be there again tomorrow on the 4th of July from 4:00-6:30 in the afternoon, so come stop by. There are a lot of other fun activities going on at the Colonial Days located at about 300 East Center Street in Provo.

Here's what I did yesterday! Yes, t'is me!



Kind of a distorted view since I couldn't get an overhead shot: Good ol' Betsy Ross working on Old Glory! It was my first time working with chalk, and I wasn't sure what I would be working with (they provided the supplies). So it was definetly an experiment, but very fun! I'll be posting more soon!

Young Annie Oakley

I'm really proud of myself for finally getting a sample done. The last couple of months I've mainly been concentrating on selling my condo (fixing it up, puting it on the market, keeping it clean and looking at other houses), and somehow my creative brain went on a vacation. But I've slowly been getting illustration things done again. Hurray! Here's young Annie Oakley and her horse done in digital and pastel pencil.

Friends!

Here's a couple of little images I did for the May 2009 issue of The Friend Magazine. A little "Funstuf" activity about being a good friend. I experimented with a new technique for this image. I first colored the images in photoshop- using a technique that ends up looking a bit like watercolor. Then I printed the illustrations on watercolor paper and finished them off with pastel pencils. I really like the outcome and want to experiment with this more!

Job from last year

Here's another religious illustration I did last year for a Peter Li Publishing. A cover for "Prayers and Guidelines for Young Catholics." I haven't seen the published product yet, but I finished it a year ago, so I'm assuming it's published by now. Laters!

The Prodigal Son

Well, good news, the book that I finished last September is now out and in print- The Parable of the Prodigal Son. This is of course one of Jesus' well known parables from the New Testament in the Bible. This version is written in a rhyming style by Erik Rottman and it's an Arch Book published by Concordia Publishing house. Above are desplayed a few images from this book that I thought turned out alright!

This was the first book I painted all digitally (Photoshop). I really didn't know much about digital painting when I first started, but I learned a lot from friends along the way. Thanks, Maryn and Manelle. Thanks to the blood, sweat and tears of this book, I am now much faster and more wise in the ways of digitalness.

For the last couple of weeks I have been taking a small break from illustrating after a long stretch of non-stop illustration work (which I was very grateful for). Over the last couple of weeks, I have been working hard on getting our condo ready to sell- painting, floors, countertops etc. I have discovered I have been feeling very stressed, and somehow it's a bad kind of stress that I don't like. With illustration I get stressed, but somehow it's a good kind of stress- because I'm doing what I love. I'll keep going at it since our little family is really ready for a house!

Forum on Children's Literature 2009

This past Thursday and Friday, I was able to go to the Forum on Children's Literature, held annually at Utah Valley University. I had a fun time even though this year was a bit more quiet. Last year in the gallery of illustration there were a ton of participants- like 15. This year there were only five. So that gives you an idea of how it was. But I was inspired as always, and my favorite part was hearing from my favorite writer, Shannon Hale. She is Hillarious! She also knows what she's talking about! Other key note speakers were Abby Ranger, editor at Hyperion Books for Children and illustrator Robert Neubecker. I have written a little about things that I learned at the conference on the CBBFI blog, and hope to write a few more things soon. So stay tuned.

I even made it into the Daily Harold Newspaper. Click here to see the link. There is a large picture of Shannon Hale up on top and then you can click on the smaller picture underneath and see ME! It's a picture of me in the figure drawing session- I am the weirdo sitting up front.

Speaking of the figure drawing session, here's what I came up with. I wish I could go to figure drawing sessions all the time, because they are so helpful and I miss drawing from a live model. I learn so much every time I do!



Here's a picture of me with my BFF Shannon Hale. You can totally tell that we're BFF's right? I mean, look at that smile on her face. She was so happy to see me, and she only had to call security once.

Now no one can dispute that Shannon and I are absoluetly best friends. She even wrote it in my Goose Girl book. Do you think the knife in her back was going a bit too far? Really, it was just one of those plastic butter knifes.

Princess Moonbeam and IF: Legendary

Once again, I am slightly changing my original post since it fits so well with this week's Illustration Friday theme, Legendary. Princess Moonbeam comes from a Japanese Folk Tale/ Legend. When I posted this illustration at first, I forgot that I had planned on showing a couple steps of my acrylic process. So I am now posting those below.

Here's an illustration I finished for Story Book Art's ad in the 2010 Picture Book. It's a illustration of Princess Moonbeam from the Japanese folk tale. The moon is calling her back and she is about to drink the elixir of immortality and go back to live in the moon with her moon mother once more. She is sad because she must leave her earthly parents. I painted it in acrylics all except for the the moonbeam. I did that digitally. It just seemed like too much of a bother to try and figure out how to do it in acrylics.

Step one: The first step is thumbnails. It is important to work out how your composition will look in a thumbnail. Unfortunately, my thumbnail sketches are long gone, used as scratch paper for my kids to draw on.

Step two: Get the sketch right! This saves so much trouble in later stages. Sometimes I need to draw and redraw until I feel happy about it. Sometimes I even need to stop and go back to thumbnails. I was lucky on this illustration that I only had to tweek a couple things to get the sketch right.


Step three: Color study. I do this on photoshop. I even use colors from other acrylic illustrations I have done and scanned in, picked up from the eye dropper tool.


Step four: First I transfer the sketch to a gessobord by tracing it over graphite paper. (Even though I LOVE gessobord, I am wanting to change this to a kind of paper, since I know art directors don't like illustrations on a board because they like to use drum scanners. Does anyone have a wonderful paper that they use? I would love suggestions.) Then I do an underpainting. In this painting I used purple first then quickly painted in the rest of the colors where they were supposed to go.

Step Five: Finished acrylic painting. Step six on this one was to scan in the painting and add the digital magic, which you can see in my finished piece at the top.



Just for fun, here is a couple of photos of my pallet, since a lot of my friends get a kick out of how high the paint is getting. The photos are not very clear, but it's pretty funny.

My take on "When Pigs Fly" and IF: Breezy #1

I am modifying my original post slightly to be an Illustration Friday post since it goes along so well with the topic "Breezy."

Here's a piece I did for promotion. This is one of those illustrations that took lots and lots of drawing and redrawing (and frustration) to get to the final sketch. Sometimes you just have to struggle until you get it. . . .better. I got some good suggestions from my crititque groupies. It's not perfect, but it's a lot better than my first drawings.

It's kind of funny, I've been doing a lot more work than I can actually show because it hasn't been published yet. It seems like most of the work I've been doing has been done on the computer. Yet most of the work on this blog is in acrylics (excluding my last two posts). I guess this is because I really like the look of acrylics so I do it for my promotional work, but computer is much quicker for fast jobs. Right now I am working on another reader about a boy and his grandpa on a boat. Hopefully I will have a couple good things to show you after the job is published. I will be spending the next few weeks trying to catch up on that job and trying to crank out another promotional piece for Picture Book- not to mention trying to be a good mom. :) So that's what I'm up to art-wise. I hope all of you are working on some great art too. Thanks for everyone who comments on this blog, I really enjoy reading them!