February..the month of love...

 

 

..chocolate love that is! : ) 

~

Happy February everyone...love is in the air, but does it always have to mean romantic love?
It could mean so many other things.

A simple question...what do you love? 

~

Thanks for your wonderful visits! To share the love, I've created these illustrations as a free downloadable print (click here). Hope you like 'em! 

Please also visit my group blog at www.welovetoillustrate.com for many more..wow, such awesome designs and illustrations from my wonderful group! Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

"I've gotta go forward!"

...Otso said as he decided the paddle wasn't getting him there fast enough.

 

(click here to see the beginning of their adventure)

Pippy learns to twirl....(scroll down, please)

paddling...paddling...

Where do you think they're going?

Happy news, and Prepare for IF (illustrationfriday.com)

"We must prepare for Sarah's Birthday Party!"

The final illustration, with added doggies, and antagonistic cat above...per Bernadettte..great idea!!

Here's the sketch I originally sent for review.

Late last year, I was busy sketching and painting new illustrations all to prepare for my online portfolio debut. I am SO very happy to finally announce that I have a wonderful Artist Representative, Bernadette Szost of Portfolio Solutions LLC.

I am very excited about starting this brand new year off working with Bernadette and her wonderful team (Laura & Nina). While solidifying our contract, Bernadette felt that I could add a few more portfolio pieces which show interaction between characters, more expressions, and above all, detail, detail, detail. I immediately worked on sketches and more sketches and provided roughs for her to review. She came back with fantastic suggestions on how to improve the work. I have been so very impressed with her professionalism, expertise, and enthusiasm! She has been working in the field for many years, and in the 90's started her own company and has worked with wonderful artists and clients ever since. I am very honored to be amongst such wonderful company!

Here are some of the final illustrations (as well as the sketches I initially sent for review) that I've prepared for my online portfolio at the site....I had a great time working on them and this surely challenged me (timing of pieces). Thanks for your visit!! I appreciate it very much..I am off to visit all of you now too. : )  

Chicken Licken - *Warning!* a very loooong first process post for the New Year

Happy to see you here - hope you all are having a wonderful 2012 so far!

I wanted to share with you a recent illustration that I had painted late last year. It was a challenge for me that upon reflection, pushed me to work hard, think hard and try harder with my watercolors. I am pretty happy with the result and very much enjoyed the process!

Presenting my official entry to the  SCBWI Tomie dePaola contest . If you aren't familiar with the contest, Tomie dePaola chose text for all to illlustrate and wow him..and so I wanted to come up with a concept that I thought would be interesting and also be fun to execute.

My concept was to draw Chicken Licken (Chicken Little) as a jester of a royal court. The text ends with "off to tell the King" so every character I felt needed to be of the royal court. I also wanted to use the author's heritage (Danish) throughout and so I put Turkey Lurkey in a Knight's outfit with Denmark's Coat of Arms, the Rooster and Hen are prince and princess, Goose is the Herald, Duck is the King of Arms, and Chicken Licken is the Fool. The toughest part was painting the lion on the Knight's outfit. One of the other things that kept going through my head was to give it a very classic old-time nostalgic feel, and so I went ahead with my sepia-toned framing of the oak trees and you can see a tiny squirrel up at top, hidden. Perhaps he was hiding the nut that fell? : ) I ultimately finished the piece with my "gothicized italic" handlettering which was a ton o' fun!

Finally, I thought I'd post my process as I managed to take a few snaps of the illustration before I finished painting it. Hope this is a bit interesting for you! : )

Step 1: Sketches - (about a week or so, jotting down ideas when they came to me)

Sketched late at night before going to sleep, here are my sketches..you'll note I had a little help from my youngest as well..see the sketch with clothing! : )

 

I didn't resolve the illustration until I added some color to the images, so I scanned the sketches and very quickly and roughly added some color...
Step Two: Scanning in thumbs and adding rough color

I had not done this step ever before, but it really helped me to solidify the illustration that I thought would have the best focus on Chicken Licken. I also asked my family which character was the focus of the piece, and they all helped me figure this out.
Step 3a: Create the template for the Watercolor Block
I don't have a pic of this but what I did here was take the thumbnail image I thought worked best, increased the size to a workable final illustration size (about 14" x 20" (the largest I've ever painted so far), and printed out a full size thumbnail to use as the outline on my watercolor block.

Step 3b: I then took the prints (four 8.5 x 11's stitched together with tape), rubbed graphite on the backside of it, and traced over the thumbnail lines onto the watercolor block.

Step 3c: The long part: drawing. I love this part though..I spent quite a few hours drawing with my Staedtler Mars Lumograph 2H pencil and kneaded eraser the final illustration that I would begin to paint.

Step 4: Start painting with watercolor! : ) Here are snaps of the process..

Step 5: Painting, painting, and more painting..and if you notice, I left a bit of the painting on the bottom right free..I was going to add a little mouse there, but instead decided it would take away from the piece...what do you think? Should I have added him/her?

That was it..I painted and added more detail as I went along, taking about a week on this piece which was very enjoyable all the way through. After the painting, I decided to add the handlettering, so I got out my calligraphy box and got to work. I will post on that too.

The winners were announced yesterday..and I am SO very happy for Yvette as her piece was one that I was drawn to. Diandra Mae, a talented and hard working illustrator in Houston, created this fabulous gallery where you can view many entries to this year's contest. Thank you Diandra! It's been so neat to see the many different concepts and executions from one excerpt of the Chicken Licken text.


Thanks for taking the time to read..I hope this was interesting and I am so happy to read your comments..it means a lot to me! Til next time ~ Shirley

Welcome 2012! Have fun!!

Happy New Year's Eve everyone! 

What a year 2011 has been. For me, personally, it will forever remain the toughest year for me personally for the loss of my dear mom is something I will feel every day for the rest of my life. Losing her has taught me so much about life. She leaves me not with tears but with smiles..that is one of her lessons. 

I'm not going to be lengthy in my post here, but I want to end the year with this....

...there is a start to every end. It's interesting how an ending can endure for a short or long time. Once the end comes, there is inevitably a new beginning. Tomorrow is a new beginning and I welcome it with open arms. I will squish my family, pet my dog, call/email/blog to my friends and family and wish them a happy and healthy new year ahead. Our world is so complex..politics, environment, relationships, economics, safety and health issues can burden us with stress and worry each day. Each year we have the yin and yang/ups and downs..it is the way it is. I wish for you a year of more ups than downs, more smiles than frowns, more time to enjoy what you do than worry over worries, and lots and lots of laughter and fun. Wishing you this for 2012 my friends and above all peace. ~ with many thanks for your wonderful visits, a very happy new year! Shirley