Cracked - IF entry #4

Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone! 

Contagious - Illustration Friday entry #3

This week, I came up with a few different ideas for the theme, and struggled, and struggled, and struggled...that's why IF is such a good thing for me...keep on plugging away, and with practice, hopefully things I found difficult this week, will lessen in the months (hopefully!) to come...

anyway, I first came up with a little girl yawning...and then added a dog yawning. I liked the sketch but thought it was a little boring when I added it to my watercolor block. 

In the back of my mind, I thought, what if something else was contagious, like a feeling that will transcend to the future, like "hope". I realize it's a very, very positive belief to think that "hope" right now is contagious...perhaps it's my inner wish for my childrens' future and generations to come.

I'm also uploading my other idea for the theme, as I always have fun with animals, and so, here they are with a contagious round of  yawns. : )

"Parade" - Illustration Friday entry #2

It's been a great challenge this week to come up with something for the IllustrationFriday.com subject, Parade. I thought I would come up with a jungle animal scene, and sketched that out but determined it lacked a bit of "oomph". I'll upload that sketch too and see what you all think..but in the meantime, over a wonderful Mother's Day weekend, I came up with this idea - which is basically what it feels like to me to frost two batches of cupcakes while my little helpers help decorate and get the cupcakes out of the pans and such. It's like a "parade" during the many baking days we have here. 

PS: I still am struggling with how far to take the watercolor (intensity wise) and when to stop - so this illo was a challenge, and I'm so happy to be doing this to help me to get through a lot of illustration-challenges I've had. Any comments (good or bad) – and helpful tips – would be GREATLY appreciated everyone!!

One fine Mother's Day

Thanks to my wonderful kids and husband, I had a SUPER day off today -

and was able to illustrate two images..

I have more to study, and experiment with because I've found that I just am not getting enough contrast with my watercolors - adding colored pencil helps, but I want to be able to get the contrast far better than what I'm doing now. Note the shadow of the reeds in the blue water (which isn't so hot, either)...I have to practice those washes, and add more pigment I believe..

anyone have some recommendations on contrast? Do I just start the color light, and let it dry, or should I try to just add a lot of pigment when it's wet? Hmmmm...watercolorers out there, please comment as I give it up to all of you who get it right!

Here's my little "Cheese Boat" illustration...

off to start a new week - hopefully posting tomorrow..!

sketches...

really quickly, cause I'm running off soon - these are two sketches I'm hoping to turn into real illustrations this weekend...one of "is that a honeybee?" and "little cheese boat"...

"Hierarchy" - Illustration Friday theme

This is my first entry to Illustration Friday.com - the theme this week is the word "Hierarchy". In sketching my first ideas, I thought it would be cute to have a bunch of birds on a tree, with one bird at the top in a very boastful "I'm the king" kind of pose. I sketched  and then decided to try something different (as my little birds weren't looking so great)...so after thinking a bit, I thought of hierarchy in a different way...

although the animals on the side of the bed are "smiling", there is a hierarchy to my daughter's oodles of stuffed animals. Only one, or maybe two favorite animals will ever be right next to her with her arm snuggled around it. So, that's my take on hierarchy. : )

Love with all your might...

This is a new illustration created for my etsy shop,

http://smileshop.etsy.com

...just testing this out to see how to upload images...and it works! : )

The world of blog!

Welcome to my blog! Wow, I didn't think I'd actually start a blog, but this is going to be fun. My latest endeavor is to join "Illustration Fridays" - and so, the blog begins. I had to create a blog in order to post some illustrations up for IF, and so we'll see what trouble I can get in to now. : )