Tiger hidden in my soup. (Should have added more cumin.) Or how sleep is optional before a SCBWI conference.

So I am totally delighted to say that I get to attend the Midsouth's SCBWI conference in 9 days. I am not delighted to say that I am bone tired. But it seems to me that this is how things are suppose to go before a conference. As my sweet husband will attest, I get a wee bit cranky running on 5 hours of sleep. ;)                                                                                                                                                    

So the SCBWI has started to do intensives in the last few years. I LOVE intensives. It's like being back in art school again. Basically you get an assignment from a super amazing Art Director. This year we are privileged enough to work with Ms. Loraine Joyner from Peachtree Publishers. My assignment was to illustrate a spread of the story Tiger in My Soup written by Kashmira Seth and illustrated by Jeffrey Ebbler. (We were encouraged not to look at the book, so I have no idea what it the story looks like other than the cover.)

Anyway, you submit your concept art, thumbnails and a final sketch to the Art Director and they give you constructive notes on how to fix or better enhance your illustration, then you come to the intensive with your final illustration.

This was my initial complete sketch of the spread:

Ms. Joyner went above and beyond the call of duty and sent me three pages of incredibly helpful and super encouraging notes. She helped me see where I needed pump up the action or fix things here and there. She basically liked the left side of the spread, so here is a simple upgraded version of the right side of the spread:



I'm working on the painting process right now and I have basically one week to finish. Excited for next weekend. Hopefully I can have enough time to be as meticulous as I want to be. Wish me luck, will you? :)

From A to Z

Wondering where do I get my ideas and how do I go about creating my illustrations? I invite you to journey through my nose to see the squishy insides of my fully functioning brain as I go from the genesis of an idea to a finished illustration.

Step #1. The thumbnail sketch.

So after I get an idea to create something I like to draw a lot of squiggly lines, gestures, so that I can loosely come up with an idea for the layout. Since this illustration is a cover for my story about a girl with a messy bed I thought, "This needs to have a girl sitting on a messy bed." Brilliant huh? ;)

Step #2. Character Study

I'm a firm believer in drawing from life. If you sketch from your surroundings you will get a better idea of how anatomy works and what people and things actually look like opposed to what you think they look like. Soapbox aside, I like to draw a lot of drawings (some very ugly drawings) trying to figure out what I want my character to look like. My character Matilda McBean is very stubborn and a sort of Veruca Salt character. You are suppose to not like her. And usually kids are pretty darn cute, so that's a pretty tall order I think.

Step #2. Rough Sketch.

Here's me figuring out the details and making sure the gobbeldy gook in my head makes sense on paper. As you can see here gravity does not exist in this world, so this sketch was thrown out. No Matilda in space for me, thank you very much. 

Ah, this is much better. Yay for gravity, and more rotten or broken things.

Step #4 and 5. Value Study & Color Study.

So being that this is a monochromatic illustration, I don't really need to do a value study. This is, however, normally a super necessary step for me because making the values right does not really come naturally for me. So after the value study, I do a color study to make sure that illustration looks good enough to eat. This color study reminds me of a custard filled donut. Yum. 

Step #6. Watercolor

Then I paint in watercolor and india ink, which truthfully can be super unforgiving. No mistakes please, and no pressure.

Step #7. Finish in Corel Painter

Then, after I've scanned my piece, I take it into Painter and fix any mistakes I've made, pump up the color with some additional layers in painter, and then I'm done. Yay.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Brace yourself for nerdy talk about my art process. I've been struggling at putting a specific face to the name of my character, Matilda McBean, from my story The Messy Bed.  

 

I was doing a lot of contemporary American kiddos, but I finally decided that the Victorian Era (in England of course) rocks my socks off and I thought it'd be fun to take a crack at one of my favorite time periods in history for my story.

I finally found a face that I sorta liked ---------->

Fleshing her face out (and personality for that matter) has been fun and challenging for me. But I'm getting closer to the 'real' Matilda.

Can't wait to do the mom too :)

Step Two, Buckle My Shoe

Totally unfinished mermaid with octopus hat.
Not sure how many out there are interested in the creative process, or shall I say my creative process. I have to say that most of my ideas come from doodles that I make when I'm suppose to be paying attention to something else. Yay for distractions.

Anyway, I'm going to be part of The Sketchbook Project. It's where, "thousands of sketchbooks will be exhibited at galleries and museums as they make their way on tour across the country. After the tour, all sketchbooks will enter into the permanent collection of The Brooklyn Art Library, where they will be barcoded and available for the public to view." I have to fill up a sketchbook by January 2011 and the gallery tour starts the following March.
Super exciting. I can't wait to share the good, the bad, and the ugly that goes on in my sketchbook and gets me to a finished product. For those of you artist/artistan/craftsman buddies out there, give in to peer pressure and be part of the The Sketchbook Project. If you do end up joining please please send me a link so I can blog stalk your sketchies. :)