2016 SCBWI-LA, Part 2: Illustration Intensive Brilliance

I am a big Illustration Intensive fan. Creative people, in this industry, have to be life-long learners. Sophie Blackall, this past weekend, talked about herself improving as an artist and compared it to yoga. Even when you are improving, you can always stretch deeper, reach farther... I love that analogy!

I was particularly excited for this intensive because I have never done am intensive that focused on character design.  I am sure you are familiar with #WeNeedDiverseBooks. This is something I feel really passionate about. I've moved around a lot, and many of my friends and their kids, that are from a variety of different ethnicities and races, are not usually represented in picture books. So this intensive started off by prompting us to draw someone from a specific race or ethnicity, from our imagination, and afterwards by reference. After using my imagination (which was occasionally reliable for this sort of thing), it was incredible to see reference of a broader spectrum and larger variety of people belonging to a certain race or ethnicity.

Next we analyzed facial expressions and were prompted to illustrate that emotion on an animal or object. This was all very fast paced... you had to be on your toes in this intensive! One of the prompts that I had a hard time wrapping my brain around was an angry barn. I wish you could have seen the other illustrators designs. There was so much talent in that room. Here is my very disgruntled owl for you. :)

Art director Laurent Linn, who worked in Sesame Street for many years, brought some puppeteers to act out some seenes for us. Something interesting I found out was that a majority of the puppets in Sesame Street are not built with a smile. So when you think you are seeing a smile, or a warm expression, or conversely an angry expression... it is ALL body gestures. 

Later on, we watched some live actors act out scenes or emotions. They emphasized that the less cliche their actions were, the more sincere and impactful the moment could be.

It really was a brilliant intensive. Before we came to the intensive, we were all asked to bring studies of 3 original animal or human characters. Here are mine:

We analyzed what was working and what was not working. Afterwards, we had some time to synthesize what we had learned and to sketch our characters. I think I want to develop a story out of this little witch. 

Anyway, it really was peachy. Next time I create a character, I will have a lot more to think about. Alrighty, back to work. Good luck to you and me on our projects!

...like a chicken with it's head cut off.

It's been awhile. I've been keeping my nose buried in books and pencil shavings. I'm currently working on my book dummy for The Messy Bed, and a stack of other projects. Busy busy and wishing that house elves would work on that pile of laundry already! Yay art. Boo housework!

Friends, Romans, Good Ole' Boys... Lend me your patience.

Being the bohemians that we are, we are moving AGAIN. Blerg. My brushes are packed away (Boo!) and life is being temporarily being put on hold. So that means you too blog. Sorry dear friend. And being that "it's the most [busy] time of the year" with all the holiday having and delightful food splurging going on, it may be about a month or so before I return. (Sadsville.)

So I wish you well in your family gathering, calorie consuming month and a half. I meanwhile will be listening audiobooks and podcasts while loading all of our prize possessions into cardboard boxes.

'Till we meet again friends.

The Messy Bed

I just finished the cover for my 'The Messy Bed' story. Hooray! And there was much rejoicing.

 If you are interested in the steps I took to complete this illustration check out the post below. :)

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 :)

It's Officially Official...

I'm super excited to take part in the KidLitArt's Dummy Book Challange to create a Dummy Book for my Messy Bed  story by July 1st. So fasten your seatbelts...

I need all the moxie I can get.


...oh and dear artist/writer friends, let me know if you are joining too and I'll link to you so we can collectively be cool.

Matilda McBean Won't Clean Under Her Bed

So I'm totally charmed...

I'm in the running for a writing contest online and basically they have the most adorable kids read your story and the story that is watched the most wins millions. (i.e. $1,500). Go check it out. It's at Smories.com Do it. And yay.

ADDENDUM: Apparently you can watch it multiple times and it will increase my chances of winning the contest. It's lasting all throughout May, so click back often and tell your friends!