Fabric!

Hi Everyone! I thought I'd post today some photos of my fabric that I've been working on in the past year. I've partnered up with Eugene Textiles, and they've done a beautiful job of reproducing my art on various fabrics (cotton, fleece, flannel). Here's just a few shots, and if you'd like to see more, click here.

A Stitch in Time - flannel

Milk & Cookies, and PB&J - no the photo isn't blurry, it's fleece!

Little One - flannel

I made toddler-sized drawstring backpacks for my nieces for Christmas, and once I filled them with Dora books and dvd's, they were a big hit. :)

Happy New Year Everyone!

Oil Painting Update

In spite of all my good intentions, the oil painting I had planned to create as a Christmas gift for my in-laws is nowhere near finished. In fact, I hate to say it, but I've barely begun. My idea was to paint a portrait of my husband and his sister for them, as they live in FL and their children still reside in NH.
Fortunately our visit to them is only scheduled in January. This buys me a little time from my original self-set Christmas deadline. It's certainly not a big enough window of time for the thing to dry, and I don't plan to drag a wet painting onto an airplane. But I'm hoping it'll be enough time to get the faces up painted to a level where they're at least vaguely recognizable, and I can bring along a photo of what I'm working on.
For now, I've stretched and primed the canvas...and basically painted two circles where faces will be going in the future. There's not even so much as a halfway decent underpainting to show you this week, I'm afraid. But I promised I'd share, so here's what things look like so far:


I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! Here's wishing you all a safe, happy, and creative 2011. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I can actually finish a project for once! (o;

A Christmas Alpaca?

I had great intentions of posting something with the Illustration Friday prompt "mail" but strep throat, ear infection, a new nebulizer (same kid) and last minute holiday everything got in the way. This alpaca picture is the most recent painting I haven't posted anywhere. Happy Holidays!

Winter Solstice

Winter officially begins on Tuesday, so I thought this little snowmen print would be appropriate to usher in the new season. Also Happy Holidays to one and all!

Sketchbook Project Progress

This is from my sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project 2011. If you are doing this project, you know how terribly flimsy the paper is. Some people actually rebound their books! I really didn't want to do that, but I found a great idea on how not to have to do that here. I used pages from an old book I was going to get rid of and gave them a light coat of white acrylic paint. I used a glue stick and viola! I had pages with more body.

Here are the two prior spreads:

In my sketchbook...

I'm in the middle of juggling a few big projects (yay!) but it leaves me with little time to work on new art (boo). I've been thinking of nursery rhymes lately, that they'd make good fabric.....here's what I've been sketching.....

Illustration Friday - Prehistoric

Ella knew that her mother would not understand.   She would come up with some motherly words of wisdom like "Ella, we don't bring stray mammoth's home with us, do we dear?" or "How would you feel if you were a mammoth; would you want to be trapped inside or allowed to roam free?"  She said the very same thing last week when Ella brought home a lizard she found on her way home from school.   But this was different.  How could she possibly turn Rocky away?  He was so fuzzy and cute.  It's not every day a kid finds an actual mammoth.  Especially since they are supposed to be prehistoric or something.  Now... if she could just fit him in her closet.


To see to original sketch, click here.

Tis the season

I'm doing a craft fair on Saturday at Village Elementary School in York, Maine and this year I decided to do more painterly things instead of relying on my sewing machine. These are four pictures I intended to sell as prints but ended up putting them on wood, what is it with me and wood?

Snow day

Cheers for December!
Winter's on its way!
When do you think we'll have
our very first snow day?

Froggie and Fishie

I was traveling last week and a baby sitting behind me started to get very fussy before take-off. It prompted me to whip up a couple of paper puppets. I had colored pencils in my backpack and tore a couple of sheets of paper from a notebook. The mouths open and close and I drew little surprises inside. (You can see a little fish in the fish's mouth. The frog has a heart inside.)

I have made these with kids before and they are very simple to make yet allow for endless possibilties. They can become people, animals, monsters, etc. Though I didn't do it here, you can complete the back side so they are fully 3D. You could opt to create them in collage.

I took some photos to illustrate the process in case you want to try making one. They are pretty self explanatory, but let me know if you have any questions:

Have fun!

P.S. I never got to see if baby would like them as she was passed around during flight to her dad and another woman helping her mom out.

Its the most wonderful time of the year...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Is anyone else just craving mashed potatoes and gravy? I'll be getting my fix tomorrow I'm sure. I thought I'd dig up some old Thanksgiving art from a few years ago for today's post. I created this collection when I first signed on with my current agent.... looking at old artwork is like taking a walk down memory lane, isn't it?

Also, I thought I'd give you guys a sneak peek of what I've been working on for our new winter themed header - its coming next week, so stay tuned! Here's a snippet of my sketch... can anyone guess what will be going on in this picture?

Sarah's Studio (...sort of)

Here's my "studio" space.  I used to have a whole room with great light... and then it turned into a nursery and I was moved into the basement and share a room with my husband's office and his gym equipment.  Here's hoping for a well lit studio in the next house!  Please excuse the mess.  It's always like this.  (Click on it for a closer view).


My working style has transitioned several times over the past few years, going from colored pencil and marker to almost entirely digital coloring.  Today I want to share with you my all time favorite illustration tools.  If you're an artist you can understand how it's possible to be in love with a tool, so much that your day is totally ruined if it's misplaced.  As you can see, it's not all that hard for me to do.

Uni TouchMatic Eraser - I bought this at least 10 years ago at Jerry's Artarama in West Hartford, CT.  I am constantly amazed how it has yet to run out.  I love this this click-style eraser because it gives me the precision I can't get with my regualar eraser.  It seems Uni has upgraded the TouchMatic to its current form, the E-Knock found at JetPens.

I fell madly in love with the Faber-Castell Dust-Free Vinyl Eraser when I picked it up this past year.  I end up having way less smudginess where there used to be a pencil line, and the line actually erases.  Imagine that!  The "dust-free" aspect of the eraser is that the eraser dandruff rolls together in a neat little nugget that you can roll off to the side instead of brushing off of your drawing.  I picked mine up at ACMoore, but you can get them here, too, at Dick Blick.

Since purchasing old school Wacom Intos tablet (circa 2000) a year ago via CraigsList, my digital painting has improved significantly.  Actually, up until that point I hadn't really colored digitally because I didn't like how little control I had with a mouse.  Now my little grey friend follows me to my in-house job and home everyday.

Then there's Photoshop.  Who doesn't love Photoshop?!  I work in it 8 hours a day while at my in-house job, designing gift bags and boxes.  You'd think I'd be sick of it the computer, but at the end of the day, when everyone else has gone to bed, I'm back at it digitally painting away at my latest illustration project.

Other notables from my studio:
    • Holly DeWolf's book Breaking Into Freelance Illustration - this inspired me to grab the bull by the horns and make this dream reality
    • Canon MX860 All-In-One - no complaints as of yet.  I picked it up for its nice scan quality and nice art paper printing
   • Guayaki Organic Yerba Mate - gives me the kick I need for these late nights

On my screen there you can see a final color illustration from my current project with author Barbara Ann Simone.  Check out my BLOG for a close up of this page and a few others!

So, what are some of your favorite tools?  Is your studio space as messy as mine?  * Here's a secret, all my art supplies are on shelving units in the other part of the basement, so what you see is only a sliver of the goodness.*

Oil paint

Last weekend, I raided my little storage area at my parents' house. I collected some items that I'd left there from my college years: my old paint-smudged easel, a roll of canvas, my sad-looking glass palette, and a toolbox full of paint and mediums (to my surprise - still good!). Then I went shopping. I bought supplies to stretch and gesso my own canvas etc...the whole nine yards.The outcome was a bag full of goodies that I had to drag from my car into my house. It's been about a decade since I've painted in oils, but some of the ideas I've been toying with lately just won't translate with my usual gouache paints. (I'm thinking about giving paintings as Christmas gifts! What? Not enough time? Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?) I've yet to start this process, but I have a 4 day weekend off of work coming up next week. No class on Wednesday night (for once) and not many other plans other than Thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to getting back into my old groove. I'll post the results - good or bad - and we'll see if I should just continue to stick with gouache or not. (;

Graphic Novel

I've never thought of myself as a graphic novel type girl, but felt inspired.  I'm actually pretty happy with the way it came out.  Here is an early sketch.  I really like the ability to pull in tight for a few panels, and on the same page have images that are zoomed out.

flashback/fantasy

A year ago today was the start of the saddest week of my life. My Dad died suddenly, he wasn't the picture of health but I thought he'd be with us for a lot longer. My kids kept him young. My husband and I had the second batch of grandkids 15 years after the last. A few days before he died I posted a IF submission on my blog picturing my dad and my son Reid. I thought it would be oddly comforting to imagine what they would be doing if my dad was here today. Go Fish!

Solarplate Prints

This is a little drawing I did on mylar for my first attempt at creating a Solarplate print. A Solarplate is a thin steel plate prepared with a light-sensitive polymer surface. A transparency (the mylar) is placed on the plate and exposed to a light source. Then the plate is developed in a water bath and printed like any intaglio plate. This product is made by the Daniel Smith Co.

My instructor at my printmaking class took me through all the steps. First we made a test print to check the timing of the exposure. The image below is the print from the test strip. We then created the plate with all three snowmen. I will be printing from that one at my next class. It's a really awesome technique because one's drawing reproduces so perfectly---all the subtle shading and lines remain in the printed image.

Sketchbook Project 2011 Page

Here is a page from my sketchbook. You can tell what my day was like--endless laundry and an endless customer service call.

Theater As A Book

Hi All
I thought I'd share what I've been illustrating lately-stage sets!
For the past few years, I've been in charge of scenic design and painting for
Bedford High theater. This year, BHS produced Thoroughly Modern Millie.
I had help from volunteer friends who helped fill in, so that helped with the work load and lessened the stress level the comes with tight deadlines. The play was great and the kids did a terrific job!
As I was watching the show, I couldn't help comparing designing and painting for
theater to the task of illustrating a book.
The actors moving through my designs onstage are like my characters in a book with the illustrated environments I give them.
The attention we pay, as illustrators, to drama, color, lighting, pacing and page turns in a book also apply to designing and painting environments for actors in order to transition smoothly from scene to scene.
Since I was too busy drawing and painting to take pictures, I'm grateful that Zack Uliasz, one of the young male leads in the play, was kind enough to snap a few. Thank you, Zack. Hope you all enjoy them. Happy illustrating!
-Angela Lucido

In my sketchbook

Yesterday's cold rainy day made me sketch something gloomy..... sigh....weren't you FREEZING yesterday?! So I brought out the ole' conte crayons and craypas. It was so hard to get warm. Thankfully the sun has finally peeked out just recently. Maybe its time for a new sketch!

Pumpkins!

Since it's the season for all things pumpkin, I thought I'd share a small drawing exploration I did a couple years ago. It was for a class I had at the start of my graphic design program. We had to draw one object several times. Each time we did, we had to draw a different angle with different media and different tools. I think one of these drawings was made in ink and drawn with a stick. (Pumpkin slime may have been involved too!) I chose a pumpkin to work with because I just happened to have one at my house, and I loved the twisted stem. Sometimes all you need to do is play/explore and not worry too much about the outcome:

The Suitcase - A Teeny, Tiny wordless picture book

I decided to add some color to my teeny, tiny wordless picture book.

I wasn't sure how I wanted to paint it.  Or if I even wanted it to remain wordless.  I couldn't think of any words that weren't already evident in the illustrations, so that was a pretty easy decision.  However, I was still left with wondering how to paint it.  I decided to try to stay with a somewhat limited palette.

I also decided to use particular colors to convey feelings.  Hopefully, they came through.
I used oranges and yellows to try to convey the little boys frustration.  I only used blue to convey how cold and what a bad idea running away is.   I used yellow to show the warmth he was feeling both from being back inside and from his mother's unconditional love.

Personally, I was quite happy with the drawings themselves (not sure about the painted versions), but I didn't get very many comments on the sketches, so I'm wondering,  do you guys like these illustrations?  Did the color help or detract?  Are the blue pages too jarring compared with the warm color pages?

Hu and Twee

Here are a couple of friends, who know what kind of things they'll do, that will come in time. Right now they may be a post card. I am playing around with how to write their names underneath them. I used prismacolor pencils for this with the pencil blender!

Sunflower Print Part 2

On my previous post, I showed my design for this sunflower print. After 4 layers of color (yellow, yellow-orange, yellow ochre, and a darker ochre) I finished the printing process. I used Akua water-based ink, Speedball blockprinting paper. and one Easy-cut block to make this 4"x4" reduction print. The bottom image is of the carved block in its final stage. I can still use the block as a one color image in the future.

It Might Be Good to Have Eight Arms

Oh no! My apologies!! I missed my turn to blog yesterday. Too much excitement this week!.

Thursday I had a deadline to submit a manuscript for a picture book writing class I'm taking at Grub Street with Beth Raisner Glass. I wrote a story about my dog (you know, the pancake) and I can't wait to start storyboarding it. I'm so happy to have discovered Grub Street!

Tuesday evening I attended a screening of Library of the Early Mind. It was an inspiring and intriguing look at the world of children's books from the viewpoints of authors and illustrators. After the film, there was a lively panel discussion, food, and a book signing. If you haven't been yet, I recommend it. It is traveling to cities all over the U.S.

As if my week wasn't inspiring enough, on Friday I visited Lilla Rogers Studio. She had an event for art directors, art buyers, designers, etc. to showcase new work. It was great fun. If you want to read more, I blogged about it here.