Graduated!

Well folks, it's finally happened. At long last, I have officially graduated from my graphic design program! Yeaaaaayyyy! This means a couple things. First, I have to figure out how to be a human being with a life once again. Second, I'll actually have time to spend on my illustration work. But where to start? I think I may try keeping up with Illustration Friday once again. We'll see! In the meantime, here's a little ACEO I did ages ago in the time before school took over my life. I feel like it's appropriate for today's weather. Have a happy Memorial Day Weekend, everyone!

What I'm working on

What am I doing these days?  Well, glad you asked.  I've been working on a poster idea for the Scholastic Read Every Day. Lead a better life. campaign.... and you can too.   Check out Scholastic's site to find out the specifics.  This is what I have so far.

Graphic designer pals - what do you think about the text?  Suggestions?   Also, I'm debating whether I want to go over the image with black prismacolor for the outline, or leave it as is.  Undecided at this time.  Any thoughts are welcome!

New puzzle

Hey everyone! Sorry that I've been missing in action lately. I've been working on organizing my new office and trying to clean up the house. I can't believe how much junk I have.

Speaking of having too much stuff, I just got some samples of a puzzle that I did for Mudpuppy. The puzzle is six different scenes: dairy cow, hen and chicks, goat, horse, sheep, and pig.

Lots to learn

This is the amount of information I feel was presented at this years SCBWI-NE conference. It's is going to take me a while to absorb it all.

Rain, rain, go away!

Anyone tired of this dreary weather?

NESCBWI Conference 2011

Jane Yolen, Richard Michelson, Nancy Garden on the panel for Library of the Early Mind

Jane Yolen and part of Steve Withrow's head

This weekend my inspiration battery was recharged by another brilliant NESCBWI conference. The 2011 conference was the 25th for New England and so the theme was Celebrating Milestones. (You can see my poster submission here.)


Keynote speakers Jane Yolen, Tomie DePaola, Stephen Mooser, Lin Oliver, and Harold Underdown delighted the audience with their ribbing and teasing all the while celebrating this anniversary and encouraging us to persevere through rejections and industry shifts.

Stephen Mooser giving a keynote speech on Sunday.


Harold underdown acted as Mr. Optimist and Mr. Pessimist

I attended many excellent workshops that will keep me savoring my notes. The highlight of my weekend, though, was the Intermediate/Advanced Illustrator Academy. In this workshop a panel of four: Dani Jones, John Lechner, Kerry Martin, and Nicole Tugeau gave feedback on each participant's web presence. Casey Girard facilitated the workshop. I loved that the panel was diverse in areas of expertise. Dani and John are both tech savvy illustrators. Kerry is a designer for Clarion Books and Nicole is an artist/author agent. Getting their input on my own site and blog was extremely valuable. Also, it was helpful to see how other participants presented themselves on-line and to hear tips from the panel.

So I have a couple of things to change on my site for now, but I have lots of art to make.

Jane Yolen is known for the phrase, "Butt in chair" (BIC). In other words you must sit down and do the work. This idea was echoed by other presenters. It's probably because the nature of creative work seems to require fending off distraction a lot of the time. Even Tomie Depaola talked about doing everything but what he was supposed to when faced with a blank sheet of paper.

The weekend was busy. I have a pages of notes to digest, quotes to ponder, and lots of work to do!

Robot!

The printmaking class I've been taking has come to and end, and here's the last print I did - a robot! It is my first screenprint, and out of all the techniques I learned in this class, screenprinting is my favorite. (And I smartened up this time and used fewer colors.) I'm seriously considering investing in a screen of my own, though the only place I have to clean it would be in my bathtub and I'm not crazy about the idea....

Playing with a new medium

So I'm trying to step away from (mostly) digital illustration for a bit and have dipped my college-era paintbrushes into some gouache.  I have only dabbled in the medium in the past but can't consider myself remotely experienced.  This is a quick piece where I was playing with gouache, colored pencil, and ballpoint pen on bristol.  I really like the texture of the paint when I went to draw on it with the pencil.  So any suggestions on the medium and tools?  I can't wait to play more!!!

bunny and chicky

Here are a couple of stuffed animals I made my kids for Easter. I always have high hopes of producing much craft when I go to my studio once a week but there always seems to be a gift to make for one occasion or another.