SFC - June Cover

And the hits just keep on coming!! I'm so excited! SFC asked me to do the cover for their June Issue!! How cool is that?!?

Here is a rough so far... what do you think? Does it work? Anything not working?

Illustration Friday - Theater

As you know, I'm working on my color theory, and while I did color this, I didn't like how it turned out. SOOOO, here we are back to the starting block, with me posting the sketch. I will get around to painting it, but probably not before Friday....

Conference update

What a wonderful conference! It was so nice to physically meet many of the people I've talked to online. The workshops were fantastic, as were the keynote speakers! Very inspiring! I had my portfolio reviewed, and have a whole lot of work ahead of me. That's both good to hear and a little hard to hear. Ah, color theory here I come!

But the best part of all was that I won the NESCBWI 2009 Ann Barrow Illustrator Scholarship!! What an honor! I just hope I can make the committee proud of me!

Also, a very big congratulations to my friend Ann Marie who won an award for her wonderful "Many Voices" poster!! I'm so proud of her! Yay Ann Marie!!

It was so great spending the day with members from my Southern NH Critique group! They are all SOOO talented! What a fun day!!

NESCBWI Conference 2009

Yikes! It's here: the NESCBWI conference. I'm wicked excited and nervous all at the same time. I can't wait to go to the workshops and get some great info that I'll be able to apply to my illos. I can't wait to meet some of the people I know of only through my online groups. I'm slightly intimidated to amongst so many amazingly talented people.... "I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy." I can't believe people from all over New England are going to be here. I can't believe I'm entered in the poster contest, and that I'm going to have my portfolio reviewed by an AD! Wow and double eeks.

Take a deep breath, deep BREATH, DEEP BREATH.... AGGGGGHHHHHHH!

Yard Sale 2

Here is another illo I did for the second round of flyers going out for my daughter's school yard sale.

Illustration Friday - Impossibility

My kids and I are huge Jack Prelutsky fan's, and last night for bedtime, we read Jack P's poem entitled "I drew a yellow unicorn." Which seemed perfect for the IF prompt "Impossibility." So, this illo is based on his poem.

This is not one of my better pieces, that's for sure. I'm not happy with the composition, and although most of the colors are dictated by the poem itself, I don't like the painting, but I wanted to get something down on paper: good, bad, or ugly. It feels weird posting it, especially since I'm not happy with it, but hey, we're all allowed to experiment, and mess about here and there, aren't we? So, this is my mess. :)

Watercolor Wednesdays - Frolicking Fairies

You would think I would jump at the chance to do fairies since everyday I play "fairies" with my youngest; however, I just couldn't help envisioning a little tomboy "fairy" frolicking (or tormenting) creatures small and tall.

I'm pretty happy with my little fairy, but the wet cat left me a bit frustrated. Anyone have any tips for creating the illusion of a wet cat? I haven't worked on any illo for the past three weeks, so, I'm working out the kinks. Any suggestions are, as always, welcome!

SFC Color

I still need to finish painting the other two illos, but for now this is one done.

Stories for Children - May Issue

I'm working on the roughs for the May Issue of SFC. I've been lucky enough to be given the opportunity to illustrate a great story by Kai Strand called "Buried Treasure." Here are the roughs I've done so far.

Rainy Day Sketches

This week's prompt for Watercolor Wednesdays is Rainy Day. I've worked up these two sketches, and am looking for some feedback. Do these characters look consistent? How does it look to you? Anything off? I'd like to do a good job on these so I can use them in my portfolio, so your feedback is appreciated.

NESCBWI Conference Handout

I worked up another set of postcards specifically for handing out at the New England SCBWI conference. I don't know about you guys, but I get so nervous about committing an image to a postcard: have I chosen the right image, is it good enough, does it look amateurish, are the colors OK, etc., etc. I get nervous easily, but hey I realize that, and I embrace my neuroses! heh heh! Anyway, I'm posting the images I went with... (and yes, the first image is something I did for Watercolor Wednesdays not too long ago, but I liked it ....the second image is just a little spot illo on the back of the card).