Illustration Friday: Outside (and some thoughts)

{Watercolor, Gouache and Ink, 2015}

*Click image to view larger*

This blog has been quiet because life hasn't been. (I also suspect that my blogging has been replaced by more immediate sharing platforms like Instagram and Facebook.) I update my Instagram account almost daily with sketches and illustrations. 

I still want to keep this blog going though. So here I am. 

So far this year I have created two dummy books, countless illustrations and finally took my dream trip to New York for the 2015 SCBWI Winter Conference. It was inspirational, aspirational and made me feel like I am moving in the right direction for my career. I've had a few mini-epiphanies (mipiphinies?) that I want to share:

1. Just keep working: The voice in the creative mind says things like, "What if 'it' never happens?" and I remind myself that drawing and painting is something I love, something I NEED to do. Writing and illustrating for children makes me happy. I would do it anyways, so why not try and get it out into the world.

2. Good work trumps "Style": I still don't know if I have a style, but I just keep focusing on growth and making the best work I can.

3. We all have unique voices, even me : Ask 40 people to draw a crocodile. You've got 40 distinct impressions of a crocodile. It's not creating a crocodile that is important, its how you use him to relate to others and share your point of view. For the longest time I was trying to reinvent the wheel, when I just needed to get in the car and see where it took me.

4. I get to take my work seriously: Even if I am having a really good time making it. (Trust me, its not always a cake walk.) There are tears and very real emotions. I feel so deeply for my work that I can be Over-the-Moon Giddy or Laying-in-a-Ditch Depressed. It's a roller coaster, and it has earned me the right to get serious about my work. (it also helps to have an advocate in your corner for those ditch moments… thanks Ken and Sara.)

So, go ahead, take your unique voice and get to work!

Bathe with an Octopus?

{Watercolor and Gouache, 2013}

In my previous post I mentioned that I would share the illustration that I created for the Iowa SCBWI spring conference illustrator's intensive. We were given a manuscript for a children's book and we asked to choose a scene to illustrate. I chose the octopus scene. We each sent sketches to Senior Art Director at Little Brown and Co.,  Patti Ann Harris, and she responded with comments for each illustrator's piece. This is my original sketch:

{Sketch, 2013}

Patti Ann didn't have a ton of things to change, but there were a few tweaks. Can you see a few differences? At the end of the intensive, we were shown what the actual book looked like. Here is the cover for the book illustrated by Marc Brown of "Arthur" fame.

You can preview the book on Amazon. Its really adorable and fun! The book was done in a cut paper collage technique that is beyond gorgeous! If you ever get a chance to meet Patti Ann Brown, do it! She was so encouraging and more importantly, very intelligent about the industry. Her eye for composition, technique and book flow is impeccable!