focused

Lizzie was so focused on her 1st kiss with Julian, she didn't even notice the frog.

For Illustration Friday this week. This is also the image on the front of a Valentine's Day promo postcard I'll be sending out next week. I loved doing this one, it's got everything I like in it. Kids, animals, patterns, and fun colors.

clumsy

An oldie for this week's Illustration Friday. I wish I had time to do a new one, but it's looking to be a busy week for me. This was a little experiment in adding some realistic objects in with some illustrated ones and it wasn't so easy, as I had envisioned it to be! That's why this was a one and only little experiment. I admire illustrators that can do this kind of thing well, like Lauren Child, but I don't think it's my forte. It fits the theme well and is kind of funny, so here it is again.

I'm working hard on getting some of the sketches from my dummy book colored in time for the SCBWI conference in April. As some of you may remember, I was recently involved in a SCBWI event called the Great Critique, where I shared my dummy book with fellow authors and illustrators. The most important message I came away with from that was to edit. Everyone felt the story was too long. So, I went back to the 'ole keyboard and cut and reworded, with the help of my friend and mentor Karen Schmidt. She gave me such great advice and encouragement to keep going.

The other thing I came away with was I needed to do some of the pages in color. None of the people that attended the critique had ever seen my work and I neglected to bring anything with me that showed my style. So, that was my fault, I'm still learning the ropes in the 'ole children's publishing world. There are a lot of rules and things to remember, it's a bit crazy sometimes.

Anyway, I won't be able to show my whole dummy book at the conference, but I am going to be able to meet with an publishing house editor or well known illustrator and show some of my finished pages.

kelly brownlee

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting face to face with a fellow illustrator, Kelly Brownlee. We "met" online through Illustration Friday and discovered we both live in Seattle, so we got together for coffee and chatted about illustration, marketing and other assorted topics. It was so nice to have this connection! Being a freelancer, working at home alone, can be a little isolating, at times.

Kelly was so nice and so generous in sharing her knowledge about the biz. Check out her work right here, it's really incredible! Yay for Kelly!

happy camper

For Illustration Friday this week, with the theme word of wilderness. "Mr. Bear, who lives in Wilderness, USA, is heading out for a camping trip." Some of you may recognize a few of these elements from stamps I designed for A Muse. Can you see the Camper, the Fishing trip truck and the Pine tree silhouette? It's really fun to take images that are just black and white outlines and bring them to life with color. I especially like the camper with it's retro shape. If I ever have a camper, I want it to be just like this one!

wink cupcakes

I had the funnest project over the holidays and they are done now and in the store, so I can share. I did these custom greeting cards for a new cupcake store here in Seattle. It's called Wink Cupcakes and they are located on upper Queen Anne Ave. It's the greatest little store, very well designed with great colors, lots of pink and brown and white. They have the most yummy cupcakes and sell ice cream and coffee, too. And, of course, cards. These cards!

I'm going to stretch this into Illustration Friday this week, too. The word of the week is confined. "Confined to just using cupcake imagery for these card designs, I managed to sneak in a bird, just for fun." I know, that's really a stretch! If I have time this week, I'll do a real one for IF, just not sure if I'll be able to fit one in. I finally got my dummy book done, of the picture book I wrote and illustrated. I'll be presenting it to a group of other illustrators and writers on Tuesday night at The Great Critique, put on by the Western Washington SCBWI. Wish me luck!

scbwi spot illo

I sent in a couple of spot illos to SCBWI's Bulletin awhile back and was happy to see that they used one of them in the Jan-Feb 2010 issue, in an article called Turn the Page. It's a small thing, but fun to see.