New Thumbnail Sketches

Hope everyone is staying safe through Storm Sandy!  Here are the thumbnails are going to be submitted to publishers in the next week or so.  They're larger than the typical thumbnail sketch--about six per standard size piece of typing paper. And the drawings are tighter too (since this is going to be used in lieu of a dummy book).  Also added some color accents to show that black and red are the main two colors in the book.

Can't publish the whole manuscript of course, so the text is blurred out (sorry). :)

Thanks for visiting and stay safe!

First Page of Sophia Madeline Starlight

The Making of A Children's Book Illustration: Sophia the Pig!

Click "youtube" on the video so you can see it full size on the youtube site!  Stay safe out there through hurricane Sandy.

Fallen

Sophia in Color

Heartbreak

This is also for Illustration Friday: Sky.

Thanks for visiting my blog.

New Postcard Design

New promotional postcard!  Will be sending them out to publishers this month.

Front:

Back:

Comments--Oops!

Hi everyone, I accidentally had the settings on "only members of this blog can comment".  Oopsy daisies lol.  Anyways, sorry about that!  I'm the only member of this blog, so that certainly didn't work out well.  So, everything should be back to normal.  :D

Also, expect more posts (hopefully) in the coming weeks.  Summer was a little crazy and one of the first things to suffer is the blog.  I think I'm finally back in the saddle again.  It's so hard to start back up after some time away, isn't it?

Anyone notice that since Facebook, visiting numbers have slowly dropped over the yeras?  Kind of makes me sad that the community isn't the way it used to be.  I sometimes wonder if I should just close this one down, and make an artist page on Facebook?  Well, I wouldn't shut it totally down, I'd leave the old posts up.  I don't know--I'd probably miss it.  I'll think about it a while....

Cheers!

Thumbail Sketches

Third set of thumbnail sketches in the making. Tenth or eleventh text re-edit. Getting ever closer to a submittable manuscript/dummy for Sophia Madeline Starlight. Sorry I've been away lately. Lots going on this summer.

RIP Dear Leon

A long time ago, I posted on this blog about a new pet mouse for my studio.  Well, he lived to be the ripe old age of two (life expectancy 1.5 - 2 years).  He started with the name Alfredo, which was later changed to Leon since it seemed to fit his personality more.  My nieces always asked if he was awake when they came to visit, and loved feeding him sunflower seeds....and I always found his little nose sticking through the cage to greet me when I walked in the room.  For such a small soul, you had a big heart, Leon, and we will all miss you.

Handmade Sock Monkey

Introducing, Gabby the sock monkey!  Arms, legs and ears were machine sewn, and all parts were hand-whip-stitched on.  Fun project! 

Autograph Practice

Delivery Color

Delivery Sketch

Strike A Pose..

..there's nothing to it, VOGUE.

Delivery 2

Deilvery

Autograph Part 2

Illustration Friday: Lost

Lost in a dream.

Alligator Dancing

It's very dangerous.

Something's Fishy

Ready For Takeoff!

One Person's Trash

...is another raccoon's treasure.

Happy Sad

First Glove

Porcupine's Favorite Eats

Giraffe

Present For Sophia

More PIGGIES

Illustration Friday: Suspend

Yet Another Style

The gift

Haystack Dancing

Please Vote For Raj!

Raj the Bookstore Tiger is a finalist for the Cardoza Award!  It would be so Paw-some if you could drop by the site and vote for this brave little marmalade kitty!

Vote here!

Master Plan

Still designing some test spreads. Text is not final, it was mostly to fill in for design.

More Styles

One of the downfalls of having multiple styles--never sure which to go with!

Minimalist

I love white space, and a minimalistic feel. 

More Sophia

My main character WAS a chicken, but I love drawing pigs so much, I changed her to something a little more porcine.  Plus as a pig there are so many more opportunities for body language!

Hey, Hay Pig!

Another illustration drawn with the ink dropper.

Illustration Friday: Refresh

Make Way!

Illustration Friday: Refresh

After a refreshing nap, Sophia was up to her usual Night Owl ways.