Illustration Friday's topic this week was green, so here's another Sophia:-) I finally finished my website, YAY!! There's a few things I want to change on it still, but I like it overall. If anyone gets a chance, please check it out and tell me what you think. I'd really appreciate it! My address is www.jonistringfield.com.

Wow, I can't believe its been that long since my last post! I'm afraid I don't have too much to show for it either. I've been putting together sample booklets to send out to publishers and design companies. I'm also in the process of redoing my website. Yuch, probably my least favorite thing to do. But I guess its a necessary evil. It really needs to be updated and I wanted to add a couple more pages. So I figured since I'm doing that, I might as well just do it all over and give it a little face lift. I did do a quick painting of my logo/mascot, Sophia. If you've been to my website, you've seen her on there. She started out as just a logo and design element, but when I sent my work out, she seemed to be what the publishers liked best! So I decided to develop her into more of a character and give her some personality:-) Here is the new one which is also on the cover of the sample booklets I'm making.

And here are a couple of old ones of her.


Hopefully I will have my website up and running in a couple of weeks, with a whole new section dedicated just to her. (With the finished painting of her riding the dragon created by Piya Wannachaiwong for me. I'm sorry, Piya, that its not done yet. It will be, I promise!)

I finally finished my City Girl/Country Girl painting. This took so long for some reason! But I think it turned out well. People are having a hard time reading it though. I'm thinking about just separating it and making it into two different pictures so it makes more sense.

I had a pretty busy week and weekend, so unfortunately I didn't make the IllustrationFriday deadline. But at least I did finish the painting. Better late than never, right? When I saw the word crash, I immediately thought of a little boy. At first I was going to do a big crash scene, but than I thought of this idea and I decided to go with it. A little boy crashed out after a busy day of playing:-)

Here is my first illustration for IllustrationFriday. The word this week was sprout. I seem to be surrounded by people who are having babies lately, so when I heard sprout, a pregnant woman was the first thing to pop into my head:-) I still want to do some clean up work on it, but overall I like how it came out, I had a lot of fun doing it. If you haven't heard of IllustrationFriday, you should check it out. Its such a great website for illustrators. Its also a great way to challenge myself, since it usually takes me a couple of weeks to finish a painting. Hope you like it!

I finished the color rough for my City Girl, Country Girl illustration. I decided to go with the night scene. Some of the colors are a little more muddy than what I want the final to have, but that's why its a rough;-) Overall though, I like it and I'm excited to start the final!

Here is the start of my blogging career:-) I'm hoping to use this mostly to share my artwork with others and to also see what other artists have been up to. So I decided to take a break from my usual style of illustration and do a completely realistic and rendered portrait of the girl I used to nanny for, Sasha. I felt like I needed a break from what I was doing and also it would be good practice for me. I finally finished it today and I like how it came out. Its amazing how much you can forget when you haven't done something for awhile. I used to be able to finish portraits pretty quickly, but I struggled with this one at first, which is definitely a sign I did need the practice. Now that thats finished, I'm back to my illustrations and going to start painting a drawing I did a little while ago. I did it at first to submit to a girls magazine as a front and back cover. The theme was City Girl, Country Girl. Since that kind of describes me, I thought it would be fun to do. Unfortunately for me they chose someone else, but I still think it will be a good portfolio piece. Now I just need to decide which value rough to use!

I'm leaning towards the night scene just because I really don't have that in my portfolio and it will be a good addition.