Happiness is a new bouncy ball.

(Detail)

Display Comments Add a Comment

For those near Bradford Pennsylvania, I'll be running a children's book event at the Bradford Area Public Library on Wednesday August 8th at 11:00.  I'll be reading some of the stories that I wrote and/or illustrated, drawing and making paper puppets.  There will be a book signing afterwards.  Hope to see you there!

Add a Comment

My friend Julie is running in a 10K mud run in September and asked me to design T-shirts for their team.  But what the heck to you put on a T-shirt for "Team Muddy Underpants"?   Tightie-whities with brown stains on them probably wouldn't be prudent so this is what I eventually came up with.  By the looks of last year's run, no one will see the T-shirt designs for very long ;)

Add a Comment

Display Comments Add a Comment

Attention digital artitsts, Corel Painter Goddess, Carlyn Beccia will be hosting a webinar entitled Children's Illustration and Corel Painter on Tuesday July 17th at 12:00-1:00PM EDT.  Oh and don't forget to check out her new book, "Digital Painting for the Complete Beginner"  It has lots of good tips and techniques for both Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter.

Add a Comment

I received a copy of the Slovenian edition of Don't Panic Annika the other day. I guess we illustrators have it easy, we know how our artwork translates into foreign editions. The authors have to hope the translator got it right.

Add a Comment

My son is having a birthday soon so we made some birthday party invites using his Lego men and Photoshop.

Add a Comment

I was listening to a podcast on EscapeFromIllustrationIsland.com today with an AD at the NY Times.  I was wondering if I could draw something non-kid related.  My daughter said I have to make another, happier, version. :)

Add a Comment

My daughter got her hair cut really short today. I don't know who was more nervous at first, her or the stylist. But it turned out great.

Add a Comment

Here are some recent canine character studies.

Display Comments Add a Comment

My challenge to myself is a face a day. Today I started with a scribble...

which ended up looking sort of like Abe Vigoda...

Display Comments Add a Comment

When I was working on the illustrations for "It's Halloween Night" we were dog sitting our buddy Brody. I could resist putting the little sausage in the book.

Add a Comment

On Tuesday, I posted a new warm up exercise that I did.  I wanted to use a photo of fluffy clouds but I couldn't find one.  So I used this photo of a sandy beach. 

These are the characters that I found in the photo...


And when I rotated it, I found this guy...

 And this weird yeti alien thing...

Add a Comment

When I finish the illustrations for a book, it can be close to year before I get to see the finished product. So I was super excited when I found a box on my doorstep yesterday.

Jennifer O'Connell's story "It's Halloween Night" was really fun to illustrate. I can't wait to read it to some little ghosts and goblins this October.

Add a Comment

Everyone had so much fun with the last warmup exercise, I thought I'd post another.  For this warmup, start with this photo of the beach (click on image to enlarge).  Create characters based on the shapes you see in the photo.

I brought the image into Photoshop and traced around the shapes but do what ever works for you.  You can turn it, flip it, do what ever you want.

I'm sorry, I don't have time to create a post of everyone's creations this week.  But feel free to put a link to your site in the comments section.  I'll post my characters on Thursday.

Ready... Set...  Go!

Add a Comment

At the Icon conference last week I thought it would be fun to hand out frogs instead of business cards.  So I folded about 50 little green frogs.  I wished I would have folded more because I ran out on Friday.

They look funny before you fold them.  Sort of like froggy road kill...


 If you want to make some of your own there are directions for them here and here.  Wouldn't it be fun to make a whole bunch in two different colors and play checkers with them?

Add a Comment

I got back from Icon7 last night. It was such a great opportunity to recharge my batteries and to see other humans. I met so many great and talented folks. I hope you all keep in touch.

I was so inspired to create something that I got up extra early yesterday morning and created a special Icon7 edition Steve and Wessley comic. I inked it in this morning so you can actually read it this time. Hope you like it.

Add a Comment

I was inspired to drag my butt out of bed this morning and make a quick and dirty Icon edition of Steve and Wessley.

Add a Comment

Received some greeting card samples from Great Arrow Graphics (greatarrow.com) today. I love the velvety finish the hand silk screening gives the cards. I believe all of these cards should be available this Halloween and Christmas. I was especially pleased with how the fox in the woods turned out.

Add a Comment

Just getting chance to unpack my bags from the New England SCBWI conference this past weekend. What a great conference. The organizers did an amazing job (as usual) If you are interested in writing or illustrating for children's books and you live in New England you should really get your keister to this conference next year. Lots of good resources and lots of good inspiration. I went to a fantastic character design session with the amazingly talented Kelly Light on Saturday. I walked away with some great ideas as well as some awesome chocolate chip cookies (I hope she'll give me her recipe!) And I spent Sunday at an illustration intensive with Dan Yaccarino - how cool is that?!

Plus it's so great to see all my amazingly talented illustrator friends like Hazel Mitchell (roomie extraordinaire!), Russ Cox (winner of the poster contest times 3!), Teri Weidner, Carlyn Beccia, and Brian Lies just to name a few. And I also got to meet some new friends like Greg Matusic (somebody seriously needs to get this guy a banjo), AP Sabourin, and Misa Saburi. These are just a handful of the wonderful folks I met. There must be something in the water around here to have so much talent.

Today I'm putting all the postcards and business cards I collected over the weekend into my scrap book. It's good inspiration to look through them plus it helps me remember where I met people. Of course nothing beats the souvenir that Casey Girard came home with. I'm SO jealous that I didn't think of having everyone draw in my sketchbook.

Add a Comment

Dance rehearsal is a great place to do figure studies. It really forces you to be super fast.

Add a Comment

Millie is definitely NOT in a hurry.

Display Comments Add a Comment

I learned this exercise from a terrific workshop lead by the insanely talented Kelly Light at NE SCBWI. Not only did Kelly run a great workshop - she also baked everyone chocolate chip cookies. You gotta love this girl!

For this exercise, make a grid and draw a random shape in each box, then see if you can make characters out of each one. I thought it would be fun if two people did this together and they swapped shapes. Or if a group of people all started with the same shapes and see what different characters emerge from the same shapes. If anyone wants to do it, here's another page of shapes to start with. I'll post mine tomorrow. If anyone else wants a go at it, I can post yours too.

Display Comments Add a Comment

I sent out new postcards this week. Here's the back...

1956 is a little before my time but I do remember those purple mimeographed worksheets.

Display Comments Add a Comment

On Thursday I did a warm up exercise that I learned from Kelly Light's Character Design 101 workshop and the 2012 New England SCBWI conference. The exercise was the take a bunch of random shapes and try to form characters based on those shapes. I thought it would be fun to do the exercise again, only this time let my illustrator friends do it along with me. We have all been having so much fun with it. Thanks Kelly! If you want to try it yourself then STOP! Go back to the original post. It's more fun if you don't peek at the other solutions until you've already done the exercise yourself.

I don't know what's better, doing the exercise or seeing what everyone else did. I love seeing what other people came up with! If you happen across this post after 6/8/2012 and still want to join in, post a link to your characters below in the comments section.

Here are the shapes everyone started with...

And (drum roll please) here are the "answers"...

From Russ Cox. They are all awesome, I especially like the squeezy head guy on the bottom left.

Some fabulous characters from Laura Zarin.

Below is a submission from Tracy Bishop. Love the chef. What a clever idea!

The next one is from an up and coming artist, Robin (age 14). I'm really liking the guy in the top middle box. Can someone explain that Me Gusta face thing to me? I don't get it.

Hazel Mitchell came up with some very clever characters.

Roberta Baird not only restricted herself to only using these shapes but she also restricted her drawing time to 6 minutes. Very impressive!

5 Comments on Check out Everyone's Character Studies, last added: 6/11/2012