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Got a Twitter account? You need to upload a new header image before December 12th!
AllTwitter explained why: “Twitter started rolling out its Facebook-a-like header photos to profiles back in September, and users who haven’t yet implemented this new functionality have until tomorrow (December 12th) to upload a suitable image. Otherwise, Twitter is going to force the change upon you, and you’ll be left with a default grey box. This isn’t permanent – you can change your header photo at any time. But, as Twitter says, the grey background isn’t exactly fun.”
We’ve embedded a video above that shows you how the new profile pictures work. Below, we’ve collected a few easy steps for how to add a Twitter header photo to your account.
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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
EDIT: Hubby has figured it out and it should be centered on firefox. IE is doing weird things to my whole blog, so STOP using it! (just kidding!):p You'll notice I have a new gorgeous header. I need to thank three people for this.Senfaye for finding me the gorgeous picture!Reverie for creating the actual headerand my husband Bill for figuring it out how to make it fit nicely in the header
After all this time I've decided it's finally time for a new header. Here's a detail of the pen & ink and watercolour illustration I made, which was inspired by my post on our illustration blog for the topic "yellow". Our talented Anette has been suggesting topics each week for our little group to post about to help us keep up with the blog.
Earlier this spring I saw a shrub with black berries on it which was very picturesque and have been meaning to add it into one of my illustrations sooner or later. Berry branches are always good backgrounds for bird illustrations since they like to eat them! I would have taken a picture of the shrub but I generally don't carry my camera around.
This bird is the yellow-breasted chat, I chose it because I liked the charming name and its bright yellow breast with light grey/brown feathers on the back.
By:
Eric Orchard,
on 3/4/2008
Blog:
Eric Orchard
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Here's another old piece from art school. I don't remember what posessed me to paint a naked, pregnant tree woman. I'm going through a big reading thing right now. I'm always reading, but sometimes it's all I want to do. I go through book after book, not even finishing some. Some notable books I've gone through are Neil Gaiman's M Is For Magic, China Mieville's UnLunDun, and right now I'm reading Tim Power's The Anubis Gates. I read a great book about five or ten years ago by Tim Power's called On Stranger Tides which I enjoyed a lot. It's about zombie pirates, if I remember correctly. This one's about ancient Egypt and time travelling and were- wolfs and Lord Byron. I think Tim Powers is really under-rated. As for my drawing, I've been busy on a pirate ship that flies beneath a balloon and designing a house for a giant. In the clouds. I keep changing my mind. First it was a 16th century Spanish castle, then it looked like a Norwegian stave church and then it looked like a chalet in the swiss alps. Now I'm leaning toward something like an English country church.
This is a book cover I did earlier this year and the book is finally released. It was a great book. It's called Feather Brain and it's by Maureen Bush. It's about small dinosaurs wreaking havok in a young boys life. Really fun stuff. The cover was a bit of a challenge because I had to work around that peculiar design, with the title staright through the middle, the wanted one continuous image. I spent a lot of time just sorting that out. I painted it entirely in gouache.
By:
Eric Orchard,
on 2/26/2008
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A new painting! This is from the Hans Christian Andersen story, Thumbelina. It's more of a detail, because it's a little too big for the scanner. This painting is the first of a series I'm doing to build up my portfolio. I'll be doing seven new pieces to add to existing ones, and in the end I hope to have twelve or thirteen paintings that are a really good representation of my work. Most of the pieces will be from well known stories, like fairy tales and classic children's stories. It took a while to get to this point because I had to look at my work and decide which pieces represented me best, what level of finish I wanted. The problem with paintings like this is that they take longer to complete than some other work I do. some pictures take about four days to finish and this one took more than a week. However, I'm most comfortable with showing what I feel is my best work. I'll be taking a few days before starting the next painting, which is from Jack And The Beanstock, as I'll be working on story boards for Josephine Pebbles and doing a small commisioned piece.
Randy hates to multiply.
It's really quite simple folks. After reading several agents' and editors' blogs and websites and checking out numerous submission guidelines, this seems to be the consensus.
Fiction and Picture Books:
First page: Should include name, address, telephone # , and email address at top left corner. Start each chapter a quarter of the way or halfway down the page. Center chapter # and chapter title (if your chapters have titles).
Font: Times New Roman (very few agents and editors prefer Courier anymore)
Margins: 1" all the way around.
Spacing: Double
Header: On the top right corner of each page (excluding first page), you should have a header that includes author's last name, Book title (or important word from title), and page #.
Example: Dahl / Chocolate Factory / 2
Now start typing!
Here's a detail scan of an older painting. I really like this one but there is something a little clunky about the tiger and I was thinking about re-doing it. I've never re-done a painting and it might be interesting to revisit an old idea.
I did this one during art school. I could never settle on anything when I was in school, I was always in state of change in my art work, constantly between styles and medium. I was never commited to a particular project for long. This is still a problem for me. I was just complaining to Frank Gardner that I often feel in a state of indecision, I want to be working on one thing but I get distracted by other offers and ideas. Should I get an agent? Should I use less gouache and more water colour? Or should I just switch to pencil as a primary medium? Should I be building up my portfolio or working on a new book? For me the problem is with priorities and sticking with a decision once I've made it.
Her's a detail from "She Put Away The Egg...." The initial post was pretty fuzzy.
A little while ago, there was a discussion here about being original and whether it's important or not. I've always been suspicious of the motivation toward originality. I've often understood the idea of originality to be opposed to the idea of tradition. I really like the idea of tradition. But I now concede the importance of originality. It's what I look for in work and it inspires me. I also don't think it's at all difficult to reconcile originality and tradition. The other day I read this quote by Maurice Sendak " Originality of vision is paramount. Someone says something commonplace in a very original way..." I like this idea of originality and Sendak most certainly comes from a tradition of illustrators. So I feel a bit of freedom now to persue an original vision, to see things in a new and fresh way but also feel connected to the past.
I got the sad news today that the Book Room, Canada's oldest book store is closing down. It's a pretty short walk from my house. Here's what the CBC web site said about it :
"The Book Room on Barrington Street in Halifax opened for business in 1839 and survived two World Wars and the Great Depression, store president Charles Burchell said in a release.
But the retail store couldn't outlast big box bookstores, Burchell said, nor the ease of ordering books online, competition from book selling pharmacies and grocery stores or the pressure to lower prices to reflect a stronger Canadian dollar." Yikes!
The Raincoast contract was lost because of the high dollar as well. When the Canadian dollar's value rose to that of the U.S. dollar people started demanding that books match the U.S. price on the books which is always a few dollars more. These people didn't take into account that it costs more to sell books in Canada because we have one tenth the population of the U.S. as well there is shipping and other costs. Anyway, Raincoast drastically reduced it's prices and that made the domestic publishing wing of the company unprofitable so they cut it.
Anyway, these things have made me more aware of how the big wide world affects me. I don't despair because of these things, I'm excited as ever about books. Does anyone have any thoughts?
Here's a piece I posted a few months ago but I wanted to post it again. I really like it. Not a whole lot to report. The agent search continues. I'm working on a new water colour for my portfolio, it's from the Grimm story Fitcher's Bird. I realized I need more kids in my portfolio. It's rainy and slippery here. I think that covers it.
Here's another spot illustration. It's done in gouache but I tried to retain the line more, I did this by building up thinner layers of gouache. Here's an interesting quote from Lisbeth Zwerger " I think pictures should be mysterious, because it makes you want to look at them again and again, to solve the riddle." ( from American Artist Watercolor magazine, Fall 2005)
This is a spot illustration for an up coming book. Well, yesterday I took the plunge and contacted a handful of agencies. I'll tell you all how it goes. I'm really blown away by the generosity of all the artists who gave their thoughts on this subject. Thank you so much for taking the time for sharing your experiences. I especially want to thank- Susan Mitchell, Gretel Parker, Phyllis Harris, Tara Chang, Jennifer Thermes, Alicia Padron and Ambera Wellmann. I'm extremely grateful that I can ask such an amazing group of artists questions like this. If any one wants some great information on agencies check out the comments on my last post( A map found in the basement ) .
This is an illustration from my first book, A Forest For Christmas. One reviewer really liked it and it was a bit of an afterthought painting. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out though. Here's a question for illustrators, it stems from a discussion with Viviane Schwarz, do you send a portfolio to publishers by mail or do you make an appointment and meet the art editor, or both?
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Here's an example of my process. This is generally how I work but I experiment all the time and am always discovering new things. The text in this part is about a very young pirate giving pirate rides to other kids. I decided to do a line up shot with a few kids. So I started with with pencil sketches in my sketch book(1.) , going back and forth between the composition and the details. This book only had a few characters in it so this was an opportunity to have some more.
When I more or less have things worked out in my sketch book I move on to the rough pencil drawing(2.) I use a fairly inexpensive drawing paper, like one of the lower end Fabriano papers.This is when I start using reference and the picture starts to take shape. I try to figure out the basic composition, the lines and the tones of the picture. Although my roughs are pretty finished, nothing is set in stone yet.
Then I transfer the rough on to tracing paper(3.) At this point I'm still working on the drawing and adding and subtracting things. I keep switching tracing brands because I'm still looking for the best kind. This one was probably done on Canson 25 lb.
I transfer the drawing to a good water colour paper. My favorite is Arches 300 lb. hot pressed paper. I love this paper but it's fairly expensive. I rework the pencil drawing again on the Arches and then I ink it(4.). For inking I use Fw sepia acrylic artist's ink by Daler Rowney. This ink will disappear easily beneath gouache with no ghost lines peering through.
After the ink has dried I start a water colour under painting (5.) This may seem like an unnecessary step but I find it makes my final pictures better, I work things out in water colour, like tone and where the shadows will go. In this one the under painting had some colour but now I prefer a more monochromatic under painting which will match the temperature of the final.
And finally I add the gouache(6.) I tend to work in one area at a time, as it's already blocked in with water colour.
When the gouache is done I'll go back and re ink some lines. I find my lines are disappearing more and more and I'd love to retain them.
And the final painting(7.)
I hope this helps someone out there who is experimenting with their own process. If you have any questions or complaints just leave a comment or email me.
This one's called Strange Familiar or The View Out My Window. I wanted to do a painting so I looked out my window. Most witches end up with a black cat for a familiar this unlucky witch ended up with a flamingo, however they both seem fairly happy about this arrangement. I did this painting to contrast with the Peggy's Cove painting. While Peggy's Cove was all planned out and I knew more or less how it would look Strange Familiar came from a looser sketch, with much information left out and much was invented while I did the painting. I'd love to know everyone's opinion on these two approaches.
This piece I did for myself over the Holidays. I'm not sure what it's about but it suggests to me the mystery of staring off into the Atlantic on a dark snowy night and you see glints of light or a suggestion of movement. I've posted both the original sketch and the finished painting because I'm interested in the relationship between the sketch and the finished piece. What should be left out of the sketch? What should be invented in the final painting? This is an example of a heavily worked sketch, I spent a few days on the sketch. Tomorrow I'll post a painting with a more minimal sketch to show the contrast.
I recently had the pleasure of getting to hang out with one of my favorite Canadian illustrators, Wallace Edwards. A group of Children's book people in Halifax all met at a
restaurant to celebrate Mr. Edwards tour of the province. It was a blast, Mr. Edwards is the nicest guy
and an astounding artist. He works in the same medium I do gouache, but somehow produces these complex masterpieces. His books are brilliant and funny. I recommend checking his stuff out as soon as possible.
Well, here is a little sketch painting to kick of the new year. Thanks to everybody who stops by here. Hope you all have a great year.
Here's another picture from the pirate book. I was very happy they didn't make her wear a T-shirt, somehow it seemed undignified for a mermaid. I bought three new books last night, all of which I'm really excited about : The Arrival by Shaun Tan, The Widow's Broom by Chris Van Allsberg and The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo, which I haven't read yet but I've loved every book by Kate DiCamillo so far. The Arrival is amazing, I'm surprised that a book without words can be so moving. I thought The Widow's Broom was really wonderful and haunting.
So I've made the promise to myself to recommit to drawing. I found this line from Uri Schulevitz's book Writing With Pictures really inspiring : '' You should practice drawing constantly, until it feels as natural and unselfconscious as your handwriting. When you reach that stage, ideas will begin to flow more freely. ''
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It looks really nice ^^ I think a floral skin will march it more.
It looks really classic! Just a question: it appears to be at the left side on my blog. Is that how it's supposed to look?
I like it, too! It's centered on my screen - I'm using Firefox on a Macbook.
Both headers are very nice!
Prettyy. But I agree with Thao: it doesn't quite match (clashes a little, actually) with the rest of your layout. Perhaps a new layout, new colors?<br /><br />But wow, you're lucky to have such kind and talented friends!!
Very nice. :)<br /><br />M
took to long to get it just right, i love it, it's staying:)
looks great! It was a weird size before for me, but now it's perfect :)
a yellow background would look really cute with it I think.. just saying :)
I love it! Vania told me she had finished it earlier; just now got a chance to stop by and see it.
Love the new header Laura!! :)
Thank you so much! My husband really was the one who managed to get it into the header just perfectly. Reverie created it, Senfaye found that absolutely gorgeous picture and hubby did some tweaking.<br /><br />I showered:)
LOOKS MUCH BETTER!!!! :D
Both headers are great. I wish I was that creative.
You got two awards! Go check out my blog! http://amazeofbooks.blogspot.com/
I love the header!
Love the header!