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Well, I don't have a page o' sketches for you, but here's one of a pegasus that turned out cool. I'm still keeping my mythological creature theme.
Also, I thought I might offer up some art book recommendations from time to time. I have, um... a lot of art books. I've purchased many of them over time. Some have been given to me by people that know me pretty well:) Many have been given to me by my artist mom, and the two that I'm going to mention came as cool gifts from her (thanks, Mom!)
So, here are two that I often reference when I'm drawing horses, so I'm recommending:
-Draw Horses With Sam Savitt
-The Allen Book of Painting & Drawing Horses by Jennifer Bell
You should be able to find used copies online. Super handy!
Okay, so this week I've been continuing sketches from creatures I did last week. Here are some more I worked up for Centaurs. I focused on doing some lady Centaur drawings, since you don't often see female Centaurs. I pulled out a bunch of my old horse drawings and my horse reference books. I love drawing horses, but haven't done much in a while. It felt good to get the feel for them again.
I'm still focusing on the characters, rather than the backgrounds at this point. I'm still working out story ideas for what could be going on in these pictures.
I'm still taking suggestions for what other creatures I should draw next too! :) Oh, and any story ideas for what could be going on. I got some good tips last week-- thanks to my facebook commenters!
Hello all,
So this week I've been working on sketches for a series of fantasy/mythological creature illustrations. Here's a page of some of the sketches:
I'm planning to whittle them down to my favorite one for each type of creature, and then turn that into a painting.
I'd love some reader input though... what is your favorite fantasy creature? (if you don't have a favorite fantasy creature, when did the child inside of you die? :) Just kiddin'! ) What do you think is a must have in a series of fantasy creature pictures?
Mine is probably a good ol' dragon! I've done a couple of dragon paintings before, and I'll definitely be doing a new one for this series.
Another question is, what should be happening in that scene with the creature of your choice?
Hope you are staying cool wherever you are. Wow, is L.A. hot right now!
Cara
So I'm trying this new thing of posting something new every week. Sunday is supposed to be "new post" day, so I'm a teensy bit late.
A few changes have been going on. You may notice if you have sharp eyes/sharp memory that I have changed my banner phrase. It used to say "Thoughts and updates about my journey as a children's book illustrator" and now it say "Thoughts and updates about my journey as a fantasy illustrator" Over the summer I decided to make a few shifts with my art goals. I've been pursuing the children's illustration thing for a long time. But I've come to think that I would feel more comfortable switching my focus to the older age crowd. There actually is a fair amount of crossover between the two, but there is a difference. I've felt this change brewing for me for a long time.
At this time I'm working on creating some new work that fits this new focus a bit better. I'm looking into Wizards of the Coast-type stuff, games, comics, etc. We'll see where this goes, but I'm excited!
Here's a fun picture that I don't think I've posted before. The above paper is one of those worksheets that you fill in when you are little that asks about what you want to be when you grow up. I'm not sure what age I was when I filled this one out -- 2nd or 3rd grade? My mom dug it up some years ago and I actually hung it on the wall at my graduate illustration show for fun. It hangs on my studio wall now.
It's a little hard to make out, but if you look closely you see that I talk about wanting to be an artist when I grow up. The best part is where I answer "Why do you want to be that?" and one of my answers is because "I'm good at it." Wow, I envy the confidence my littler self had!
I was actually really surprised when my mom showed this to me. I didn't remember writing that at all when I was little. I remember being kind of a reluctant artist really. I certainly always drew, because my mom and sister did so I was always around it. But I didn't really get into it until college. Going into college, my memory is that I majored in art (as well as Criminal Justice of all things) almost by default because I didn't know what I wanted to do.
Growing up, I think I saw my older sister Christa as so much more of an artist than I was. She seemed so much more gifted than I was. On top of that, I was a serious tomboy and pretty much wanted to be outside playing sports of any kind rather than inside drawing. Funnily enough, my mom used to set a kitchen timer to get me to draw (draw for 30 min., etc. and then you can go outside and play). Her trick worked! Now I love to draw:)
Anyway, it's funny now to look back and see the path I've taken to art.
So I'm back from the SCBWI Summer Conference in LA. Above you see the name placard from my spot in the Portfolio Showcase. So, how was it? Um... overwhelming, inspiring, intimidating, fun, informative,... Yeah, lots of things. A bunch of my illustrator friends were there and it was nice hanging with them. The workshops and speakers were generally inspiring. There's always a fair amount of repeat information, but there's always some new stuff too. I think my portfolio looked good out there, but I didn't get any solid bites from any editors or art directors (unless I get contacted later, which could happen).
I guess one of the things I came away with was a resolution to try again to broaden my horizons somewhat with my art. Several people mentioned to me that they thought I might be a good fit for the adult-aged fantasy market. Comic-Con would be a good place to explore those options again, though this year's event just passed unfortunately. I've been to Comic-Con a couple of times before, but felt kind of overwhelmed and wasn't necessarily sure how I fit in. I think I'm ready to give that fantasy market another look though.
I think before I start creating some new work, I might spend some time just reading current fantasy to familiarize myself with what's out there. I tend toward classic fantasy & sci fi, so I'm not that up to date on what's in the market these days. Anyone have any tips for me?
This is a pen & ink drawing I did the other day as a storybook map for Jack & the Beanstalk. As a kid, I always loved maps included in books. I think I may go ahead and color this one as well, perhaps with digital watercolor.
In other news, I'm gearing up for the big
SCBWI Summer Conference in LA next weekend. I'm excited about my portfolio and the conference is always really inspiring and fun. There's always the hope too that I will make some good business connections and maybe even get "discovered" and hit the big time! :)
For the conference this year, other members of my monthly illustrators critique group, the "OC Illustrators", will be there as well. We're going to wear these fun little buttons with our group's name on it, to advertise ourselves. Go OC Illustrators!
Here is a piece I recently finished that I had been working on for a while. I really enjoy creating Celtic knotwork designs, but haven't done much in a while as I've been concentrating more on my straight up illustrations. I got an itch to get one going though this spring. I didn't know if it would really turn into anything but I'm really happy with how it came out. I'm going to use it as the new front page piece for my illustration portfolio.
For anyone interested, the actual size of this artwork is 5 1/2" x 7". I drew this by hand by first marking out measurements using rulers, compass, etc. I then divide up the larger pieces into more manageable shape sizes. I figure out the patterns I'm going to use and I draw them using a mechanical pencil that I periodically sharpen to a point by rubbing it on a scrap page of paper. I also use bits of tracing paper and graphite transfer the basic shape of repeating sections. The whole process is rather meditative but very enjoyable for me. Kind of like putting together a puzzle, if you enjoy that sort of thing.
This piece got kind of smudgy as I worked on it, so I also had to spend quite a bit of time doing clean-up on it in Photoshop. Oh, and I did the tree on a separate piece of paper and placed it in the center in Photoshop as well.
Here is the digital painting version of the drawing I posted a couple of months ago. I had a lot of fun painting this one. It was fun to do something that had a border again too. A while back I used to use a lot of borders with my illustrations, but I had gotten away from that for a while.
And speaking of stuff I haven't done in a while, I also have a very intricate Celtic page design I'm working on. I have a number of Celtic & Norse designs on my website, but it's not something I have done much of in a while, though I really enjoy it. Anyway, the one I'm working on is pretty much the most intricate one I've ever done. I look forward to finishing it so I can post it.
In other news, teaching is finishing up (yes!) so I'm looking forward to having more time to focus on my artwork. Though I do teach a couple of summer classes as well... Not as rigorous as the regular school year though. I'll be preparing my portfolio for the SCBWI Summer Conference in LA in August. Big opportunity to show my portfolio and seek new work.
Cheers!
So I teach a figure drawing class at Orange County High School of the Arts and often we use students as models. This is a drawing I did during class of a student of mine from one of my other classes. She was a great model! I LOVE getting a chance myself to draw during figure class. Sometimes it's hard to wrest myself away when I'm really enjoying a drawing I'm working on :). This drawing was done with black and white charcoal.
I had never done scratchboard before, but last semester my director suggested we do some in one of the art classes I teach. Scratchboard is really cool! This is one I did recently. I like how the hatching gives it kind of an 19th century engraving look.
Teaching is good for keeping you on your toes and trying new things:)
Did this other spot illustration drawing recently and enjoyed how it came out. Right now I've been working on a digital painting of a dragon. Sigh. Me and my dragons:) It's in the ugly middle stage right now, but I think it'll work out.
So here's one of the sketches I did a little while ago to build my portfolio of black & white line art/spot illustrations. Any excuse to draw gnarled trees:)
Well, another long silence, but I've been working on some new stuff that I'm very excited about. I finished work on the assignment I was doing for a small publishing company and I'm very happy with how it turned out. And they like it too--even better! The project was a version of Jason & the Golden Fleece from Greek mythology. I did a series of 8 black & white drawings for the story. I'm also supposed to be doing a color cover for it, but right now that's on hold (they have a blk&wht cover made up for now from one of the drawings). Above you'll see one of the drawings. It was fun and I'm hopeful that it will lead to more work both with this company and beyond that to others.
Cara :)
Argh, it's been far too long since I put up a new blog post. Since my last post--which was after the summer SCBWI conference in LA, I've had a few things going. First, I've been working on some line drawing art. I'm trying to get a black & white line drawing portfolio going. I've had it in the back of my mind for a long time, but I'm taking some action on that. I'll try to put up something soon. Secondly, I've been producing some beginning stage work for a small publishing project that came out of the summer conference--Woo Hoo! I don't want to say too much about it since it's still in early stages but I'm very excited about it. It has to do with mythology which I love!
Besides that, I'm teaching my usual art classes at OC High School of the Arts. It's great and I feel privileged to be there, but I was really ready for the holiday break. I had a very nice Christmas--stayed here instead of flying back to see family in NY--and had a good time with friends here. I'm planning on visiting NY in the summer instead since that is the time of year I love the most back east.
Hope everyone has a great New Year's!
Well, I'm back now from the SCBWI Summer Conference... it ended yesterday. I thought I would write some of the thoughts and information I took away from it.
First of all, it was a really fun experience. There's nothing like being surrounded with about 1,000 people who are excited about the same thing you are--creating words and art for children & young adults. It makes you feel so empowered, like you have all these people behind you. You're not alone in what you're trying to do. And the speakers are one inspiration after another. A good place to see some photos and commentary of the conference can be found at the summer conference blog
here.
Here's some of what I listened to:
-Stephen Malk (agent) talk on "How To Build Your Illustration Career", which included practical advice like subscribing to the Horn Book Magazine on publishing, finding a career model to look at, different ways of getting my work out there using the web, etc.
-Editors Panel that talked about the changing market and current success stories
-Elizabeth Parisi (Exec. Art Director for Scholastic) talk on Book Covers, which talked about how book covers have become more simple and iconic. Also talked about how most middle grade covers are illustrated, but Young Adult tend to be photo.
-Karen Cushman (author) talk about her way of creating. Some good advice like instead of the old "write what you know", write what you wonder about.
-Krista Marino & Anica Rissi (editors) talk about what's successful in the teen market right now and how the business has changed in the teen realm.
-Holly Black (author, Spiderwick Chronicles) talk about creating good stories
-Alice Pope (editor) talk about practical online promotion: blogging, Facebook, etc.
-Richard Peck (author) talk about why we do what we do.
-Marla Frazee (illustrator,author) talk about creating pictures from an author's words.
-Susan Sherman (art director) talk about looking at great master's art of the past to inform our present work.
-Karen Cushman (author) talk about researching for historical stories.
-Kathleen Duey (author) talk about how to use what we've learned at the Conference after we leave.
As you can see, quite a lot on information. I also participated in the Portfolio Showcase. It was a great opportunity to get my work seen be lots of people, including editors and art directors. I hope to see some good things come out of it and I had a couple of good conversations with people about my art.
I also had a really good time over the whole conference in being there with some of the members of my monthly illustrators' group, OC Illustrators. In fact, our little group is gaining more recognition. Last year's winner of Best Portfolio in the showcase was one of our members,
Pat Cantor! Well, this year's winner was our very own
Israel Sanchez! Israel and I were both at CSUF together and his work is so good though very different from mine. Congratulations, Israel!! He will be flown out as Pat was to NY to meet with art directors and I expect big things to come of it. I'm definitely in the right illustration critique group!
Well, that's the wrap up. Time for me to try to process some of what I learned and get some stuff done.
Well, I'm finally managing to post a new blog. I've just been really busy with a lot of new work--yay!--and haven't had much time for anything else except sleep and work. I'm teaching a summer art class for kids every morning and afternoon during the week at OCHSA that lasts for 6 weeks. Next week is the last week...goes by so fast! It's been really fun actually and the kids have been great. They have a bunch of classes the kids can choose from and I'm teaching beginning drawing & painting. After classes though I've been beating it home to work on my illustration portfolio. I'm going to the annual SCBWI Conference in LA and I want to dazzle! I went to the conference last year (I also went a couple of years before that for the first time) and came away resolved to refocus my work and push myself to the next level. My porfolio this year is all new work and I'm pretty excited about it. The conference is right around the corner now--it's August 7-10--so I'm hurrying to prepare the best I can. The task that remains at this point is updating my website with my new work. I'll be getting that done in the next couple of weeks. Wish me luck!
P.S. Here are a couple of the new pieces that I've done lately--they were both painted digitally.
Hi Everyone,
I'm very sorry I have put any new posts up in a while. I have been doing some new artwork. However, for this post I just wanted to tell about a really cool artist I was able to see present his work today. The artist's name is Bernie Wrightson and I've been a fan of his work for a long time. He is most known for his gorgeous pen & ink renderings for an illustrated version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, as well as for the comic book series Swamp Thing. Attached here is one of the Frankenstein illustrations.
The talk Mr. Wrightson gave was up at Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra. This is actually the second time I've been able to see him present his work since he presented a few years back at Cal State Fullerton. I've been a fan of his work though since my freshman year studying art in Indiana back in '94 when my drawing & illustration professor used to project slides of his work to illustrate principles of composition and values. Because of that, it's really pretty cool for me to get to see this man in person whose work I admired so much in my classes. He's very humble and personable and it was quite informative hearing him talk about his process and how these iconic pictures came about. I definitely left inspired!
Getting the chance to feed my artist's brain with such great visuals once again is so necessary as I keep plugging along trying to get better on my own stuff. Great art cannot happen in a vacuum.
Keep finding inspiration to feed your life.
Here is the acrylic painting of the rough comp I did a little while ago. I'm not sure what to call it, so for now I'm calling it "Mist Rider." I plan to go back and work a little more on it later on, but for now I'm setting it aside. I think I want to go back and make the sky a bit more dramatic, as well as to resolve the horse more. I'm pretty happy with it though. I think the mist really added to it, after not having it in the rough comp.
Cara
Here's a rough comp version of a dragon painting I'm working on as another cover illustration. For this one I had a sketch I was pretty happy with, then I made a little clay model of the dragon so I could light it. I then painted it in Photoshop. I'm working on the acrylic painting of it now, which is almost finished.
Here's a rough comp done in Photoshop of a new piece I'm working on. I'm actually working on the acrylic painting right now. Once again, it's a cover picture but not for any particular story. She's some sort of Celtic-ish warrior woman I think. I haven't done many horse pictures before, and I haven't done too many action pictures either so I thought I would try that. I like horses in fantasy and mythology so I hope to put more in pictures in future.
Speaking of horses, I was back in Upstate NY visiting my family over Christmas and I was able to do a little riding. My cousin Sarah operates a horse stable and riding arena (handy!) so while I was there I got a chance to take one of her horses out for a spin. I rode for quite a few years when I was younger. I used to compete in English style and do some jumping. But that was many years ago now. I was so rusty and those muscles you need were really not there anymore. I definitely enjoyed it--I was riding a beautiful and big horse named Paris--but I was very saddlesore for the next few days!
OK, so my two favorite subjects to draw are people and TREES! I love their sculptural organic shapes...the trees I mean. Well, people too, I guess:)
Here's a tree drawing I did the other night when I was killing some time--I teach a night art class at Golden West College and I was waiting for the last student to finish his final project so I could go home. It turned out to be cool getting to really spend some time on this drawing.
I haven't posted anything in a while though I have been alive and drawing! Here is a sketch of a dragon done recently that I'd like to turn into a cover painting. I like it and think maybe I'll do more dragons:) I'm also working on a cover showing a horse and rider, but I'm struggling a bit on that one still. I hope to have something to post for that soon.
Over last weekend I was able to get this one done:) Once the face finally started working for me, it all finished up fine. Not sure what to call it since it's not from a real story. I'd love any suggestions. This one is horizontal so it could be a wraparound cover (did I already explain that?) Now I'm looking forward to getting going on the next one. It's only in the thumbnailing stage right now though.
In other news, I'm looking forward to attending Illustrator's Day coming up in November. It's an SCBWI annual event for SoCal. They always get some great speakers and I can get my portfolio reviewed by an industry professional--intimidating but exciting:) I just wish my portfolio was a little more consistent, but I'm in this in-between stage while I'm creating this new series of covers. I'm really working hard to let it "flow" on these covers I'm creating this year (I think that's oxymoronic somehow :). Anyway, I tend to get overly self-critical when I work on my art and sometimes forget to ENJOY myself in this creative process. It really works better when I can manage to find that "zone" where I relax and just let the illustration process flow without too much constant analysis! That's the trick, isn't it :)
And here's the color rough I painted in Photoshop before I got going on the actual painting which is in acrylic and currently in progress. I'm trying to keep a moody/stormy kind of atmosphere with this one.
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Nice job Cara. Keep posting the sketches. Makes me want to draw more also.