Some more work on her. Slowly but surely, she is starting to come together…

Got inspired to do some Disney related art.  Here is a piece of a Belle picture I’m working on.

I took a little day trip to the nearby Santa Ana Zoo. I took the camera with me in case I wanted to snap any picture of the “wildlife” while I was there. It is a pretty small zoo, and a lot of the exhibits were empty, but I still enjoyed the chance to get out and do something. The Colors of the Amazon bird habitat was very pleasant to sit in, even though I could still hear the sounds of the nearby I5 zooming by.

I’m currently going through the book, “The Artists Way” by Julia Cameron. Cameron as spent years teaching people how to regain their creativity–blocked artist and writers, and people who have never considered themselves “creative.”  I’ve been feeling a little block myself lately, and this book really called to me.  It takes you through a process, week by week, to help you rediscover your creative spirit, and how to nurish it and sustain it.  One of the weekly things you must do are “artist dates”, where you take your artist out, to do something she wants to do. And it doesn’t have to be anything proper,  like going to an art museum, just something that your inner artist would find fun and entertaining.

Hence our trip to the Santa Ana Zoo. I’ve been having a hard time figuring out what my little inner artist wants. Or rather, we’re having a hard time finding  the things she wants within driving distance.  She wants to play in a secluded stream in the woods where no one else can find her. Hmm. Or in a deserted beach where she can find driftwood and shells. Hmm.  Or a trip down the Amazon. Sigh. Well, finding a lonely beach in Orange County is a challenge, as is the woods.   But she likes animals too, and the zoo has rainforest like settings, so yay! Inner finger painter satisfied. Of course, while there, she decided that we should sign up to volunteer for the zoo to do face painting and such when they have specail events.  I kinda like her idea, so we might go along with it.

I think there will be something on her hand…

I’m not sure why she is scared. She just ended up that way. Must have been the sight of me holding a paint brush veeeery close to her eyes. One sympathizes.

I was listening to the audio book of the biography of Marie Anttonette while making her, so she ended up a little princess.

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Well, 2008 is (well) over.  I have to say, that it is a bit of a relief to be done with it.

This year has been a rough year, if the lack of blog post is any indication.  Every member of my family has ended up in the hospital or Emergency room this year, including myself, many of those trips resulting in surgery.  Galblader surgeries, broken arms, blood clots, infections, knee surgeries…we had quite the banquet of aliments and surprises.  And of course, all the economic problems as well.  I left my full time job in July to begin freelancing full time.  And then my husband’s company laid of this department.  Thankfully, we had beefed up savings in case of a rainy day such as this, but as the job market got worse and worse, it has gotten harder and harder to pay the bills.  To help make ends meet, I picked up two part time jobs.

I was very busy leading up to Christmas, working 7 days a week between my two jobs, and trying to finish up the illustrations for two different children’s books.  I didn’t get tome completed as I wanted, but was able to escape for the holidays to Colorado Springs. Which was complete HEAVEN.

Now January is almost here, and I’ve been struggling to get back into the swing of things.  I have completely exguasted my creative energy, and had no time or way to replenish it.  I guess you could say my inner 4 year old finally threw herself on the floor and refused to do any more work. Period. Nope. Not gunna do it.

So, we read some books. And some more books. And soaked in the tub with our books until our toes got wrinkly beyond recogintion. She was willing to work with me enough to finish up one of the book projects.  (Preview of that coming up later.)

So we say a (not so) fond farewell to 2008, and look to a better 2009!

…finally. Started her back in August, but she is finally finished, clothing and all.  Her costume was inspired by many paintings by William-Adolphe Bouguereau.  I think I will be relying on his work for inspiration for the next doll as well.

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Its time for another mailing, but I don’t really have another picture ready for a postcard.  This is a picture I’ve been working on, a Cinderalla image, but I don’t like it very much yet, and I’m not sure if it is right….

Its been a while since I’ve posted, so I thought I’d offer you a cute bunny.  Just a quick doodle in ArtRage.

Some more progress. She is painted, and not just ready for her costume and hair and wings. I did not solve the moonie problem, but I am content to leave her the way she is, she is still beautiful.

You have to watch this adorable animation by a group of Gobelins animation students!

Here is the completed version of Snow White. Like I posted earlier, I finished it the night before the conference, just in time to get it into my portfolio for the view. I thought I would post some of the observations that Laurent Linn made about my portfolio:

First the areas for improvement:

• I need to work on making the character’s emotions very clear. Children don’t know how to respond to a picture unless it is very clear how the character is responding
• I need to capture moments, not paint portraits of characters “doing” things
• I need to keep working on the details, like clothing, personalities, hairstyles, etc
• I need to work on the stiffness of characters, make them more dynamic
• Work on getting viewers to ask “what comes next?” get them to turn the page

And the things I’m doing well:

• Everything was “beautifully rendered”
• The paintings were composed very well
• He really like snow white and told me to send him a postcard of that, which of course I will do right away!

Yesterday was my first day “back” after the summer conference up in LA. I have to say, I am totally amazed with how much priceless information I took in over four days. I have 21 pages filled with notes, because I know I will forget so much, and have to go back and remind myself. But it was completely worth the money to go.

I think this conference was perfect for me. I have done a lot of research and reading about the process and business of publishing children’s books, but there are somethings that you may not learn about until you are actually doing it. I loved Adam Rex’s session on picture book layout “32 Pages of Awesome.” He passed out a sheet with a bunch of terms defined, half of which I knew already, and half I had never heard before. What the heck was a colophon? (Its the publishers logo on the spine of a book.)

My portfolio review was wonderful. I had the honor of sitting down with Laurent Linn who is the an art direct with Simon and Schuster. He gave me great encouragement and pointed out the areas I can improve on. He liked my latest painting of Snow White the best, which I had finished Thursday night before the convention. I also got very good responses during the portfolio show. I ran out of postcards very quick, and had to break out my backup stash.

Here are some of the nuggets of truth I gleaned over the weekend:

• Just do it. Give yourself to write/draw crap, at least you are doing it.
• Everyone starts as a beginner
• Everyone has self-doubt
• The time to write your first book might be NOW
• Don’t wait to be discovered, take an active role in your own career
• If you CAN write as well as illustrate, do both. Its easier to find you on the bookself

And my favorite piece of wisdom from Adam Rex: ” You don’t always have to shoot for the stars. They wouldn’t call it bottom feeding if there wasn’t food down there.” Well, technically my favorite quote of the whole weekend was from Cecilla Young, imparted late one evening during the illustrators’ social …but she said she would kill anyone who blogged about it. And I believe it would be wise to take her at her word.

And here is my poor attempt to capture some of the speakers in my sketchbook:

I have decided to put everything in one place. So i'm moving my blog over to my website. Those of you who are subscribe via a reader, the feed should be the same. But for those who visit the old fashion way via link, please update your links: http://stringfellowart.net/wordpress/

The feed for this blog is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Insanity101

I have complete the website switch.  I finally decided to make my life easier, and switch everything over to WordPress for managment. I just get tired some days of make pages and updating my portfolio. Now WordPress will do all this for me. Yay!  Someone please comment and let me know that you found everything okay. Pleeeeaase?

I have decided to put everything in one place. So i’m moving my blog over to my website. Those of you who are subscribe via a reader, the feed should be the same. But for those who visit the old fashion way via link, please update your links: http://stringfellowart.net/wordpress/

The feed for this blog is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Insanity101

Dan Don Santos was one of the awesome artist I got to see at Comic Con this weekend. His work always takes my breath away, and seeing some of it in person was incredible. This is a trailer from Massive Black for the upcoming DVD on painting book covers. You know what is on my wish list.

Dan Don Santos was one of the awesome artist I got to see at Comic Con this weekend. His work always takes my breath away, and seeing some of it in person was incredible. This is a trailer from Massive Black for the upcoming DVD on painting book covers. You know what is on my wish list.

The seven dwarfs are going to be challenging, but fun. I just hope I can get it done in time.

Well, my grand plans to start this, my first day of full time freelancing with a productive bang have utterly failed. I woke up this morning with a burning throat, and feeling like some one had been beating me up with a baseball bat. The sore throat started yesterday, but has come into full swing today. And all that walking around the Convention Center yesterday didn't help. So I have spent most of the day in bed watching a Stargate marathon while sucking down copious amounts of water (that seem to do little good except sending me to the bathroom every half hour).

I have drug myself out of bed to try to get a little work done this evening. And hopefully I will feel better tomorrow. I will post pictures from Comic con tomorrow!

Well, my grand plans to start this, my first day of full time freelancing with a productive bang have utterly failed. I woke up this morning with a burning throat, and feeling like some one had been beating me up with a baseball bat. The sore throat started yesterday, but has come into full swing today. And all that walking around the Convention Center yesterday didn’t help. So I have spent most of the day in bed watching a Stargate marathon while sucking down copious amounts of water (that seem to do little good except sending me to the bathroom every half hour).

I have drug myself out of bed to try to get a little work done this evening. And hopefully I will feel better tomorrow. I will post pictures from Comic con tomorrow!

Here were are, geekin' out at Comic Con. What to do next.....