Seagull and Pigeon are going leaf surfing with the squirrels from the big tree!

I’ve had the idea of them leaf surfing for a while, so when I found out the topic for Illustration Friday this week was tree, it seemed like a good fit. I decided to add the squirrels, because like the pigeon and the seagull, squirrels are abundant in my neighborhood. We also have black squirrels, which I’d never seen before I moved here, so I included a couple of them in this drawing, along with a grey squirrel. I’m still drawing every day for DaDraMo (Daily Drawing Month)! If you want to join me, there’s still time. Click here for more info.

A quick follow up to Monday’s post: as you might have seen on the news, we got hit again this week with a nor’easter. Some people that just got their power back lost it again, and there are many that still don’t have power or places to live due to Hurricane Sandy. If you’re looking for ways to help, there’s a list below.

How you can help people affected by Hurricane Sandy:

American Red Cross (They list several ways to help on their site, and also how you can get help if you need it.)

The Humane Society (To help our furry friends, many who were left homeless after the storm.)

A more extensive list of how you can help, from NBC / Rock Center with Brian Williams

A list for how to help if you live in the NY area, from The Gothamist

Kidlit Cares (An auction from the children’s book community. Round two will be starting soon at this link.)

NYC Food and Water Distribution Locations (If you live in NYC and need help.)

For Occupy Sandy, there are two sets of listings below. One for New York. One for New Jersey. Both need help.

Occupy Sandy *New York* (They have a wedding registry where you can order items they need now, like cleaning supplies, blankets, and diapers, and have them shipped directly to Occupy Sandy in New York, who will distribute to the people who need them.)

Twitter: @OccupySandy

Occupy Sandy *New Jersey* (They have a wedding registry where you can order items they need now, like cleaning supplies, blankets, and diapers, and have them shipped directly to Occupy Sandy in New Jersey, who will distribute to the people who need them.)

Twitter: @OccupySandyNJ

I wasn’t going to post a DaDraMo (Daily Drawing Month) sketch today, but then I remembered it’s election day, and Seagull and Pigeon love to vote!* Seagull even put on a tie and combed his feathers.

* Seagull and Pigeon voted in the Bird Election, but they got their stickers when a couple of people dropped them (birds don’t get stickers when they vote because it’s hard to get them off of their feathers … Seagull and Pigeon like stickers anyway).

I did three quick sketches the last three days because I didn’t have a lot of time, but I also felt it was important to keep drawing every day during DaDraMo (Daily Drawing Month). Note: you can still join DaDraMo if you want! Click here for details. All of these sketches are small. The largest one is about four and a half inches wide.

A Doodle For Saturday:

Shy Pigeon and Outgoing Seagull:

Seagull and Pigeon Take Manhattan By Storm:

I can’t believe it’s been a whole week since Hurricane Sandy raged through our area. When I decided to draw every day this month, it was to get back to drawing every day, and because I was stuck at home with a lot of nervous energy and no way to physically help the people who got the worst of the storm. We were very fortunate, but many in my area were not. Things are starting to get better, but we’re not back to normal yet and won’t be for a while. The hardest hit areas will probably take years to recover. The pigeon and seagull are birds I see in my neighborhood every day. In a time where things aren’t the way they used to be, the birds are the one constant, and so they seemed like a good way for me to channel some of my frustration with the storm.

Other things I can do are donate, and help spread the word about how to help people affected by Hurricane Sandy. If you want to help and are able to help, here are some places to start:

American Red Cross (They list several ways to help on their site, and also how you can get help if you need it.)

The Humane Society (To help our furry friends, many who were left homeless after the storm.)

A more extensive list of how you can help, from NBC / Rock Center with Brian Williams

A list for how to help if you live in the NY area, from The Gothamist

Auctions from the children’s book community, with items for writers and illustrators:

Kidlit Cares

Kidlit Community Giving Back To Benefit Red Cross (Look on the sidebar for a list of auction posts in Oct. and Nov. or scroll through the blog – all posts are auction posts)

If you live in NYC and need help:

NYC Food and Water Distribution Locations

The seagull and the pigeon are back in my DaDraMo drawing today, to help me celebrate my birthday. Looks like I’d better grab a fork before they eat all the cake!

I really liked the exclamation mark accident above the pigeon’s head yesterday, so I added it to this sketch on purpose. BTW, I won’t be posting again until Monday, but I will be drawing! Have a great weekend everyone

It’s not too late to join in to DaDraMo (Daily Drawing Month)! Don’t know what I’m talking about? Click here for the details.

Every November there are monthly writing challenges, like NaNoWriMo and PiBoIdMo, which are great. I’ve participated in both before, and may do so again this year (haven’t quite made up my mind).

Every year, I wish there was an art challenge in November. This morning, I woke up with the idea that since I hadn’t found an art challenge to join, I should start one. So I did.

Introducing DaDraMo (Daily Drawing Month)!

Goal: To draw, scribble, doodle, paint, or pixel one picture a day for the month of November. It doesn’t have to be a good drawing. The point is to do it daily. The more you draw, the better you’ll get and the more fun you’ll have!

Who: Anyone! You don’t have to be an artist to participate. You can draw stick figures or doodle circles, or splash paint. Whatever works for you.

Accountability: Nobody will be checking your work, it’s on the honor system. This is a fun project, so if you want to join, go for it!

Prizes: I don’t know, maybe? I thought up this idea this morning, so I’m not sure yet. Right now it’s just for fun, but I will announce prizes if they happen.

Badge: Here’s a badge for your site or blog if you want one. Please link back to this page ( http://sruble.com/blog/?p=1158 ) if you use the badge, so that others will know what it is and can participate if they want.

I know it’s last minute, but I hope some of you will join me for the first year of DaDraMo. Leave a comment if you plan to participate. This could be fun to do with PiBoIdMo if you’re an author/illustrator, or author who wants to sketch out their ideas. I’m thinking of doing both this year. Will decide later today.

Here’s my drawing for today. It’s a pencil sketch inspired by the pigeons and seagulls I see every day, and a Norman Rockwell picture that shows him painting a self portrait (it’s always been one of my favorites of his).

I left the accidental pencil mark above the pigeon because it looks like the pigeon has an exclamation point over its head. It’s funny (to me, anyway) because I can imagine so many things the pigeon could be thinking. I’m planning to share my art throughout the month, probably a couple of times a week, unless I get really ambitious and post every day.

Let me know if you’re going to try DaDraMo. I’d love some company!

I’m going to be illustrating my firs picture book! Here are the details (from Publisher’s Lunch):

Candace Ryan’s EWE AND AYE, the story of a sheep and lemur who are empowered to great heights by their cooperation, with illustrations by Stephanie Ruble, to Kevin Lewis at Hyperion Children’s, for publication in Winter 2014, by Rubin Pfeffer of East-West Agency on behalf of author and Barry Goldblatt of Barry Goldblatt Literary on behalf of illustrator (World).

How did I get to illustrate my first picture book? Well, this news has been a long time in coming. The first time I thought about illustrating a picture book, I was in grade school! We saw a film about a man who created the art for a picture book. I don’t remember the title of the book, though I wish I did. I do remember that it was a book about ocean life. After watching the film, we had to write a poem and create art to go with it. I still have both. Here’s the picture I did (even then my characters had personalities, and I loved the crayon resist art technique):

The next time I seriously thought about illustrating picture books was in college. One of my professors (Hope Cook – Thanks Hope!) gave us an assignment to think up an idea for a children’s book and then complete a few illustrations. The only problem at the time was that I couldn’t think of any ideas for children’s books! (Note: I don’t have that problem now. In fact it’s the opposite. I have tons of ideas for children’s books, probably because I’ve been brainstorming ideas since that assignment in college!) So what did I do for my assignment? I created a series of prints based on a concert. I used The Who as my models, and made them into cows! Unfortunately, those prints are either in storage or at my parent’s house, so I can’t show them. However, I can show you a test print that I made before doing The Who prints. The plates were all two inches square and were similar to this cow here:

I was still learning how to etch the metal plates and draw the image backwards, but I like how it turned out. Several years later, I got serious about illustrating picture books. I wrote an original story and retold a few classics, all with cow characters. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, but I made a couple of book dummies and sent them to a publisher. Here’s the scary thing. There was no finished art in my dummies. It was all rough sketches filled in with colored pencil. They’re cringe worthy! The publisher was very nice and said they liked my writing. They didn’t say anything about my art. Back then I was hurt. How could they not like my art and know I was an artist? Now I understand why: I didn’t show them that I was an artist. How were they supposed to know? You want to see some of the scary art, don’t you?

One of the books I submitted was called, JANET’S SECRET ADMIRER. Here’s a spread from the book dummy:

I’ve been working on a flamingo vs. alligator image for my portfolio, and a crop from that image seemed like a perfect fit for the Illustration Friday topic, “heights,” this week. The full image has more alligators, but still only one flamingo!

The flamingo has to jump great heights to avoid being eaten by the alligator.

The frog blends in with the grass, so if he jumps low, he’ll be safe too.

This image was done in CMYK mode, where surprisingly, the colors are much brighter. It prints with nice bright colors too. Usually colors dull when I switch from RGB to CMYK, not the other way around.

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is, puzzled. You might be puzzled about my image until you learn more about the inspiration behind it (unless you area Russian avant-garde movie poster buff). The cow in the picture is puzzled as to why her hooves are in a different part of the picture and why she has two tails! She’s also a bit scared about what that means. The image itself reminds me a bit of a puzzle, in that it looks like you need to rearrange the pieces for it to make sense. Here is my puzzled moo:

This picture is a new version of an old image I did in 2004. When I heard the prompt this week was puzzled, I immediately thought of this image because it’s always reminded me of a puzzle in the way it looks and how I pieced it together the first time. The original image was done February 26, 2004, as part of a year long project. For a whole year (366 days because it was leap year), I drew/painted a cow a day. This image came towards the end of the project, when I was trying to find more creative ways to draw my daily cows. Here’s my first image:

I’ve always liked this drawing … probably because I always liked the poster that inspired it. When I was trying to think of a cow to draw that day, I remembered a movie poster by the Stenberg Brothers and decided it would look cool with a cow instead of a person. Here’s the Stenberg Brothers poster for the 1929 movie A Fragment Of An Empire:

My first image is almost a direct representation of the original, although bovine themed and with English words. The one I did today still recalls the original, but when you look at them side by side, they’re very different. The new image is closer to my style both now and when I used to be an abstract painter.

My style was, and still is, influenced by graphic images in advertising and art. In 2008 I did another series of cows that played with the idea of using a single cow and a simple palette to create multiple graphic images. They aren’t directly related to any art or artist, but the style is influenced by graphic art images. Here’s the first cow:

And here’s a sample of the cows I created off of this one image and turned into my own poster. I actually like them better all together, rather than as separate images. Still need to get this poster framed …

BTW, I first fell in love with the Stenberg Brothers when MOMA held an exhibition of their art. I w

The Illustration Friday prompt this week, vocal, and the CBIG prompt for this month, friends, worked well with an old color sketch I did of a moose and girl. I made a few changes and polished up the art, and here it is.

The girl and her moose friend love to sing and dance!

All March I’ve been creating art every week, in honor of Dr. Seuss’s birthday, and since I’ve been celebrating his birthday all month, I thought I’d make the final illustration birthday themed. I’ve also been incorporating the prompt for Illustration Friday into my art, and this week is no different. The prompt is, Return. I thought it would be fun to have the green eggs and ham returned to Sam, and exchanged for a birthday cake. This is a quick sketch so that I could get the image up while it’s still March (won’t have time to work on it tomorrow):

Needless to say, Sam is stunned at the turn of events. Here’s a close-up so you can see Sam:

I also did this image for my friend Jen, who has a  birthday today, and would probably rather have cake than green eggs and ham! It was fun to start the month with Dr. Seuss’s birthday and end the month with my friend’s birthday. Happy Birthday Jen!

p.s. If you want to see the other Dr. Seuss art from this month, here are some links:

The Cat in the Hat, and His Brother

Oh, The Places You’ll Fish!

Horton Hears A Who, and a What, Where, Why, When, and How!

Sue Sews Six Thousand Socks

All this month I’ve been paying tribute to Dr. Seuss by creating a Seuss themed image combined with the Illustration Friday prompt. For the previous weeks, I tried to incorporate Seuss’s style into my art.

This week, however, I’ve moved away from his art to show my style.

The prompt for Illustration Friday this week is Swamp. I combined that with Sue from Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss. (Sue is SWAMPED with sock orders and has to sew six thousand socks!) Fox in Socks is one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books, and I’ve always liked Sue, so it was fun to re-imagine this part of the book. In case you’re not familiar with the original, here’s what Mr. Fox says when Sue enters the book:

New socks.

Two socks.

Whose socks?

Sue’s socks.

 

Who sews whose socks?

Sue sews Sue’s socks.

My Sue has similar hair and clothes to the one in Fox in Socks, but she likes polka-dots and sewing lots of socks. They’re not all for her though, because really, who needs 3000 pairs of socks? Not Sue. You’d be swamped if you had to sew six thousand socks too! (Note: not all 6000 socks are pictured here, because that would have made me more than swamped. It would have made me crazy to draw that many in such a short time.)

Who is Sue sewing socks for? I’m glad you asked.

Sue sews Sue’s socks, because with that many, at least some of them have to be for her!
Sue sews Moo’s socks, because Moo helps keep the thread from tangling.
Sew sews Lou’s socks. (Lou is the dove on Moo’s back, the one saying, “coo coo.”)
Sue sews Who’s socks, right away, because Who has owl things to do.
Sue sews Foo’s socks (a.k.a. Bunny Foo-Foo).
Sue sews Boo’s socks … not really, ghosts don’t wear socks (or at least Boo doesn’t).

The original sketch had a few more characters, but it got too crowded. Here’s a close up of the bunny:

Bunny Foo-Foo was fun to draw and I love how his socks turned out. Another character that was fun to draw was Moo:

You can tell by the expression on her face that she thinks Sue is crazy for trying to sew six thousand socks, or maybe she is getting sick of having thread wrapped around her horns. Moo has striped socks because I thought they’d be a nice contrast to her spots and I liked how the blue and white stripes looked on her. It’s hard to see, but Lou also has striped socks. They’re blue and yellow.

If someone asked you to sew six thousand socks, would you do it?

I wouldn’t. I leave the sock sewing to Sue!

4 Comments on Sue Sews Six Thousand Socks: Swamp for IF and Dr. Seuss, last added: 3/28/2012