When it comes to watercolour, I always thought it was safer to keep the paint in their tubes than out exposed on the palette, or as far away from water absorbent paper. Such a difficult medium to tame with a brush!
That’s until I decided to take matters into my own hands and educate myself on the matter. I’m currently taking a watercolour techniques class that has made all the difference!
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Poster for Armonico Consort: A Venetian Christmas
At first I thought it was the usual spam, however the skeptic in me soon abaded when I Googled the website to find a very worthy and unique organization steeped in the performance arts. They can be found here
The artwork they requested to use was a piece I did in one of my art classes from a few years ago. It’s pencil crayon on coloured illustration board.
Not only are they using it as a back drop to their home page, but also for posters around the community. I couldn’t be happier with the final product!
An early morning at the cottage rendered a painterly sight – one that evokes highlights and brush strokes reminiscent of Impressionism. More specifically, Claude Monet and his water lily series. A view of one of his displays:
The dark underbelly of clouds and the touch of sunshine mixed across a gentle breeze on the lake, created some wonderful reflective effects. Throw in a cluster of lilly pads and the image is complete (image 3):
One competition that I couldn’t ignore to participate in was SCBWI’s Tomie dePaola Award. The premise was to illustrate the opening scene of Heidi. The text can be found here.
My mind’s eye immediately conjoured up majestic mountains – images not readily forgotten from my travels through Switzerland. Offset the grey and white tones of the mountains with deep shades of green and add a colourful array of field flowers and I’m good to go! The composition is highly organized – a conscious decision based on those knitted Scandenavian sweaters – where shape and colour are repeated.
This is the result…
The actual results of the competition are here.
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Tamara,
This is all nice work and we are glad to see you back on your we site. But you are teasing us – when is the next book?
I was so over pencil crayons by the time I was in grade 5. Never cared for the streaky messes they left across the white, cheap school stock paper. When I heard the last assignment was to use pencil crayons, I gagged to stiffle a laugh! Was this actually considered a serious medium outside of grade school?
Apparently so.
I dug through the bottom of my supply drawer, pushing aside acrylics, watercolours, pastels to find and dust off my box of Laurentian’s.
I have to admit I turned into a believer in this medium again…
I was floating on “islands of colour” for my next colour assignment. The objective was to overlay 3 distinct areas of colour in an overall grey scale composition. Part of the challenge was picking a photograph that offered good tonal variety.
The result…
Since the fall, my world has been made up primarily of red, yellow and blues. Not always in that order or equal portions. A Colour Foundations course that I took had my creative mind spinning around the colour wheel. Round and round it went with each assignment…the first being to use all the colours in the colour wheel (12 in total) to create a composition without any tints or tones.
No tints? No tones? Really? This was completely unnatural to me, since I revel in gradation. The solution was to separate the colours into shapes that made sense – like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle.
This was the result:
And a perfect score from my instructor!
One of the great things about New York (or most cities in North America) is that regardless of your economic background, some of the best urban venues are free for all to experience, to be inspired and to hope. For example, anyone can experience Central Park, observe the wonders of nature and the diversity of people that experience the park. Anyone can walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and be inspired by the comings and goings of steamships below. Anyone can experience urban space and be inspired by the built environment, for example Rockafeller Center (which was built during the depression). This idea certainly merits a series of illustrations and perhaps a book. Good luck.
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Yes, I’ve read about that Tamara. Thanks for the info. And, I would like to say that I am glad to know Nathalie. She is a wonderful advocate of multiculturalism – go check her out you all!!! 
Paper Tigers is a website that embraces multicultural books and is a great resource for anyone interested in children’s and YA books from around the world, primarily focusing on the Pacific Rim and South Asia.
They are announcing a new project today called “Spirit of PaperTigers”, that aims to put a select number of multicultural books in the hands of children in areas of need in different parts of the world. It’s a worthy cause, so be sure to check it out and get involved!
This news was passed on to me by my dear critique friend, Nathalie Mvondo. She is the host of her own blog celebrating multiculturalism in children’s literature, called Multiculturalism Rocks!. Her posts range from informative interviews with author’s and publishers to sewing her own seeds of encouragement and importance of different and distinct voices around the world!
Hey T, My parents grew up in the depression. The biggest thing my mom always said about that era is that people found a way to get by and everyone helped everyone. Example Fellows riding the rails (u know hitching a ride on a cargo train) across Canada to look for work out west would show up at my grandmothers door to get a meal then hop back on the next train heading west. You should talk to my mom for some ideas.
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I thought I would take the plunge and submit the first 500 words of a Middle Grade/YA novel I’ve been working on in my spare time. The contest is being held by Mary Kole, of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency. The details of the contest can be found here . So for you writer’s out there who are interesting in putting your stories out there, here’s your chance!
Good luck to everyone who enters!
P.S. A big thank you to Mary who for first informed me of the contest.
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Time to get back to some illustrating.
This piece was started (gulp), last July and regretfully admit that I haven’t touched it since tonight. How embarassing! And I’m still hovering over it undecided of what the main subject should be. I’ve set the stage, primed and ready to accept…Who, What? I don’t know – that’s the problem I’m faced with.
I’ll tell you what I do know about the story so far that I’m trying to portray in this piece – since there always has to be something said immediately through an illustration, while giving a sense of feeling that something happened just before and something will transpire afterwards. So here goes:
It’s 1930 something, in the midst of The Depression. There are the Have’s and the Have Not’s, yet the parameters of ‘poor’ and ‘wealthy’ are weaking. This scene shows the porch of a delapitated house (jagged and unfinished linework and missing pieces), the huge and vulnerable gap between rich and poor (the blank white space denoting other houses), with skyscrappers/capitalism looming in the background (solid linework and forms).
So I ask you if you were to finish this illustration, who or what (or both) takes the main stage of this composition?
Will it be a happy, hopefull scene: as simple as a little girl discovering a beautiful flower growing in the barren soil?
Will it be a sad: a mother and father totting packed suitcases and their little girl longingly looking back towards their house, exit stage right.
Will it be realistic: a father taking his young son with him as they both go in search for work, leaving behind a mother with babe in arms.
Will it have a touch of humour or fantasy? The possibilities are endless. Anything goes that would be child appropriate!
Your suggestions are much welcomed! Thanks!
The Last of Its Kind
Excerpt from The Nightmare Before Christmas
My sister asked if I would design a family Christmas Card for her. “No problem”, I say. However, shortly after I realize that it all hinges on whether my 18 month old niece, Mia will cooperate.
Will she be agreeable to slip on tights and a knitted dress that her Auntie bought or run away screaming in a soppy diaper with “Blankie” trailing behind her? Will she give us a small toothy grin, sit still for the camera or…even look at the camera?
See for yourselves…
Mia Renee Thompson
The Thompson Christmas Card 2009
What an amazing day to get totally inspired!
It was an early start to a jammed packed day of illustrator and writer workshops:
First up was Jeremy Tankardof “Grumpy Bird” fame. I’ve seen Jeremy around a couple of times at monthly CANSCAIP meetings (to be honest – he’s hard to miss since he towers over the mostly middle aged female audience). He spoke about his journey into children’s publication. What impressed me most was his tenacity and belief to push forth and challenge the norm for new/unpublished illustrators. The best part was speaking to him one on one at the end of the day and having my copies of Grumpy Bird and BooHoo Bird signed. Thanks for the tips Jeremy, and now I have two more books to add to my growing picture book collection!
I thought I’d switch things up in the second and third sessions with Creative Non-Fiction presented by Kathy Kacer and Writing Mysteries for Boys presented by Shane Peacock. Both workshops were packed with helpful tips and tools to shape your story. The day ended with a light hearted “inspiring” keynote address by Kenneth Oppel. I didn’t take any notes down during this session – just sat back and enjoyed the good laughs of Kenneth spoofing himself. What a great sense of humor!
This was my fourth time attending this annual day of workshops. Already can’t wait for next year!
Postcard Mail Out
I’m delighted that you did and decided to stop by since it’s wonderful to finally be able to share my work with you.
Thank you for taking the time to review my work. I would certainly welcome and appreciate any comments you have to offer!
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Each blank sheet of paper, canvas, template or whatever the choice of substrate may be, is the start of an exciting creative journey. Most of the time the finished idea/image is composed in my minds eye before I start…sitting there…brewing, sifting, filtering – waiting until I’m ready to tackle it. So really it’s just a matter of getting from point A to point B. Sounds easy, but sometimes there’s a disconnect between mind and motor skills!
I do not keep to a step by step process when I’m composing my illustrations. It’s more fluid, where I allow the content of what I’m trying to express and communicate dictate the execution and sequence of work. However, I can say that it’s usually a combination of traditional and digital media that’s used. More often than not, my finished illustrations involve sketches, colouring in Photoshop CS3 and overlaying real images on top of the colour layer…therefore becoming a seemless digital collage.
Here’s a series of snap shots during the making of “Fall’s End”:
Baby Bear does not understand the concept of hibernation. He doesn’t want to go to sleep yet, so he waits for the last leaf to fall before following Mama Bear into the den. It’s a suspension of time.
Scrunched up tracing paper that's scanned and adjusted for contrast & colour
Twisted trace paper that's scanned - adjusted for contrast, colour and size. This texture/shape will serve as the trees.
The scrunched up trace paper is shaped and blocked with colour to create the cave. The twists are copied, adjusted in size and placed.
Pencil sketches of Mama bear and Baby bear added and placed in position.
Colour added to bears, bright leaf added for focal point and narrative, top of image sculpted to mimich shape of cave. Any final tweaks in colour and shading complete.
