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Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer

March 1 is the exciting day! In The Wind is released. Here is my third and final speedpainting recording that I did from the book.

You can see the other two paintings on these posts.

Cover Speedpaint

Interior Speedpaint 1

And you can buy the book by following this link. 

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Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer

Last week I had a chance to go see the Norman Rockwell Exhibit at the BYU museum of art. I went with friends from my critique group. It’s so much fun to go to things like this with other artists. We had a great time analyzing the paintings together. This post is about some of the things I learned by staring at the awesome art.

1. Norman Rockwell was great at using lost edges.

   

   Triple Self-Portrait

   For example if you look at this painting called Triple Self-Portrait you can see how the man’s trousers are the same color as the canvas. In the original painting there isn’t a line to distinguish the two elements. Your brain fills that line in all on it’s own. Pretty cool.

2. Norman Rockwell used color grouping. (and you can paint a white dress against a white background too.)

   

   Christmas Homecoming

   See in that image how the three jackets are all the same color. Tan, tan, and tan. They are three separate elements but since the value/tone and color are similar your brain can read them as one. This is a busy picture full of lots of people and things. The color grouping really helps lead your eye through the image.

   Here is another example of color grouping.

   

   After The Prom

   Another thing Norman Rockwell did all the time is harder for me to explain, but this image illustrates it very well.

   

   Brass Merchant

   See how that lady has a white dress on. See how the background is white. If I was painting this painting I probably would have made her dress purple or blue. White would have been out of the question. I would have been too afraid of her blending into the background and the image being out of balance. But Norman did it here and I think it’s working. I’m excited to start trying to do more of this type of thing in my paintings.

3. Norman Rockwell painted a ridiculous amount of studies and took tons of photos.

   

   Soda Jerk

   To see more of his photos into paintings you can check out this blog post.

   But it wasn’t just that he took a lot of photos. He did drawings and color studies and more drawings and more color studies until he got what he needed.

4. Norman Rockwell Painted big paintings.

   

   Checkers

   This is one of my all time Norman Rockwell Favorites. It is 35×39″, and is typical of many of the paintings I saw at the museum. It’s not a mural by any means but it’s much bigger than the sizes I usually work at. He was able to get a lot of detail into the art at this size. I’ve been working the size of my scanner. I think I’m going to try some larger stuff so I can get more of the effects that I want.

The post What I Learned from Norman Rockwell appeared first on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.

Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer

There is a common misconception that being an artist is either something you are born with or not. The general feeling in society pervades that artists are odd, and going into art is an unwise career choice because artists don’t make any money.

The reality is drawing realistically can be taught, and there are many many careers for artists. There are also many careers which aren’t considered art jobs but that can benefit immensely from people with the skill for thinking spatially. Learning to see the world in a non-verbal visual way is a beneficial thing for everyone to learn. In school there is a lot of emphasis on core subjects such as reading and math. Drawing and music tend to be overlooked because they aren’t considered valuable skills when preparing for careers such as doctors, lawyers, or engineers. But, not only are there plenty of careers in the arts  (fashion, movies, video game, and amusement park industries all use artists) but the ability to picture something in your head would be useful for a doctor or engineer.

Part of the reason people don’t see the value of taking an art class is because drawing is not taught as it used to be. Many art classes as they are taught now teach students to express themselves but don’t give them the skills to do so. This would be similar to telling a piano student to play something that expresses himself without teaching him any notes.

When I was about 11 my love for drawing was clear and my parents enrolled me as a student to my amazing teacher Sydney Bowman taught me many drawing basics using the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards.

I’m grateful for the lessons she taught me and I’m excited to teach students of my own many of the principles I learned from her.

If you or your children are interested in learning to draw I highly recommend getting the book and going through the exercises. Or if you live in in Salt Lake County Utah  I still have spots available in my classes. Email me at illustration (at) manelleoliphant (dot) com for more information.

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Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer

Thrifted Frame

I went to the thrift store and found some fun picture frames. This one is one of my favorites. It’s just so darn cool looking, despite the fact that it’s actually made of plastic. The red velvet was a little worn but some fabric paint took care of that.

Painting The Fairy

Then I took some time and painted this blue wing fairy to fit in the frame. I’m really pleased with the result.

Here’s a video of my painting process.

Selling the Art

I plan on selling the original art with the frame at a Christmas Gift and Craft show in a few weeks. Hopefully I’ll have some more fun framed art to share with you then as well. In the meantime if you really like this painting you can buy a print of it in my shop. 

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Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer

I used to love working with ink and watercolor. It was my go to medium for a long time. Gradually I’ve moved away from that but every once and a while I pull out my ink and draw. Then I remember I really enjoy drawing with that medium.

Inktober is (find out more about it by clicking here.) a good chance to remember how much fun ink drawing is. The last two days I’ve been working on this and I created these videos of me drawing characters with ink.

I won’t be doing 31 drawings. My plan is to do 24 drawings of the characters you’ll meet in my next year of Tales Fantastic Stories. I tried to do a lot of planning before Inktober began but now that it’s been a few days I’m learning I missed a few things. For one thing I think I drew these guys too small, and the details would work out better if their faces were a little larger. It’s also taken me a long time to draw each character before I start inking. So this morning I’m rethinking my plan a little. Maybe in a few days I’ll report back the changes I’ve made in the meantime you can follow my progress on Instagram.

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Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer

In the first post of this series I walked you through my first failed attempts to create The Six Swans illustration, and ended with my first failed painting attempt. Now I’ll tell you how I went from there to my finished illustration.

As I said in that post I put this project aside after I finished the first painting to work on my Siren’s Song illustration. I knew the image wasn’t working yet, and I needed time to think on it. It worked. One day I realized one of the biggest problems with the composition was that the girl was looking down. The reason that’s a problem is that the point in the story was the happy part. Down= sad. Up= happy. I wanted the image to feel like victory. Not like we were still fighting a battle.

Thumbnails Again

Determined to get things right I started thumbnailing again. Here they are.

After getting close with my pen I scanned that last thumbnail and messed with it in photoshop until I knew I had something that was working.

From there I went on to my new sketches.

Sketching Again

This first sketch I did on paper using a large print out of the thumbnail for a guide.

At this point I got it critiqued again, and I made some small changes to the characters, and worked out the anatomy a little better.  Here is the next drawing. I drew it on the computer over a scan of the first drawing.

And then I did it again. Just fixing a few things here and there.

Finally! A sketch we are going to keep.

Painting Round 2

From here I did my value and color studies again and came up with these.

They Look pretty good so I went onto the next painting.

I had a hard time at this point. I was trying to keep my watercolors nice and free and get the light right. In the story this scene is happening at sunrise, and I really wanted it to show in the lighting.

Overall it’s not bad but there are a few things that just weren’t working, like how saturated the background buildings are, and how I painted the wall behind the guards. (It looks too close.) And most important it just didn’t have the lighting effect that I wanted.

One More Time!

Why not try one more time? There was no deadline, and I had already come this far, so I value and color studied again. 

And then I painted it again. That painting is the keeper.

I made this video showing my painting process for all three paintings. I tried to photograph each step. Sometimes I forgot to take the images before moving on, but I think it pretty well shows my watercolor process.

Here is the that final painting. I added just a few touches of colored pencil for some detail.

The Six Swans, Personal project: Watercolor

Of course nothing is perfect but I’m pleased with the final results. I think the lighting isn’t bad and I was able to let the watercolors do their neat-o thing. If you like the image you can buy a print of it in my shop.

 Support the creation of more art and story by Manelle on Patreon.com

The post Failing A Lot: Making The Six Swans part 2 appeared first on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.

Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer

Ok Guys, this post is about failing over and over… and over. Hopefully you will learn some stuff from what I share. I know I learned so, so much from all my failed attempts.

My struggle to make the illustration for the short story The Six Swans started with a goal.

My mindset when I started this illustration was two fold, I needed to make an illustration for my next short story, and I wanted to paint smoke with watercolors that looked like this.

Joseph Zbukvic

Amazing Right!

I’ve talked about the artist Joseph Zbukvic before in my post about watercolor tutorials. Go there and watch him paint in the video link provided. It’s so so awesome. I keep watching the video and getting smarter every time.

Watercolors can do neat-o things other paints can’t, but I don’t see illustrators using watercolors in this way very often. Those fine art watercolorists have got the neat-o-ness of watercolors down, but us illustrators tend to keep things more controlled maybe even a little fussy. I don’t know how many times I’ve worked on a watercolor painting and been pleased with the lighting and composition but disappointed I didn’t let the paint fly free. ( Go fly watercolor! You’re free ! You’re free!)

So with this painting my goal was to let the paint free but still get the lighting and details I needed to tell the story.

Beginning the Illustration

I had my story ready and I started my thumbnails. I pretty much always start with thumbnails even before I do character design. Here they are. (Click here to learn more about thumbnails)

I started out with a few ideas for this story but settled on the image of the girl and the birds.

If you’re smarter than me you might see that I already have a problem. Which is… I only did three thumbnails! Really, I don’t know what I was thinking. (Actually yes I do, I was thinking about how excited I was to paint smoke with my watercolors) If I had taken the time to make sure the image was working small at the beginning it would have saved me a lot of work, but I forgot about that truth, and I moved forward, blissfully unaware of my impending doom.

Here are some of the character sketches I did. I focused some of these drawings on how the character would look, and some the pose of the character.

This big one in the middle is one of my favorite drawings. It gave me another goal. To get the essence of whatever is in that drawing into my illustration.

My First Failed Sketch Attempt

From character sketches I moved onto my first sketch.

I drew it. Did a messy value study. Did some color studies. But it wasn’t working. Finally asked for a critique from my trusted illustration friends. I got comments about the composition, shapes, and the character. Then I made changes.

My Second Failed Sketch Attempt

Here is my next try.

The character is more defined. The people in the background help ground the image. Over all the shapes are a little better but I don’t think it has the action feel the first sketch has, and I was still running into problems. I got it critiqued again. (Critique groups people! They are the greatest.) My friend Shawna mentioned I needed to work on the movement of the image, and the character’s silhouette, so I went back to the drawing board. (literally)

First I put my image in Photoshop and rearranged some things using math, also called the golden ratio. (Don’t worry the computer did the math for me)

My Third Failed Sketch Attempt + First Failed Painting Attempt

And off I went again.

This one is better. There is a lot of action. The shapes are good. The arrangement is better. Her expression is pretty good. You can tell she’s holding shirts and putting them on a swan. Things were looking good. So I did more color and value studies and I painted it.

From here I intended to add detail with prismacolor or Photoshop but I couldn’t do it because I hated this painting. I knew I could do better. So I scrapped it, and set this whole project aside to stew in my brain while I painted the Siren’s Song Illustration.

Tune in next time to see how I went from this point to my finished Swans illustration. In the mean time watch this video of Milton Glaser talking. It’s really good and will make you feel pretty happy about failing.

Have you failed creating art recently? (Good for you!) Did you learn anything cool because of the failure?

 Support the creation of more art and story by Manelle on Patreon.com

The post Failing A Lot: Making The Six Swans part 1 appeared first on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.

I’ve committed with my friends Shawna and Jen to draw a sketch in my sketchbook everyday this month. I usually draw in my book often but committing to everyday is going to be a bit of a challenge. It’s the fourth day of the month and so far so good…. only not quite, because even though I’ve sketched everyday I’m finding getting the ideas for what I want to draw is being pretty hard. But there are some tricks I like to use.

1

 Idea Generator

In the past I wrote this post about my sketchbook idea generator. It includes a free download so you can make your own. Since I wrote the post there are a few apps I use on my phone that do a similar thing. I use these pretty often. Theyare the Brainstormer App, and Character Design Shuffle by Silver.

2

 Practice, Practice, Practice

Sketchbooks are for Practice is a post I wrote about how I practice things I need to work on in my sketchbook.  You can use your sketchbook to practice pretty much anything: figures, trees, composition, value, expressions, animals, etc. You can draw from life or use photos. Don’t be afraid to draw crapy drawings in your book. My sketchbooks are full of drawings I really hate and a only few that I love. Here’s another post I’ve written about how you can use your sketchbook for making mistakes. It also has some links to see some fun sketchbook inspiration from other artists.

3

 Draw from Photos

This is one idea of how you can practice in your sketchbook. I use photos a lot and over the years I’ve gotten smarter about how I draw from them. Photos are good for getting reference of things your can’t find out your front door and for getting ideas. For more info check out this post about how you can use photos but not be completely tied to them.

4

 Sketchook as a Journal

I use my sketchbook as a sort of Journal. It’s fun to draw sketches of what I am doing in my day to day life. I drew the ones above  when I was called in for Jury Duty and the fire alarm went off. Everyone had to sit around outside the building for 20-40 min while they made sure it was safe. It was, and the jury selection continued after we were let back in. It’s a funny story and now it’s recorded in my “journal” for me to remember. As you might be able to tell I also used the moment to practice composition.

5

 Online Sketch Groups

There are lots of fun online sketch and illustration groups  you can participate in. Illustration Friday is an old-y but a good-y where you are given a weekly topic you can draw and share on the Illustration Friday website. @sketch_dailies on twitter is fun for a daily inspiration topic.  And if you keep your eyes peeled you can also participate in yearly events like Jake Parker’s #inktober.

6

 Sketching with a Theme

Pick a theme for your sketchbook and stick with it for a while. I don’t think I’ve ever done this but I want to. So, for my sketchbook challenge this month I’m going to draw my sketches with a theme. The theme I’ve picked is Fantasy Land Creatures, and I want to make sure to practice gestures and expressions. You can follow my progress on my twitter or instagram and at the end of the month I’ll report back with some of the drawings I’ve done. Here is the sketch I did for this theme yesterday.

Here is one last closing thought about how great sketchbooks can be.

What tips do you use to help you make your sketchbooks better?

Over the last few years I’ve created a few posts on using or working with watercolor.  They each focus on something different but can all help you with creating watercolor illustrations. I’ve also added some of my favorite go to watercolor videos.

 How to Paint Glow

Is a quick watercolor tutorial showing how you can make an object look like it’s glowing. There is also info on creating glow using other mediums.

  4 Tips for Painting Dragons With Watercolor

This video shows how you can use watercolors to create fun dragon effects. It goes through some watercolor basics and then shows how to use them to paint a dragon.

  Watercolor Sketching With My Pocket Set

This watercolor tutorial shows how I use my pocket watercolor set and waterbrush to sketch with watercolors on the go.

  Creating A Ghost-y Illustration

This post doesn’t show painting  but it goes into detail about my planning process for getting an illustration ready to paint.

  How to use Colored Pencils With Watercolor

This tutorial along with the next one show things you can do on top of your watercolor. This demo shows one way you can use colored pencils on top of a watercolor painting.

  Try New Things: An Illustration Experiment

This post shows how I used photoshop to create a similar effect to the colored pencil technique I showed above.

  Line Quality in your Drawings

B for bonus. This post doesn’t actually talk about watercolors much but it does talk about line quality and show an example of how you can use ink line with watercolor

These next two youtube videos are from a show called Put Some Colour In  your Life. I watch them over and over and learn new stuff about watercolor every time.

The first is a demo by Joseph Zbukvic

This second is a demo by Alvaro Castagnet

Do you have any favorite go to watercolor youtube videos? Comment below and let me know what they are. I’d love to see them.

Learn how you can support the artist by clicking here. 

My next story is all about ghosts. It is october after all. But thinking about ghosts led me to think about our histories. Genealogy or Family History has become the second most popular hobby in the US after gardening. I’ve dabbled in it some. Who doesn’t want to know where they came from  after all its a part of who we are.

But we come from more than just our ancestors, and as an artist we have our own geneology. Wether writer, artist. or mathmetician, we can’t help but be influenced by people that came before us. So I got to wondering who were my artist ancestors?

Lets Break it Down

First there is me.

My most influential teachers where Sydney Bowman my art teacher when I was high school age, and my teachers a BYU-Idaho where I got my art degree. Sydney introduced me to Michelangelo which led me to study other artists like Da Vinci, Whistler, The Impressionists and the Pre-Raphaelites.

My college teachers introduced me to the illustration side of art where I became a heavily influenced by more current illustrators like Lisbeth Zwerger, and Trina Schart Hyman,  and the illustrators of the golden age like J. C. Leyendecker, Arthur Rackham, and Kay Neilsen.

I’ve also been influenced more recently by my close illustration friends Shawna JC Tenney, Sherry Meidell, and Jennifer Eichelberger. So I suppose my artist pedigree chart would look like this.

Try it yourself. Here is a blank chart you can save and fill out. I’m sure this would work if you are writer, artist, or anything really. If you make one I’d love to see it. Post in comments and send me a link to your image, or tweet the image @manelleoliphant.

And don’t forget to download my new ghost story Midnight Ghost. 

Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer

My latest short story Midnight Ghost (it’s being released Oct 24th) required me to draw a glowing ghost. This is something you can struggle with if you don’t know the rules but once you do, drawing and painting glow is very easy.

It’s all about values

Values are the lightness or darkness of a color. I wrote a whole post about them so if you want to understand a little better check it out by clicking here. 

It’s impossible to get anything lighter than the paper or white paint you are using, so how to make something look like its lit up? The secret is in the contrast. If you want something to look like light you need to put dark around it. The contrast between light and dark is what makes it look like it’s glowing.

Here is the image I did of the Ghost in my new story. She needed to look like she was glowing so I added the dark area to the background and ta-daa! Glowing ghost. This image was all done with pencil. Since there is no color you can see the contrast in values easier, but it works with color too.

Here’s video of me doing the same thing with watercolor so you can see it in action.

Color can blind us. Sometimes we try to make something look like light by adding yellow, after all, the sun is yellow so it should work right? Nope. Next time approach the problem as something that needs to be lighter or darker rather than a different color. I bet you’ll be pleased with the results.

Have fun painting glow-y things!

The post How to Paint Glow appeared first on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.

Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer

Watercolor is my Favorite

If you know what your are doing you can get some really great effects and textures with watercolor. These are great for painting dragons. Below are four tips you can use for your next dragon illustration (or any type of painting really).

Save Your Lights

Value/tone is probably the most important things to pay attention to when creating any kind of art. With watercolor if you aren’t paying attention and you paint something too dark you’ll have a hard time making it lighter. When your painting your dragon make sure you know where your light source(s) are so you know what to keep light and where to put your shadows.

Use the Drys

Controlling watercolor is all about what is wet and what it dry on your paper. Be patient and let the paint dry between steps. Blowdryers are great for hurrying the process along.

Use the Wets

One of the most fabulous things about watercolor is the amazing textures the paint produces all on it’s own. Don’t be afraid to get your paper wet and let it do it’s thing.

Use Salt

Salt is one of my favorite ways to create watercolor texture and it’s great for dragon scales. You’ve probably tried it before but if not watch the video for tips on how to use it.

I recently used these techniques to create the illustration for my short story Princess and Dragon. Look for the short story and mini ebook coming October 9, 2014.

Do you have a favorite watercolor technique? Comment below and tell me what it is.

The post 4 Tips for Painting Dragons with Watercolor appeared first on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.

Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer

Download this story for your devices as a mini ebook by clicking the links below

Hans My Hedgehog

A Short Fairy Tale Retelling by Manelle Oliphant

year ago I promised my father I would marry a hedgehog. Today I married him.

Father met him when he was lost in the forest. It frightened him to meet a man all hedgehog on his top half, but the hedgehog introduced himself as Hans and helped him find his way. In return, Father promised to give the hedgehog the first thing he met when he arrived home. He thought it would be his dogs or one of the servants but I raced ahead, and sealed my fate.

As a princess, I knew it wasn’t likely I would marry for love. Only, marrying a royal stranger from a distant place to secure an alliance is easier to stomach than marrying someone not quite human.

When he arrived I watched from my tower room. He rode through the gate on his rooster and the guards admitted him to the castle. After about an hour my father sent up a message. All was in order and I was to prepare myself.

I dressed myself, hoping that by doing what’s right and keeping a promise, it would turn out well. I think that’s what faith is, doing what you know is right and trusting in God things will turn out well, even if it seems impossible they could.

Now I wait in my bedroom, wearing my night shift, the fire the only light. Hans enters. I see his silhouette in the doorway until he shuts the door.

“You are my wife now,” he says to me from the dark.

“It is true,” I say

“It is an ugly thing for a pretty girl like you to be married to me.”

I feel tears form behind my eyes but I blink them away. “Not as ugly as breaking a promise.”

I hear a little snort. “You are right, not so ugly as that.”

He takes a step closer. I see his large form in the firelight. I feel faint and place my hand on the mantel for support. He shakes and snorts and I see him slough off his coat of quills. He drops it in front of me. After a minute I kneel down and touch it. The quills are soft. I look up. A man stands in front of me, a normal, not-half-animal, man. I look at his eyes. They are brown and nice and pleading.  The moment stretches out between us but he doesn’t speak. I open my mouth but he shakes his head.

He wants me to do something. I look around confused. I look back to him. He stands still, his brown eyes begging for something. I look at the coat of quills, the fire, and back to him. He looks relieved, and I know what he wants me to do. I grab the quills and throw them into the flames.  As they burn he falls to the floor and cries out. I see his skin turning black.

Have I done wrong? I turn to  pull the coat back out of the fire, but it’s burning fast and hot. The flames light up the whole room. Hans screams again, the black on his skin spreads. I glance around and see the wash basin by the bed. I grab it and pour it over the writhing man. For a second I am surrounded by steam. When it clears Hans is calm and the black has washed away. I kneel down next to him.

Hans groans, and turns his head toward me. “Thank you wife. You have freed me from a life-long curse.”

I smile. “You’re welcome.”

Hans sits up. I help him to the bed and fetch more water. He nods his thanks as he takes it. Our eyes meet. His are still kind. I can see he is a good man and we will have a happy life. I can’t explain how I know this but I feel the truth of it inside me. I smile at him and take his hand. He smiles back.

The End

If you enjoyed this story I hope you’ll tell your friends. 

To support the artist and the creation of more stories like this visit my Patreon page

Prints of the image used in this story are available at http://www.manelleoliphant.com/shop-2

Text and illustrations © 2014 by Manelle Oliphant

Not to be sold without written permission

This short story is based off of the Brothers Grimm tale of the same name. To read the original story visit http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm108.html

The post Hans My Hedgehog appeared first on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.

Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Illustrator and Writer

Start With the Text

When I set out to create and illustration for written text I always start with the text. This seems obvious but it’s amazing how many times I’ve been asked to come up with ideas before I’ve seen the text or when the story is not finished. Even when I write my own stories I make sure the text is finished before I start sketching.

Once you get your text, read it. Seriously. If don’t know what’s in the story how can you create the images. If your a visual person like I am, (You don’t have to be an artist to fit into this category) you probably see the images in your head as you are reading. When I read a word, I don’t see the word, I see the image. I’m pretty sure this is why I failed miserably at spelling when I was in grade school. If only spelling bees could have been drawing bees I would have had at least two less traumatic experiences in grade school.

But I digress. Back to illustration.

As I read the text I see images in my mind. I can see what the characters are doing and how they are acting and parts of the setting.  This is my starting point. There are usually scenes that feel like they would be more fun to draw than others. I make note about those scenes and then I start to thumbnail my images. Learn more about thumbnails in this post I wrote a few years ago. The thumbnail stage is where I really nail down what part of the image I’m going to create.

Here are the thumbnails I created for my Hans My Hedgehog story. They are just scribbly but you can see my thought process. The story is short and as I wrote it I had two images in mind. The first was Hans the hedgehog entering town and the other was his wedding to the princess who is telling the story. While I wrote, I ended up taking out the wedding scene so I started thumbnailing the first scene.

You can see my thought process in the thumbnails as I experimented with different points of view until I found one I liked. Then I carried that one idea forward until I thought I had a composition that worked well. The last thumbnail is the one I used for my first sketch.

As artists or illustrators how do you decide what part of the story you illustrate? Is your process similar to mine?

Become my patron and see more of the behind the scenes art in a free sketchbook download. 

The post How Text can Inspire Your Illustration appeared first on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.

Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Children's book illustrator and writer

Look at these two drawings.

I’m working on sketches for Just in Time Book 4. These are for chapter 6. I drew the first one but it lacked the life it needed, so kept trying. In their basic elements they are the same. A spot illustration of little girl kissing a dog. Both figures are in profile and the eye level is strait on. So why is the second one so much better than the first? Watch the video and I’ll try to explain.

I drew the first sketch at the end of the day, I was tired and I just wanted to get it done. The next day after some rest I knew I could improve it. Seeing the problems in the first sketch really helped me as a jump off point to improve the drawing in the later sketch.

As you work on your own drawings keep these few tips in mind.
First:

This isn’t the middle ages and paper is CHEAP, Feel free to mess up a few pieces to get the drawing you want. Don’t let the fear of not getting it right the first time time keep you from trying.

Second:

Use your mistakes to help you improve the next drawing. In the case I scanned the old drawing into photoshop, made some changes, printed it, put a paper on top of the print out, drew some more, scanned it, messed with it, printed it and drew on top of it again.

Now I’ll send the sketch in for approval if the art director likes it we’ll see it in the book, but I may have to make even more tweaks before I can move on to the finished drawing.

Third:

Never forget becoming better at anything is a process. Trust it and don’t get frustrated if your not where you want to be yet. Just keep swimming and you’ll get there.

Do you use a similar approach in your own process? What does it take for you to get a sketch where you want it?

Just in Time Book 3 will be released May 20, 2014! Pre Order Your Copy Here!

The post How to Make Your Drawings Suck Less appeared first on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.

Manelle Oliphant Illustration - Children's book illustrator and writer

About a month ago we held our annual SCBWI illustrators conference here in Salt Lake. One of our Speakers was Kristyn Crow the author of Zombelina.

I had never taken the time to read Zombelina before but Kristyn’s  talk on creating a great story, as well as the fact that it’s illustrated by Molly Idle who just won the Caldecott honor for Flora and the Flamingo made me want to take a closer look.

I have to say I really enjoyed it.

The story is great. Kristyn really knows her stuff when it comes to story and language. She is fantastic at creating rhyming books. If you are a picture book author and you want to know how to create a rhyming book  that rocks read Kristyn’s stuff. There is no one better.

The  rhymes don’t get in the way of the story. The plot is really solid, and I’m not surprised. At our conference Kristyn gave a fantastic talk on how to write a great story. She used points from the book Save the Cat to tell us how to write a story that really works.

The illustrations are fantastic too. I have to admit that I didn’t read this book for a long time because the cover image didn’t appeal to me. Now I’m glad I gave it a chance. My favorite part about the pictures are the characters. They are charming. The designs are fun and their emotions and gestures are really solid. The pictures add to the story showing us fun things that aren’t in the text. This is what great picture book art is supposed to do. I can see why Molly is winning awards. 

The post Book Recommendation: Zombelina appeared first on Manelle Oliphant Illustration.

It’s all been fun and games up until now.  It’s been battles between Dinosaurs and Princesses, Fort Building, and Chore Shirking.  Well, that is about to be supplemented with “useful” information.  I know, I know, it will be a tough adjustment, but we must all grow up sometime!

Every so often, we are going to sprinkle in an informative and well-researched article that will be a part of our library of “Literacy Resources”.  We figured, “Why link to external sites when we already know everything there is to know about everything?”

Importantly, we’ll also be able to write a few articles about why Personalized Children’s Books are a bajillion times better than normal ones… Reason one, they’re customizable.  Reason two, they’re awesome… um…  I’m sure we’ll think of more reasons.

We have our work cut out for us, creating an original article to replace each of the links on our Resources page, so we are asking for YOUR HELP!  If you’d like to be a guest blogger on our site, contact us.  We also know there are thousands of Elementary Education majors out there with relevant thesis papers just gathering dust.  Send ‘em over and we’ll give you the attention you deserve! 

My wife’s 128 page thesis, “The Effects of Conjugated Linoleic Acid Supplementation with Resistance Exercise and Amino Acid Supplementation in Aging Women”.  Sadly, I don’t think it will be relevant.

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What is a children’s book without illustrations?  One that doesn’t get read, most likely.  To children, illustrations are an enticement to read the words, not the other way around.  Who can blame them?  As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. 

Illustrations, however, can be more than a trick to get kids to read, they can be time capsules, windows into the artistic trends of the times.  I’m sure I’m not the first to argue that children’s illustration can be viewed as legitimate instead of pop art, but some are still suspicious that because their intended audience is so immature,  the art must also be immature.

Here are a couple examples of beautiful children’s book art that I feel could be found on any museum wall.

As examples of artistic style, or of folk traditions, children’s illustrations can be the most revealing, which is why The Memory of the Netherlands includes so many examples of children’s books as examples of their culture. 

If you squint at this last one, you can imagine that the dentists are fist bumping each other over the boy’s healthy teeth.

The University of Alabama also has a large online gallery dedicated to book bindings by artistic style.  If you always wanted to know what Art Nouveau means, check it out!

Special thanks to Fed By Birds  for pointing me in the right directions to find this neat stuff.

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As an author, I am often asked where I get my ideas from. Some people assume that artists are born a higher quantity of a finite substance called “creativity”. It follows logically that regular folks, who were not blessed with whimsy, must safeguard their limited amount or it will run out like a depleted well.

Creativity is more like a Mogwai. When it is watered, it spawns more and more Mogwai, but never feed your Mogwai after midnight because then it will become a Gremlin.

  

Wait…  Let’s try again.  Creativity is like gardening.  You create a space and prepare it.  You make sure the soil is fertilized and that the area will get enough sun.  You decide what to you’d like to grow and plant your seeds.  You water every day and weed when needed.  You ward off pests to protect your crop.  You watch like a proud parent as your fruits and vegetables grow big, strong and beautiful.  You reap your harvest and lo, and behold, you have hundreds more seeds that you could plant over again.

You don’t need a designated space to be creative, but it helps. A space where you feel safe to explore and experiment is a protected, fertile environment to plant your ideas. Then you need to water them with attention. They can’t grow without you actively giving your time and energy.

You need to protect yourself and your ideas from others who may be negative or judgmental. They may destroy your creation before it is ever fully realized. When your creation is fully formed, it will be self sufficient and resilient, with a life of its own.

             PEST                               PEST

During the whole process, you will have discovered a hundred other opportunities to start again in another way and you will be nourished by your previous success.

It’s a corny analogy (get it, corny), but it is apt enough. Creativity takes follow-through on an idea and that same follow-through leads to more ideas. Creativity takes a risk. Some ideas may “die”, but others will blossom more successfully than you could have imagined.

You may have one idea that you’ve been saving, holding on to it because you’ve thought your creativity was finite. I suggest you plant it and create a garden teeming with life.

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In addition to authoring these books, it has been my extreme pleasure to work with our talented artists and to see them transform the black and white words into worlds of color and imagination.  I’m always interested to see details and scenarios emerge in the artwork that had never occured to me when writing the text.

The artists have been subjected to my terrible dictatorship as they work through draft after draft, page after page, and Sara (for some reason) came back for more punishment to illustrate our next book “RULER OF SPACE”.  Actually, the process is extremely collaborative and I think the results are fantastic.  In order to help you understand the time and effort our artists pour into their works, I invite you to follow the journey of Sara’s sketches to a final page.  It’s a lot like making a movie.

First, Sara sketched out numerous body and head shapes to find the right proportions and style for our main characters.  In the movies, this part would be ”casting”.

Then the characters went into wardrobe and makeup…

Then she started to build the set…  We realized we needed a throne…

and a throne room… we loved the living alien throne so Sara made it bigger. 

Then we rehearsed…

And… action!

CUT!  This scene is a wrap!  Stay tuned for more sneak peeks as we keep filming.

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Above is a sample picture from my wife’s keepsake children’s book collection.  They are from a series called “Alice in Bibleland” which aims to educate young children about God and good behavior.  We’ll come back to them in a moment. 

Some children’s books, The Berenstien Bears being the biggest culprit in my mind, aim to teach a moral or lesson through their stories.   Little Timmy learns to tell the truth, Silly Sarah remembers to brush her teeth and so on. 

Too often, these stories are corny or, worse yet, “preachy” and kids can see right through them.  Given free choice, how many kids say, “Read me ‘Tommy Turtle Learns to Respect His Parents’!”   Not many.  What is it that so often makes these stories fall flat?  I believe that it is because these stories are not “true”. 

Even in fiction, we want our stories to have a ring of truth to them even as we acknowledge that they may have never happened at all.  We want stories that we believe could happen, or, given a universe where bears and rabbits talk and play poker, would likely happen in a similar fashion.  

This is called the suspension of disbelief, but it doesn’t mean believing anything and everything in a story.  It means allowing for the possibility and “playing along”.  Let’s pretend I’m reading a story (suspend your disbelief for a moment) whose setting is in a world exactly like ours except that bears and rabbits talk and play poker.  Now let’s say that the bears discover that the rabbits have been cheating and say, “Gee Whiz, Rabbits.  Your cheating has cost us our entire month’s salary of honey.  We would kindly like it back.”   “No way, Jose,” say the Rabbits, to which the Bears reply, “Oh well, forgive and forget.  Another hand?”

This story is unbelievable.  Not because the bears and rabbits are talking and wagering large sums of honey, but because we don’t believe that, GIVEN all those facts, the bears would react in that manner.  The same goes with a lame story about Little Johnny stealing from the cookie jar.  He does so because he wants a cookie, and feels good when he succeeds in getting it.  But when his mother tells him, “You shouldn’t steal from the cookie jar, it will spoil your dinner,” he wouldn’t believable say, “You are right, Mother.  What a naughty boy I’ve been.  I will listen to you from now on.”

We might believe if, however, Little Johnny continues to eat all the cookies, gets an upset stomach and misses out on his favorite meal, Pizza Night!  Nothing sets of alarm bells in our brains more than a character who is forced to act counter to her nature by an author with an agenda.

Now, back to Alice in Bibleland.  The book that particularly appealed to me was called “Psalms and Proverbs”.  As moral instructions, Proverbs are very good because they represent wisdom and truisms passed down for hundreds of generations.  The same goes for Aesops Fables (a good site full of these fables can be found here).  Everyone knows someone like the greedy fox, or the shortsighted grasshopper and the lessons they teach from their follies ring true because we’ve observed people or situations like them for ourselves.

Whether or not you are aiming to teach your child about God, the above pages are universal.  “A soft answer turneth away wrath,”  and “Pleasant words are as a honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.”  They are moralistic and illustrated in AGONIZING sweetness, but they don’t read as “false”, like some other books that strongarm their stories to fit the moral or lesson.

I hope I’ve helped you put your finger on why some of those books you’ve come across (you know the ones) are so dang CORNY.

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