Illustration Friday: Repair

The best kinds of repair comes from an older brother who loves you.

Illustration Friday: Too Late

Here's my latest illo for Stories For Children. It's too late for Jamie's mom to take him to the store so he can buy a pair of pants that actually fits. What will he do? Find out next month in Stories for Children magazine (look for Jamie's Pants).

I don't know if anyone else feels like this, but I'm getting pickier about my work. I look at things I've illustrated and don't feel as confident about them. I nit-pick my illustrations, finding so many little things that I don't like and that I should've done differently. It doesn't mean I'll stop illustrating, but it's easy to feel discouraged and feel like I'm not making the progress I should. In this illo, for instance, I like the layout and characters, but I'm not satisfied with the colors. They're okay, but I don't look and think, "Now that's amazing and I couldn't think of anything better to do with it." Sigh. I think my problem lies in that I want things to be true to life, yet I still want playfulness . . . and I let reality take over the more playful side. Oh well. One day I'll get it. In the meantime I'll keep drawing and painting. And by the way, I'm not looking for anyone to laud words of encouragement. I'll still keep doing what I do because I love it; I simply wonder if anyone else laments the laborious process of growth when it comes to illustrating. 

Time for bed! See you next time.

Camera Man

I drew this a few weeks ago when my four-year-old son had an obsession with the camera, especially enjoying shooting his feet. I really like doing pencil drawings and the way that it forces me to be expressive in ways other than with color.

Sorry about the lack of posts lately. My 11- month-old is teething, and NOT happy about it at all. It takes a lot out of me and by the end of the day, I'm one weary mom. But this, too, shall pass. I'm also updating my website since I'll be sending out another round of postcards any day. Oh, the anticipation of what could happen! Even if nothing does, I'm excited about doing it.

Stories For Children Magazine illo's

Here are a couple of illo's I just finished for Stories for Children Magazine. The top is a coloring page and the bottom is for a story (Friends or Losers -- check it out in October). I've never painted autumn trees before and it was really fun to do this time. I also really enjoy doing line drawings. It's fun for me to express things with the thickness of the lines. 

Watercolor Wednesdays

Here are my most recent contributions to Watercolor Wednesdays. The top is Noah creating an umbrella (before receiving instructions to build an ark) and the next is of a daddy dancing with his daughter. 

I like the idea of Noah (my husband's) and the way I drew him, but I'm not as satisfied with the colors and the feel of the whole illustration.

I'm pretty happy with the way the dancers turned out. I love dancing and twirling around in dresses and LOVED it when I was a kid. I was experimenting with this girl's dress by using various rounds of salt in watercolor and feel it turned out well.

More pictures

Here are a couple of illo's I've done recently. The top is for a story in this month's issue of Stories For Children Magazine (The Monstrous Mile; my illo didn't get anti-aliased and looks really grainy, however) and the bottom illo is for last week's Watercolor Wednesday (the prompt was a tribute to Beatrix Potter).

I feel like I am progressing as an illustrator. Besides the fact that I feel like I'm spending so much time and energy being a mom (to two amazing children), I'm amazed that I've been able to progress at all. I attribute a lot of my success to the fact that we frequently visit the zoo, the aquarium, and museums, that I'm constantly around children, and that my oldest son and I read a lot of books. All of these things give me an opportunity to examine real life things and to scrutinize what works and what doesn't in children's book illustrations. Although I feel like I'm improving, I also recognize that I have a LONG way to go. I feel like I'm truly ready and good enough to do magazine illo's (and a book if an editor thinks so too) . . . but I still want to be better. There are days when I feel like I'll never be as good as I want to be, but I am mostly optimistic. 

Enough blabbering. It's time for me to go do what I've been dreaming about all day while playing with my kids.

Illustration Friday: Memories

I illustrated this a couple months ago for Stories for Children magazine. It's a memoir of two girls sharing a summer blanket after one of them broke their leg. I hope you enjoy it!