Here’s a little something I did initially for the 21 Day Drawing Challenge by Von Glitschka (Day 6: Get Cubistic). I recently picked up the Megapack set of Photoshop brushes from the awesome Kyle T. Webster, and thought this illustration would be a great opportunity for me to play around with them.
Had the privilege of doing the cover illustration for a children’s storytelling CD called Tales From Cultures Far And Near. As the title suggests, the CD features traditional stories from various cultures around the world. The story I picked to illustrate was from Japan, called Two Monks, so I made my first-ever attempt at emulating the style of Japanese woodprints. The CD is published by Well-Trained Mind, and you can purchase it here: welltrainedmind.com
It’s been awhile since I did anything for Illustration Friday, but I’ve been wanting to get back into it. I’ve also been doing Von Glitschka’s 21 Day Drawing Challenge, so I thought of combining the two this week since Day 7 is Draw What You Like. This was a ton of fun to draw. I recently downloaded an awesome set of Photoshop brushes- Kyle T. Webster’s Ultimate Megapack, and they have really opened up a whole new world of exciting possibilities. You can check them out here: https://www.kylebrush.com/
I am currently finishing up the last few illustrations for my first picture book! Written by Angie Miles, Short Pump Bump! highlights many of the people and places that make Richmond, Virginia such a great place to live. Preorders are available at www.shortpumpbump.com
More info soon!
Awhile back, I attempted to take on the “21 Day Drawing Challenge“, from Lynda.com’s Von Glitschka. I started off quite impressively (You can see my Day 1 drawing here.) but very quickly found myself wanting to use this opportunity to experiment with color and brushes in Photoshop. Which meant that I was going to need to spend a little more time on them. I also had the good fortune of becoming pretty busy with actual paying work within just a few days of starting the challenge. In the end, I’ve decided to settle on turning it into “21 Inspirational Drawing Prompts That You Should Totally Do When You Have A Few Spare Moments.”
The illustrations below are from the day five challenge, which was to draw three different versions of a character (I chose Bigfoot), refining the design each time. Not sure if I “refined” so much as “completely redesigned,” but I had fun and I think at least the first two came out really well.
Recently I had the privilege of doing some more children’s illustration for Pennsylvania’s Power Kids Electronic Library. This time around I got to illustrate a few state symbols, the white-tailed deer, model K4s 1361 locomotive, and a mountain laurel.
I also got to do a fun pair of illustrations of Ben Franklin conducting some children singing Pennsylvania’s State Song.
Special thanks to The Ivy Group, who handled the site design, for bringing me on board once again! You can visit the Power Kids website here.
Here is my first day of Von Glitschka’s 21 Day Drawing Challenge where we had to draw a cat. I liked it so much, I went ahead and finished him in Photoshop. My solution was to come up with an image that conveys my own fondness of cats and of what great companions they are (contrary to popular misconceptions!). I also took the opportunity to experiment a bit more with my approach to digital coloring, which I found very rewarding. Somewhere along the way, I got inspired by the old animated intro to My Three Sons, which helped me to go for a more elongated composition. I think it helps to convey the relationship between the cat and his owner more from the cat’s perspective, which is fitting since “cat” was the prompt for the day’s challenge.
I got contacted last Fall by local design studio The Ivy Group to work on a really great project for the Pennsylvania Department of Education. They were updating the look of their online library, Power Kids, and needed a couple of illustrations of Ben Franklin, and one of a friendly librarian.
I had a great time working on this. Not only was it a fun project, but everyone involved was really great to work with as well. You can check out the site here: http://kids.powerlibrary.org/Remote/Remote.asp?ID=eCard
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| My portfolio display at the SCBWI conference. |
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| I was there! |
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| A couple of sketches from the event. |