completed Water Horse

I was afraid to keep pushing this one for fear of overworking, so Water Horse is now complete (watercolor on Yupo).

watercolor horses continued

The watercolor horses series continues with watercolor on Yupo paper, which is much larger than the watercolor paper I was using before for this series. The Yupo is 20" x 26". This is the first time I've worked on this paper. It's very slick and rather fun to manipulate the watercolor on its surface. My aim is to complete several watercolor horses images in a series and see what happens--how they change, what works and what doesn't.

watercolor horses continued

okay...this image is not working. Now it's overworked. I think the best thing here is to work in a series, completing several spontaneous paintings, and see what comes out of it. The image is not meant to be realistic. It is more about the spirit of the horse, not what the horse looks like.

watercolor horses

a work in progress

color pencil

This is the start of a color pencil drawing--very sketchy, very little detail. The image comes from the 2009 PAWS Mardi Gras pet parade that I volunteered for--the 2010 event is coming up very soon. I'm using a limited paletter of Prismacolor pencils on hotpressed watercolor paper.

creating a character...

As I study our St. Bernard, I'm trying to come up with a character that has her "Saint-ness" about it. I watch her as she runs, rolls, sleeps, and stares (she's wondering what I'm up to!).

IF: entangled

The mice were very tired of the barn cat. He guarded the corn, chased them, often caught them, and made their lives miserable. After the cat gorged himself on too much leftover turkey, it was an easy task to "entangle" the big nuisance.

Day Two of Challenge to Myself

This is from yesterday & should have been posted then, but my computer was doing something weird and...so I'm posting it today. Still trying for a consistent character. Here's Minnie playing. It's amazing how a 100 lb dog can jump and play like a puppy!

Day One of "My Challenge"

I'm calling this Day One of My Challenge to myself. I'm headed for the SCBWI-NY Conference in late January with my portfolio tucked under my arm (and a sheepish grin on my face because I'm an older fine artist-turned-illustrator who's finally pursuing her dream with a delighted determination to write and illustrate children's books). Give or take a few days for cooking & serving Thanksgiving & Christmas dinners, there are approximately 65 days to get my portfolio in shape. In between that, I teach full time & it's no exageration that teaching sucks your creative energy almost completely out of your body! To counteract that, I try to do at least one creative thing for myself a day, usually drawing (my first love).

Along with that portfolio, I want a really dynamic book dummy attached. In the past, I said I'd do this--include a book dummy--but this time I'm aiming for following through on that thought. I have an advantage (I hope) because I'm both a writer and an illustrator. Inspired by the words & tips from http://humbleartsjournal.blogspot.com/ and http://wendymartinillustration.com/, I'm now challenging myself to use those skills to full advantage.

I'm developing a character based on our new pet, a St. Bernard named Minnie. These are sketchs of her sleeping and a head sketch for a possible character. Maintaining a consistent character is hard! In trying to create a character of her, I now have several different dogs but no consistent character. Wow--it really is hard, but the challenge has started, so I need to stop complaining and just draw and write and write and draw. More later!

IF: Unbalanced

We have just adopted a St. Bernard, Bella Minnie, from the Texas St. Bernard Rescue. With four cats and now two dogs (one small one), the house seems "unbalanced". The cats are constantly staring up at Bella Minnie as if to say "Wow! That's a big one!" Actually, I should have drawn Bella Minnie much larger (100 lbs worth!). Bella Minnie is now about to be a character in a book I'm working on....