Sweet Square #15

In honor of "Talk Like a Pirate Day" I had an image of a treasure chest in my mind and wanted to play around with hand lettering today. For some reason I keep getting drawn to natural fibers and colors. Maybe tomorrow something a little brighter might pop up...

Sweet Square #14

Picked up a good ole fashioned pencil again and then brought this into photoshop to add a wash to it. Our son took a shot at drawing today too, so I wanted to document it.

Sweet Square #13/Illustration Friday "Burst"

I've been working on this idea in my head ever since I saw this little kid get smashed in the face by his big brother's ball. I have been studying the face and how it morphs what something elastic smashes into it. You see some pretty funny faces!!!

So this idea transformed into a quick sketch for the Illustration word burst. I my try to use this concept in more detailed future sketch, and try to fine tune it a little more. In the meantime this was a really fun to study...

Sweet Square #12

Lovely day filled with Church, Family Grocery Trip, Hazelnut Coffee, Football, AND Baseball! I promised our daughter we would start "Scribble Sundays" so we have have a set time each week to paint or draw together. Today we both sketched out our square, and then held it up to the window and traced it with a sharpie onto our watercolor paper.

After that, it was time to mix colors and paint! My inspiration was looking through the vera bradley catalog earlier and all of the lovely colors... Our 5 year old wanted to create a unicorn... I actually think her square turned out better than mine today! Regardless we had a great time.

Now off to make Nachos for the 2nd half of the football game, toss some laundry in the wash, and get ready for the baseball game. Gotta love relaxing Sundays!!

Our 5 year old's beautiful rendition of a unicorn:

Sweet Square #11

I tried out some charcoal today. It's a little different than watercolor because I feel like I personally can't get as much detail, but it was fun playing anyway :)

Sweet Square #10

Love this crisp fall air. Makes me think of camping in October. Here is my 3X3 Sweet Square for today

Sweet Square #9

Didn't have any free time today to play today other than while I had coffee this morning. I doodled on my iPhone in the Sketch Club app.

(I couldn't find my stylus either, so I used my finger instead. It was difficult to get much detail but it kind of had a nice loose effect.)

Sweet Square #8/ Illustration Friday-Imagination

I will probably not have time to whip up another 3X3 tomorrow so I made another one tonight. Experimenting with tones and highlights along with watercolors and textures. Pretty happy with it so far, but it still needs some work.

Sweet Square #7

I have truly enjoyed experimenting in Painter with the Watercolor Brush. This was a quick painting I did this morning... without the mess! It's not my usual style but I like it.

Sweet Square #2 - #6

I needed to catch up so last night & this morning I drew a couple of things...

Pen & Water Color Pencil

Pencil Character sketch

Breakfast this morning

Duck sketch in Brushes on the iPhone

Quick Not so great sketch of my Husband & our daughter watching the football game last night... thought they would be still but they were busy cheering, and so was I!

Sweet Square #1...

Just came across this fabulous idea on Diandra Mae's Blog called "A Month of Experimentation". She was inspired by Melissa Sweet at the SCBWI conference to create every day.

I just had this same conversation at the Highlights workshop last weekend with a couple of other Illustrators. It was so inspiring creating for 5 straight days, we all wondered how we could stay focused when we had to go back to the "everyday world". So even though I'm a few days late I figured I would give it a go...

This is our kitten Baxter who happened to be passed out next to me while I was testing out my trial version of Painter 12. He's much easier to draw than our non-stop running kiddos... Although I think they'll show up here a couple of times since I'm 6 days behind :)

IF-Imagination

Just got back from the Advanced Illustrator Workshop at Highlights this past weekend and one of the things I learned is that in order to really speak to the children you have to open your imagination and play more!

Melissa Sweet has a great explanation in the back of her book Balloons Over Broadway and we got to learn how to play 1st hand with stuffed animals during an exercise with Ruth Sanderson. Lots of people can draw, but in Children's Book Illustration we need to push our imagination a little further... and have fun!

I created this Illustration in 2010 when I designed the Logo for the Eastern PA SCBWI Pocono Retreat. They went with the owl logo, but this picture represented children's imagination in the world of books.

Highlights Founation :: Advanced Illustrator Workshop 2012

What an amazing weekend. I attended the Advanced Illustrator workshop at the Highlights Foundation. Met so many wonderful inspiring people and learned a lot more about the Children's Book industry. I also left with a wealth of knowledge on new techniques in painting and printmaking... oh and some great recipes too!!

We also had portfolio reviews and an Illustrator art show and I learned throughout the weekend about things that I have created that are working, some that are not and how I can improve in some areas.

So thankful to all of the generous people who shared their time with us this weekend to help us grow and learn along this amazing journey. Here are a couple of pictures form the weekend. I'll upload more in a few days...

 

IF-Teacher

My grandmother came over from Sicily and although she was a young child she stayed close to her roots. She made all of her sauce from scratch, ravioli that would melt in your mouth, and her own Pizzelles. She was always a great teacher except no recipe ever had exact ingredients. But somehow her food was always amazing. Me on the other I tried her way of " a pinch of this and a dash of that"... and my food is always hit or miss. Never the less, she was an amazing teacher.

IF- Suspense

One thing to keep in mind when developing pages in a story, it's important to keep your reader interested.

Suspense is a great thing that you can create to make the reader eager to find out what happens on the next page...


Here are the other two pages that take place Before & After the main page...

Sequence

Last 3 pages leading up to end of the book. Been working on sequence, character development & consistency in stories and characters. Fun work, but a challenge.

IF-Forward

"Forward" seemed fitting for this image. I had to redraw it twice. This has been my biggest obstacle in drawing, but have found the ability to let go of the original design for the sake of making the overall illustration better... One more foot "forward" on this adventurous path of Children's Book Illustration, learning & growing.

IF-Highlight 2

Earlier today I posted about all of the highlights happening recently, then I started playing around with a new program that I got for Christmas and it turned into this woman with highlights. Literal I know, but so much fun drawing... :)

IF-Highlight

Found this cool new app on my iPhone that lets you create really cool lines & highlights. This also seemed appropriate because Christmas is the highlight of my year (and the sled ornaments that my grandmother gives me each year). I also just put in an application today for an advanced Illustrators workshop put on by Highlights Foundation.

And now that I'm thinking about it, I forgot that I was just asked to submit samples to be highlighted on the website for the Eastern PA chapter of SCBWI. This year is off to a great start so far. Lots of highlights/blessings to be thankful for! Funny how the word "highlight" can remind you of so many different things!

Dream big & follow though...
- Kelli

Fantastic Giveaway from a Inspirational Blog!

They are offering a wonderful giveaway over at Bowl Full of Lemons!
http://abowlfulloflemons.blogspot.com/2011/12/giveaway-time-jo-totes.html These totes are fabulous! There is enough room for your camera, many lenses AND if you play your cards right you can stuff a baby bottle (with the lid on of course) in one of the extra pockets in a pinch!!!! Good Luck!