For Ms. Ty King

An Outing for Foxes

Once Upon a Book

Wide Mouth Froggy

The Tortoise and the Hare

This is how we protect Tom from coyotes

IF: Puzzled

I am terribly excited to attend my first SCBWI conference this weekend in Bettendorf, IA. On Friday I will attend a workshop for illustrators with my friend Candace. We were assigned a text to illustrate for the workshop. You can see her sketch here.

This is a new kind of illustration for me. I usually paint pictures that can be understood without text. But if someone views this illustration with out the text, I am sure they will be quite puzzled by the elephant falling from the snowy sky. Hopefully the "Magic Show" poster will help explain it!

Illustration assignment text:   
     
     Not far from the Apartments Polonaise, across the rooftops and through the darkness of the winter night, stood the Bliffendorf Opera House, and that evening upon its stage, a magician of advanced years and failing reputation performed the most astonishing magic of his career.   
     He intended to conjure a bouquet of lilies, but instead, the magician brought forth an elephant.   
     The elephant came crashing through the ceiling of the opera house amid a shower of plaster dust and roofing tiles and landed in the lap of a noblewoman, a certain Madam Bettine LaVaughn, to whom the magician had intended to present the bouquet.   
 
 —Exerpt from The Magician’s Elephant   
  by Kate DiCamillo






  

IF: Vocal/Wide Mouth Froggy

Have you heard the story about the Wide Mouth Froggy? My husband sang me the song last night. His father used to sing it to him when he was a kid. I love it. The song starts, "I'm a wide mouth froggy, what do you feed your babies?" Do you know this one?

Improved Sketch: Greyson's Adventure

This is a commission for a little boy's nursery. I made a couple changes to my first sketch. The setting is different (though not set in stone) and there is more interaction between the characters. The turtle is pulling a little sailboat for the rabbit and has a picnic blanket and snacks tied to his shell. This is going to be a chalk piece. I am cutting and preparing the board tonight. Looking forward to starting!

Spring time: Rabbits abound

I have several projects underway, and they all involve rabbits!
I redrew a portion of "The Lost Coin" to use for my logo/art cards. I am looking forward to working on these with my talented friend Meg, the designer behind Moglea.

Last week my husband and I put a chalk board behind our dinning room table bench and I drew this rabbit jumping over our clock. It was fun to use chalk again, it feels so natural I don't even have to think!

 
A couple days later I received a chalk commission from a woman who saw my work in Shenandoah. She requested a chalk illustration of a rabbit and turtle planning a grand adventure. Here is the sketch:

After these projects and an illustration assignment for the SCBWI conference in April, I will be shutting down the studio (aka kitchen table) to prepare for our camp season. Just a couple more weeks to go!

IF: Yield/Mustard Seed

It has been in the 70s all week! This is the time of year when I am torn between the garden and painting. While doing one, I am dreaming about the other. I hope they both give a high yield this year.

I have recently admired the work of Becky Kelly. I used her painting to select my color palette for this piece. As a result I feel like I have painted something fresh! I normally would have painted the sky with blues and the tree browns. It feels good to be painting outside my box.

The inside work, errands and painting are done. I can't wait to wake up in the morning, make some coffee and head outside!

The Mustard Seed

Father Mole taught his little mole children, "The  kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches."
Matthew 13:31-32
This is the first drawing I have done with out looking at any references. I am pretty proud of it! I hope to start painting it on Monday.