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.

IF: Intention/The Lost Coin

 

I am really excited about how this illustration turned out. It came with a lot of work and rework. Here are the first two attempts:

I got about half way painting this first one and found that I was having a hard time painting the light and shadows. I had made the lighting too extreme. The composition was really cluttered with everything happening on a linear plane.  The rejoicing friends also seemed disconnected from the retrieval of the coin.










 I worked on redrawing with Sara in her studio. She let me use her light box to move my animals around and rework the back ground. I liked it and began to go over my lines with pen and realized that my new pen was a lot thicker than my normal one. So I had to trash it. I started tracing again until Sara came over turned all my illustrations upside down and told me to just start completely over. Er!.....ok. I worked and worked and took about 3 days to redraw it. But I am so glad that I did! I feel like the piece is a lot stronger.

The Lost Coin Revised

I had trouble painting my last "Lost Coin" illustration. I was able to identify 3 reasons for the difficulty: new watercolors that I am not used too, all of the activity was on the same plane, and the lighting set up was weird.
After much trial and error I have successfully redrawn my illustration. I changed the perspective and tried to create more interaction between the characters. The lighting will be softer too.
I have a hard time reworking my drawings because I can never imagine them being better than the first. Redrawing them really pushes me to think, problem solve and improve. It also forces me to swallow my pride and be teachable. Hard lessons, but worth it.
You will also notice that my lines are softer. I am going to try let my colors do the defining work my lines usually do. I need to paint this very carefully and thoughtfully.

The Lost Coin

"Suppose a woman has 10 silver coins and loses one. 

Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house

and search carefully until she finds it?

And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors

together and says,

'Rejoice with me, I have found my lost coin.'

In the same way, I tell you, 

there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels 

of God over one sinner who repents."

Luke 15:8-10

Trying my Hand at Designing

I submitted these to Minted's Children's Birthday Party Invitation Design Challenge. Designing is sooo different from illustrating. I think I am in over my head, but I enjoyed learning some of the basics. Thanks Meg!

IF: Twirl

Here is another project I am working on. I think it fits "twirl" for Illustration Friday. 

Round and around they go!

A Gift