Children of the World: Asia

I am working on a series of portraits for a children's curriculum. The series includes 6 children representing 6 different continents. There are several challenges that come with this assignment: Drawing children and creating the right skin tone for each nationality. All new to me!
Each child will be participating in an activity that children can relate to. "Asia" is flying a kite!

Now I am beginning sketches for "Australia." I imagine her with wild hair, snuggling a koala.

Banana Slug Bash

This is what banana slugs and snails do after the sun goes down. Tonight they are celebrating a particular slug's birthday!

I painted this for my dear friend Piper Hobbs (inspired by her wild imagination) to celebrate her birthday, which was quite a while ago! Piper was the first "stranger" to buy my artwork when it was on display in Omaha. Since then she had sold many of my prints and paintings in her delightful shop, and continues to encourage me in my pursuits. We have become good friends and I always look forward to visiting her and her husband in Shenandoah. I always leave with my sails filled and new inspiration : )

Many of my painting have a hidden snail. I decided to make an appearance at the party in snail form. Piper, which slug would you like to be?

Here is the drawing and a picture of the process.

SCBWI poster

Here is my illustration in action. I really like how Dorothia flipped the owl on the right side! He looks great! Looking forward to celebrating my 30th birthday at the SCBWI conference this April : )

You can click on the image to make it bigger.

Happy Valentines Day!

One hour to paint!

I really wanted to paint today and started thinking about it the moment I woke up, but I ran out of time! Probably because I had a really strong cup of french press coffee, causing unfocused energy and a bazillion chatty phone calls. After getting 2/3rds finished with my to do list I told myself that I could sit down and paint as long as it only took me one hour to draw, paint and post something.

Here it is!

Someone has been drinking sleepy time tea instead of french press! I am really happy with this sketchy and loose result. Sometimes I annoy myself with my neat and tidy watercolors. I need to loosen up!

Now it has been one hour. Time to get back to reality and fold some laundry.

Alannah's Horse

I am doing an art trade with my cousin Alannah! Every week (or so) at school she has the opportunity to create and paint a ceramic piece that is fired over the weekend. My Aunt and Uncle's house if full of cool ceramics that she and her brothers have made throughout the years. I always admire them all when I visit their home in California and asked if she would make me a little ceramic fox!

In return I offered to paint her a picture. She knew exactly what she wanted: a paint horse, white with brown spots, feathers in its hair and one blue eye! Perfect! I like a girl that knows what she wants ; )

I finished her horse last night:

Here are a couple examples of Alannah's sweet ceramics. I can't wait to meet my little fox! I will show him off when he arrives.

Peacock Portrait

After "The Sky is the Limit" I was inspired to quickly move on to my next commission, a portrait of a peacock! The lady who I was painting for said that she liked the peacock for its religious symbolism. I wasn't familiar with the symbolism, so I looked it up so that I could incorporate it into the painting.

The peacock is a symbol of eternity, so I wondered how I might paint that in. I think about forever when I look at the stars, so I decided to paint a starry night sky that reflected in the first row of the peacock's feathers.

As soon as I began painting the light green feathers I realized that I should have made the sky purple because purple and green are contrasting colors. I had already removed the masked stars so I painted the next two purple layers carefully painting around stars. The result was worth the time, creating high contrast. This painting was a challenge in many ways, and I enjoyed the challenge!

I had to pull out my Daniel Smith watercolor sample sheet to find the right colors for a peacock. I also found some iridescent sample colors and added some shimmer. You can't see it in the scan, but it is really pretty! Parts of the head and neck shine, along with the blue "eyes" of the feathers and the little green feathers close to his body.

I have fallen into a nice working schedule that I am going to try to keep 3 to 4 days a week, working 10am to 5pm on illustration and art commissions. I have plenty of time in the morning to read and get chores done and then I have time to make dinner and get ready for our evening activities. I like it!