Fox and grass

I wanted to see if my love of drawing hair would translate into drawing other things that are similar in texture, specifically, grass and fur.  Turns out, yep.  I may be slightly crazy, but this actually was a lot of fun to draw.  Plus, foxes!  Cute!

Hand studies

I think it's pretty obvious what this post is about.

Character sketches - Joy and Sadness

Some character sketches for a sketch challenge - depicting "joy" and "sadness."  It was a good exercise in character consistency.

Drawing curly hair

I decided to draw some curly hair.  For no reason, really, other than wanting to see how to draw curly hair.  My only insights into the process are: draw a bunch of squiggly shapes.  Then, draw a lot of little short curvy lines going one way and then the other.  Make some parts darker and leave some lighter.  After doing this for a long time, you will have a nice drawing of curly hair.

Princess Character Studies

Some character studies for a sketch challenge.  I really like drawing this little princess.  Sadness, Fear, Anger, Surprise, Joy and Disgust were the emotions I had to express.  You can probably figure out which is which for yourself. 

Some miniature portrait paintings

I did these two little portraits recently for a friend's birthday.  They are in little metal frames that I purchased years ago somewhere in the American Southwest; they have a glass door that is open for the purposes of photographing them.

Some pencil portraits

Taking a break from a project to draw some hair.

Regency hunk

I don't know what possessed me to draw this, but I assure you, it was excessively diverting.

Miss Elizabeth Bennet

This week's Alphabooks is E for Miss Elizabeth Bennet, from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Alphabooks - Mr. Darcy

I chose Mr. Darcy for Alphabooks this week (of course I did Mr. Darcy, I had no choice, really).  Mr. Darcy, regency hunk and eligible bachelor.  And that's the Jane Austen font in use - based on her handwriting!

In other Austen related news, The Guardian had an article about a portrait of Jane Austen at age 13, and inexplicably decided to link to a comic on this very blog.  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/08/jane-austen-portrait-as-young-girl (my link is in the last paragraph).

Illustration Friday sketch

Alas, I didn't get my Illustration Friday done in time... here's the sketch of what it would have been if I had gotten my act together in time.  Oddly enough, the prompt was "Hurry!"  I guess I should have taken that to heart a bit more.

Alphabooks - Cat Chant and Chrestomanci

Well, it's the letter C this week for Alphabooks - and I chose Cat Chant (whose real name is Eric) and Chrestomanci (whose actual name is Christopher Chant), from Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones. 

Chrestomanci is quite dapper, and I had quite a crush on him as a kid, and to be honest, still do.  He's just so dreamy. This is also quite a bit what I imagine Mr. Darcy to look like.  Probably my Pride and Prejudice obsession all stems from reading Charmed Life.

Alphabooks - Becky Sharp

My entry for Alphabooks this week - B is for Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair by William Thackeray.

Recently completed project - Surly Sheep

 

I recently finished this logo design project for Surly Sheep.  This was a fun one.  And I got to do hand lettering, which is always a hoot.

Still Tweaking

Ever trying to refine my style... I made some subtle changes to this one.  I added some shading in colored pencil and graphite to give it a little more depth and texture.  I think I like it better.  The old version is here.

Illustration Friday - Hitched

Wow! Participating in Illustration Friday for two weeks in a row!  Shocking! This is just a pencil sketch colored in Photoshop... and a few character studies for the same girl.  There's something about drawing angry children that I find very entertaining.

Illustration Friday - Jump

A little Photoshop experiment for Illustration Friday.

Website update

Just a note to say that I recently updated my website with all my new portfolio pieces.

Recently completed project - Miss Maureen

I recently finished this illustration project for Miss Maureen, an Australian musician who is releasing her debut album of children's music.  It was a really fun project to work on, not only because I got to draw a mermaid, but also because I got to have Skype meetings with them and learn all sorts of bizarre Australian cultural tidbits.  I illustrated 20 characters, one for each song, as well as a few other incidental illustrations and an album cover.

Here are just a few of my favorite images, and the album cover I designed for them.  Website design and logo design was done by Marke.  All 20 of the character images can be seen at MissMaureen.com.

Putting together a physical portfolio - for Illustrators

I wanted to create a post on putting together a physical illustration portfolio, since I had been furiously Googling how to do so and felt like there was not enough information out there for illustrators.

So, here's what I did (please forgive the terrible pictures):

I bought a screwpost presentation book - I got this really pretty one (the Pina Zingaro Vista from Dick Blick) that has a translucent cover, so you can see the first image even before you open the book.  I agonized about whether or not I should have a title page with my name and contact info and decided that I would rather just start out with an image.

I used Epson double sided matte presentation paper and printed all my images full bleed (allowing for about 1/2" on the left side of the page that would be hole punched and stuck into the book.  I used a folding bone to score the pages so they would lie flat.  I also used double stick tape and adhered the pages together (in particular the double page spreads) so they would be perfectly lined up and not shift around.

The reason  I used the double sided paper is so I could stretch my landscape images across the page - I picked up the tip about the double sided paper from Eliza Wheeler's great posts about her portfolio: (http://wheelerstudio.com/category/portfolio-2/)  :

I picked up another suggestion from my online critique buddy Donna Jeanne Koepp (http://www.whitewolfstudioart.com/) to print any images that were not full bleed on a black background.  I just dropped the images onto a black background in Photoshop and printed it out.  I made sure that any landscape format images that I didn't print across two pages were printed smaller on a portrait size piece of paper, so the book didn't need to be turned in order to be viewed.

I have a couple of different styles in my portfolio, so I tried to arrange my images in such a way that they would flow logically from one image to the next.  I also had two black and white images that I interspersed with the color images.  I tried to start with one of the strongest pieces and end with the second strongest. Finally, don't put anything in your portfolio that you are not excited about.  As I was developing my style it really helped having my critique pals Donna and Brian Bowes (http://studiobowesart.com/) figure out which images were working together and which I should cut.
 
The last piece in the portfolio: