Jack and the Beanstalk

Trying out a new painting technique using Photoshop's standard Pastel Dark brush, set on Multiply. This may mean something to you Photoshop nerds. For the rest of you: Hey look! Beanstalk!

Summer Reading

What are you reading this summer? Something with unicorns I hope!

An archer

I just finished reading Daughter of Xanadu by Dori Jones Yang and it inspired me to draw a (pseudo-Mongolian) archer. Many inaccuracies abound in this little drawing, so don't judge me too harshly (all you Mongolian scholars and archery buffs that are reading this blog).

Village

More digital painting. I like little villages.

Reading

Just playing around with digital painting....

Alice in Wonderland redo

Long ago, (back in 2006!) when I was taking my first illustration for children class, I did an Alice in Wonderland piece for my portfolio.  I found that piece buried deep in the murky depths in my hard drive and decided to take another stab at it.

I kept some of the ink work from the original (albeit manipulated in Photoshop), changed the coloring, cleaned up the line work, re-painted Alice digitally, and cropped it. 

In the intervening years, I got a heck of a lot better at drawing and figured out how to use Photoshop much more effectively. (Draw every day. Seriously. It works.) Also I became obsessed with drawing hair. Having a Cintiq tablet also makes a huge difference in the ease of creating digitally (I HIGHLY recommend getting one. I love mine, totally worth it.)

She needs a bit of tweaking still, but I'm happy overall with the redo.  I wonder how much my style will change over the next 7 years.

The old piece:

Guest Post! Erika Barriga: Queen Quail is Quiet

 Today I'm happy to feature Erika Barriga, whose new book, Queen Quail is Quiet: and Other ABC Tongue Twisters, comes out today!  Her illustrations are truly delightful, and she was kind enough to stop by and share a bit of her process.

 

Queen Quail is Quiet: and other ABC Tongue Twisters came out today for e-readers for Kindle and in print!  Queen Quail is Quiet grew out of my love of learning and drawing.  I wanted to be a little different to approaching learning the alphabet. Creating a sentence illustrating each sound for every letter sounded challenging.  I started out by thinking of words for the letters and then forming a sentence I could illustrate.  Sketching of thumbnail ideas came next and was much easier to do once I realized this would no longer be just a project, but a book.  Most of the sketching was just on plain computer paper and once I refined the sketches into final artwork, I scanned in the images onto my computer.

The sketches were brought over to Adobe Illustrator as a layer.  Then I outlined everything in a bright color (easy to see and stands out) on another layer.  At this stage I think of colors and what would work for the entire book.

Then I made a copy of the outline layer and this is the layer that becomes the color layer.

Usually there is tweaking with the image just a bit (the swim cap for the duck is different from sketch to final), but I try to stay true to the original sketch since that is the foundation.  I believe it is better to sketch and erase than to work out those changes digitally on the computer. When the color is complete, I'll bring the image into Photoshop for additional little changes and finally end with applying a texture.
This book took over four years to complete from start to finish and I can't wait for my baby girl to flip through the pages.  I hope other kids will enjoy it too!

Delinquent Goldilocks

Delinquent Goldilocks came up recently from two different people I know, in two unrelated conversations.  So, here's my version.

5 legged dinosaur

The rare and mysterious 5 legged dinosaur.

You are doing fine

A hand lettered sign for those moments when you are freaking out.

Also available as wallpaper and a printable here: http://aeolidia.com/blog/2013/05/you-are-doing-fine-free-printable-by-aeolidia/

How to draw a bicycle

A little something I learned at the recent SCBWI Western Washington conference.

Announcement! I have an agent!

 

I'm pretty sure that designing this announcement was not a good use of my time.

NEVERTHELESS!

I now have an agent! I am represented by Alexandra Penfold at Upstart Crow Literary!

Birds both real and imagined

 

Bird silhouettes. I've always loved drawing birds, but I imagine these were inspired by the David Attenborough nature documentary we watched on Sunday.

Sewing Machine

A little sewing machine spot illustration that I was doing to go along with a logo.  I decided to scrap this idea, but I still liked the illustration.

Once upon a time there was a little boy

I've been super busy with projects lately and I'm not allowed to show anything yet!  In the meantime here's a sketch that's a bit on the odd side that I colored in on my breaks from my other projects.

Mega block tower!

I've been very busy drawing things for other people, but snatched a bit of time to make this for myself.  It's going to go on the flip side of my new promo postcards. Pencil + digital color.

Snowy woods, the sequel

This is what happens when you take a bit of snowy woods and repeat it using the magic of Photoshop.  And then invert it, again using the magic of Photoshop.  Instant forest scene and instant nighttime birch trees scene.

Snowy Woods

I'm working on a book cover and trying to figure out how to draw woods.  The cover is not actually a snow scene, but I liked the way it looked so I threw in some snow.

Happy Valentine's Day

Here's some foxes kissing in honor of Valentine's Day.

Watercolor birds experiment

Some quick watercolor birds; playing with wet on wet watercolor.