Sketchpad. Hot girl with Spots

I found this toothy, smiling girl in a magazine in the doctor's office yesterday.  Gary just had back surgery and we were in for a post-surgery check.  The wait was surprisingly short, so I had only maybe five minutes to draw this.

My purse sketchpad is currently probably 6"x8".  Just fits.  Anywhere I go, I sketch quick pictures into it when I find myself waiting for something.  I view my little sketchpads as cookbooks of ideas.  Everything in them is rough, but they're a plethora of ideas, sketches, reminders and notes at my fingertips when I'm casting around for a subject for a serious painting.

Generally, I draw in my purse sketchpads only with pen.  Pitt pens to be exact.  What this means is that there's no erasing, which I also enjoy.  To me, it makes the drawing appear fresher, more immediate and interesting, with more movement and quirkiness.  (Is 'quirkiness' a word? Quirky. Quirkyness - definitely not.  Let's stay with quirkiness.)

This week I was teaching my students about complimentary colors, along with warm colors and cool colors.  I took the florescent, HOT colors along to compliment their cool backgrounds.  They had rollers and stamps and all kinds of texture makers to cover their cool colors.

For a moment in one class I was searching around for something upon which to spread some of this hot stuff, and remembered my smiling girl.  Exactly.  So, what you see here is a finger painted happy person, with textured spots rolled all over her.  Sometimes art is a lot more fun when you just let it flow.

Book Illustrations, Part Five

At this point, I've created my first character, Jeweley, and Jem was hot on her heels.  Knowing that I was going to be painting them over and over, I laid out a page of color notes to eliminate any guesswork. Each time I painted a character, I referred to these notes to make sure I didn't use the wrong color - yikes!

Jeweley ended up being blues and violets - Bombay Violet and Rowney Blue to be specific!  Many of the colors I chose for them were inspired by the books I paged through of jewels.

Below you will find Jem in all his glory.  At this point, we'd hammered out his two body colors, Bombay Turquoise and FW's Emerald Green, but I hadn't hit yet upon his clothing colors.  The orange shirt wasn't working, and he ended up with a white shirt, to which I added blue shadows.

Here I've got his face, hair and skin pretty dark.  In the final book illustrations, I lightened them up quite a bit.  Same as his sister, his legs and arms are faceted, to look like jewels.


So... two out of five characters are now developed!  It was time at this point to paint the first page of the story, Jeweley and Jem looking into their home through the window, wondering what Mom's up to. :)

Book Illustrations, Part 4, Jeweley Revealed

With each picture I drew, we'd go through a process.  The contract stated a sketch and a final for each illustration.  I would do my own preliminary sketches as I was developing the picture, then I'd do a draft and send it to the author, Kimberly Vogel.  Sometimes she would send it to the editor, and they'd work on it together.  Sometimes the editor (thanks, Kitty!) caught things we never even thought of - thank goodness!  Step 1.

Step 2 - she'd make comments and I would put those changes into the final.

Step 3 - Final, in pencil.  If there were no changes to be made, I'd ink it in and paint it.

So, after reading that, you can see that there was an impressive process of back and forths for every picture.

After working together for some time on Jeweley, my first character, I drew this picture.  After choosing the color scheme and coloring parts of her in I leaned back.

There, looking back at me was my girl.  And I knew it.  And so did Kimberly.  We had done it, together.  Very satisfying.

Book Illustrations, Part 3

 Well, here is some of my work showing the development of characters.  It took me a while to get the first characters, Jeweley and her little brother, Jem.  I was also still working through making them more jewel-like and less rock-like.

Here's an early Jeweley.

 Here's an early Jem.  I wanted him to be a chubby little dude, but the author didn't, so he went through some changes before we got him right.  Jeweley is in the beginning stages of her more-than-awesome hairstyle-to-be.

 Here are both Jem and Jeweley, looking pretty rock-like.  At this point, we're getting closer with Jeweley's outfit - both the author and I liked the ruffles, but she decided upon a dress without the shorts.  Jem's still a little chubby bub.

Here's Jem REALLY chubby - I just couldn't resist for some reason!  And he's very stoney (I guess, deep down in my heart of hearts, I always thought of rock people as fatter.)

There's a hint of the future jewel in him, however, in the newer coloring.  Before, I was still picturing them as rock people, therefore giving them rocky colors.  Here at least I'm beginning to come through with the jewel tones.

Next post - Jeweley revealed!!

Book Illustrations, Part 2

 As promised, here are some more preliminaries to the book I just finished illustrating.  The name of the book is Ribbons of Rainbows, and it's written by Kimberly Vogel, in connection with RLM Ministries, http://www.reflectivelifeministries.org/

At this point, I was still developing characters for the Stone family.  I couldn't get past the fact that they were the STONE family, and at this point was making them more rock-like, as opposed to being jewel-like.

Here's a little sketch of Jem and his sister, Jeweley looking into the window of their home.

The second picture is what's coming from within their home - ribbons of rainbows emanating from their mother.  These were the first ideas of rainbows, and we still had a lot of work to do on them, too.

In the third picture, you can see the stout, rock-like legs.  The author and I had to do quite a bit of work and communication before I cam to the faceted jewel legs.  We're still in the developmental stage here.

The fourth picture shows some of the faces I was playing around with.  The first two characters I needed

to develop were Jem, the little boy in the Stone family, and his big sister, Jeweley.

Simultaneous with all this, I was working out a color scheme for each of the five characters.  Each individual would have his or her own color scheme.  There was a lot to consider - making sure each person looked good with his clothing, that they complimented each other, and that they went well with their surroundings.

More on that later!

The book, Ribbons of Rainbows, by Kimberly Vogel, is in the editing stage right now and will soon be published.  We're all waiting on pins and needles at this point!

Quick Sketch of Cello Momma

This is a VERY quick sketch I did in iridescent oil sticks on dark paper.  It probably took me five minutes.  At orchestra the other night, my friend was playing her cello with her son on her lap.  It was such a perfect picture, I just had to snap it.  Darling.  Sometime I'm going to do a full painting of this.

Chamber of Commerce Show Upcoming; Rangoon Creeper Painting

Below is a collage I just did that I'm going to put in my upcoming show for sale.  Outside I planted a Rangoon Creeper on our arbor, and it's growing great guns!  Gorgeous pink flowers, they're also fragrant, which is very important to me.  Not only fragrant, they're headily fragrant.  Yum.

This one I painted in happy, bright colors, a combination of liquid acrylics and watercolor.  After that, I found varying papers with the colors, textures and message I wanted to add in, and slowly built up the collage to heighten interest and give more depth and mystery.  Of course flowers make me sing, and there are so many things in life to sing about, so I had to sneak some music in, too!  This particular music is from a musical theater show I performed in, so it's special to me.

Knowing the acrylic medium provides a barrier to paint, I painted the music before I laid it in, wanting to bring out the leafy, cool colors.  Once finished, I gave it another layer of gel medium and of course a layer of UV protectant varnish.  It measures 11x14 unframed.

I like it!  My show will be at the Woodlands Chamber of Commerce starting March 31.  I plan on selling this piece for $300.00.