HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Illustration Friday Week 4

I'm back for another edition of Illustration Friday challenge.  This week's word is "rock."

The first thing that automatically came to mind was rock, paper, scissors.  And then I thought of rock and roll and sooooooo.....that is what I went with and came up with this.

Here is my rough draft.

 Then I colored it.

Added some finishing touches and Voila....."Rock" was created.

This concludes this edition of Illustration Friday challenge.  I hope to see you back next week.  

See what I did for the other Illustration Friday Challenges:

Illustration Friday Challenge Week One-

Illustration Friday Challenge Week 2-

Illustration Friday Challenge Week 3-

Until then, I'm back at the drawing board.!

New Postcards

In my earlier post, "Illustrations for my New Postcard", I talked about how I created a new illustrator postcard because my first postcard for mailing was a fail.  Anyway,   I mentioned I would show you what they looked like when they came in.  So drum roll please...............................

Of course I cut the bottom off when I took the picture but, that's okay because I do not want to display my phone number on my blog.   I decided to keep the back of the postcard blank.    

I'm very pleased with them and now it's time to get my illustrator postcards in the mail in hopes of finding an agent.   

I will keep you posted on my journey in becoming a published children's illustrator.  

Until then...It's back at the drawing board for me. 

Illustration Friday Week 3

This week's topic for Illustration Friday is, "Spiral."

My first idea was to do an overhead illustration of a sink and garbage disposal with veggies going down the disposal in a spiral fashion.  It looked like this:

I nixed that idea because I just done veggies in my illustration for the "Soup" topic last week. 

So I opened up GIMP and created this background.  Well, that was quite boring so of course I had to add something to it.  I can't just have a spiral background.

I then thought of this cute hippo holding a spiral lollipop.

I colored it in GIMP and made a transparent background.  

Then it was off to PICMONKEY and I added my hippo as an overlay and put some finishing touches  on it and VIOLA.... The spiral Hippo was completed.   

So this has been another edition of the Illustration Friday challenge.  I'm pleased with what I created. 

See what I did for the other Illustration Friday Challenges:

Illustration Friday Challenge Week One-

Illustration Friday Challenge Week 2-

Until the next time it's back to the drawing board for me....

Creating my First GIF

I had fun creating my first GIF with my character Timby.  I just wanted to do a simple GIF to put on my blog and website.

So I came up with these rough sketches:  I wanted Timby to appear dancing.

And here they are with color:

After I colored/photographed them, I edited my illustrations in PICMONKEY and decided to keep the background dark so you could see the snow I added.  

Then I opened the images in GIMP.  For those of you who don't know what GIMP is, it is a cross platform image editor.  They say you can do wonderful things in GIMP that are comparable to Photoshop.  I'm not sure about that because one I am still learning GIMP and two I've never worked with Photoshop.

Anyway, this is how it came out.   

For me, it ended up being too dark.  I did not like it, it looked too mechanical or something.  So then I decided I wanted to make my background transparent but, I just couldn't get it to work right. I still have lots to learn in GIMP. Thank goodness for YouTube and all those wonderful artists out there who post their videos.

Anyway, I ended up painting my background white using GIMP and came up with this one.

I like the look of the image better with a white background but, I still think it would look even better without a background.  I'm thinking with a transparent background it would look more like an animation.  I will definitely try it on my next one.  My goal is to create an animation with one of my characters.    

Until then...It's back at the drawing board for me!

  

Illustration Friday Week 2 (Soup)

This is the second week I entered an illustration for the Illustration Friday challenge.  This week's topic is "soup."

Here is my rough draft done in pencil, pen and ink.

I did not like how the tongue looked so I got rid of it.  I opened my picture in GIMP and got rid of sea creature coming out of his mouth and added teeth.  This illustration was then digitally colored.
I must admit this was the first time I digitally colored and I enjoyed it.  I'm not ready to go digital all the time but every now and then...I think that would be fine.

The blue one below was my original that I submitted but once I downloaded it, you couldn't see my carrot, chicken and celery very good.  I went back in and lightened the background.

As I stated in my previous post entitled, "Illustration Block" I started this challenge last week and I absolutely love it!   It not only keeps me drawing but it stimulates my creative mind....And I can tell you, I definitely need that.  

I can't wait to see what the new topic is for next week.  

See what I did for my first Illustration Friday Challenge here.

Until then...It's back at the drawing board for me.

Illustrations For My New Postcard

If you read my previous post, "My Illustrator Postcard" then you know I had some format difficulties on the back of the card.  I did not leave any room for whom I would be sending the card to.

So I went back to the drawing board and started over to create a new illustrator postcard.

Here are some rough sketches I came up with for the front of my card.

I felt it was lacking a character by the turkey so I added a squirrel eating pudding.  I then thought how hard it must be to carry those full bowls and not spill. Well, as you can see it was very hard for them...

Here is my rough sketch for the back.  I even used those leaves as reference.  

And finally, my finished pieces.  The theme for my postcard is fall.  

Now, I will send it in to get printed and once I get it back I will post it so you can all see a my completed illustrator postcard.

Until then, it's time to get back to the drawing board! 

Come back real soon and most importantly keep drawing.