BACK AT THE DRAWING BOARD: February 2017

Monday, February 27, 2017

Expressive Picture Book Characters Lesson 3

I absolutely love this Craftsy class, "Expressive Picture Book Characters." It is being taught by my favorite children's illustrator, Lynne Chapman.

This week we learning about dressing your characters and issues dressing animals. Our assignment was to draw and dress 2 humans and two animals starting at the midriff.

Here is the rough draft I came up with.

This is my finished drawing. I colored it digitally using SketchBook Pro.

I hope you enjoyed this illustration.

Here are my other two lessons if you missed them.

Lesson 1

Lesson 2

Until my next assignment it's time for me to get back at the drawing board.

Monday, February 20, 2017

Expressive Picture Book Characters Lesson 2

From my previous post, Expressive Picture Book Characters, you learned that I was enrolled in a Craftsy class taught by my favorite children's illustrator Lynne Chapman.

Our second lesson was on creating animal characters. My homework assignment was to draw 4 animals: One with wings, one with a long neck, one with a tail and one with a long nose.

This is what I came up with.

And here is my finished illustration.

Our next lesson is on dressing your characters.

You can enroll in her "Expressive Picture Book Characters" class through Craftsy.

Until next week, it's back at the drawing board for me.

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

SCBWI Draw This

If you read my second post entitled SCBWI, (Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators) then you know I am a member of this wonderful non profit organization. I was excited to see they have a monthly illustration challenge called "Draw This." Like "Illustration Friday's" weekly challenge, "Draw This" also gives you a prompt word.

February's prompt word for "Draw This" is "Love."

This is what I came up with.

Hedgehog Love

I hope you enjoyed. Happy Valentines Day!

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

Monday, February 13, 2017

Boy Illustration for Tear Sheets

I just wanted to post this new illustration I done. If you read my post on, "Expressive Picture Book Characters, then you know I'm not as comfortable drawing children as I am animals.

So I decided to practice illustrating children. I think I will start a series on different emotions with children and use them for my tear sheets.

What is a tear sheet you may ask? A tear sheet is basically printed samples of your work. As I was going through my 2017 Children's Writer and Illustrator Market, the majority of book publishers want illustrators to mail tear sheets to them to review.

I found a couple of great sites that explain how to create tear sheets : mrjonesey.com and Lisa Thiesing Children's Book Illustrator.

So, I will add tear sheets to my list of things to do for 2017. Once I get them done I will post them so you can review.

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

Monday, February 6, 2017

Expressive Picture Book Characters

I'm so excited, because my favorite children's illustrator Lynne Chapman, is teaching a Craftsy class entitled, "Expressive Picture Book Characters."

Our first lesson was on creating human characters. I must admit I am not fond of doing human characters. I am more comfortable doing animals but I have been practicing doing humans.

So our homework assignment was to draw 4-5 human characters experimenting with age details and 3/4 faces.

Here is what I came up with.

Our next assignment is creating animal characters. I can't wait.

I hope you enjoyed my illustration.

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

Saturday, February 4, 2017

Illustration Friday Week 10

Hello everyone, it's time for another edition of Illustration Friday challenge. Last week's challenge found a mischievous cat and this week has us soaring high. This week's topic is "Up."

I had fun with this one. A lot of ideas came to mind but this is what I did.