Kay Elle Pea

A little Fall piece

2010-10-21T09:05:00.005-04:00

Woodland friends playing football outdoors in the crisp autumn air. Racoon is *racing* away with the ball. I think they will have cider and donuts after:)

Poptropica Rocks!

2010-09-12T07:51:00.002-04:00

This news from Alice Pope's SCBWI Children's Market Blog will please my 10 year old Poptropica and Wimpy Kid devotee:

Penguin Adds Poptropica Imprint (PW)
No man may be an island, as John Donne so eloquently wrote, but in the virtual world of Poptropica kids between the ages of 6 and 14 can visit lots of islands and hang out with literary friends. They can stop at Big Nate Island (based on Lincoln Peirce’s cartoon strip, now a bestselling book series) or navigate to Mythology and soon to Wimpy Kid. And with the launch of a Poptropica imprint from Penguin next fall, they’ll also be able to read island-related books

Summer Lemonade Borders

2010-08-09T13:11:00.004-04:00

Summer lemonade

2010-08-07T09:54:00.002-04:00

I love summer! This year has been steamy hot, just like the summers I remember from when I was little. Of course we didn't have air conditioning. Or a pool. Or any effective way to escape the sweltering heat except the sprinkler and lemonade!

Mail Delivery...

2010-07-28T17:00:00.006-04:00

Satellite Spotting

2010-07-01T21:58:00.002-04:00

a quickie character just under the wire.

Lazy Summer Days

2010-06-08T11:00:00.001-04:00

This bee just wants to hang out and enjoy the summer.

some basic flower-dot-patterns

2010-06-02T14:59:00.000-04:00

Books and Blades!

2010-06-02T09:42:00.002-04:00

Digital version of Monkey Twins

2010-05-30T13:18:00.002-04:00

I made these guys in collage months ago. See the "before" here.

I have more of them on the drawing board, that I plan to bring to life soon.

Sneak-Peek

2010-04-19T14:03:00.002-04:00

A little snippet of what I am working on today:)

Bologna - Revisit

2010-04-02T09:30:00.004-04:00

I can't believe it was three years ago! I was reading posts from this year's fair and looking at pictures. It looks as fun and lively as I remember it. And now I ache for Italy! We had such a great trip.

Spring is a Wonderful Thing!

2010-03-26T17:41:00.002-04:00

I have renewed energy, I think from the stronger and more frequent sunshine and warmth. It's been great getting outside!

Character Studies

2010-02-10T10:44:00.001-05:00

IF - Confined

2010-01-08T13:09:00.005-05:00

Don't be confined to just snowman making and sledding this winter! We are getting lots of beautiful fluffy snow right now. I'm sure the kids seeing this out their windows at school can't wait to get outside and play.

A New Year!

2010-01-07T15:23:00.002-05:00

Happy 2010 a few days in. I am looking forward to fresh new year full of exciting plans and possibilities!

IF - Crunchy

2009-12-07T14:54:00.003-05:00

I only like my cereal crunchy. My crazy husband lets his flakes sit in milk until it is a soggy mess. Yuck!

(Oops. It has been so long since I last posted something!)

Challenge challenged

2009-08-14T16:11:00.002-04:00

So I have not been great about the posting part of this challenge. But I have been working on a variety of mini projects here:)

Art FLiEs

2009-08-12T08:08:00.004-04:00

Here we are. Our little group met last week and we had a picture taken on Lori's beautiful patio.

It was fun as usual, but also inspiring. Thank you ladies. I feel energized!

3 Wk Challenge-animated sketch

2009-07-30T12:06:00.002-04:00

Not a great animation, but it was fun. I could work on improving it, but I guess my time would be better spent doing something with the other sketches in my sketchbook.

IF-"Idle" / 3 Wk Challenge sketch 1

2009-07-24T16:03:00.003-04:00

A cup of tea is a lovely way to spend some idle time.

In the summer I usually have iced tea on the brain. But we are having the rainiest un-summery July I can remember. Hot tea fits the bill.

(I haven't posted anything in so long that it took a Challenge to get me back on my feet!)

Challenge

2009-07-24T11:56:00.003-04:00

Ann Marie is hosting a 3 Week Challenge at My Dog Is A Pancake and I am in! Here are the details:

The Challenge

Participate for 3 weeks
Complete 3 or more sketches per week.
Complete one finished piece per week. Can be in color or not.
Themes are optional. For example, use the Illustration Friday prompt.
Each day you complete something, post it to your blog.

Ok, so I am off to sketch and scan...

IF-Legendary

2009-03-13T21:16:00.003-04:00

Before you can become a legendary skater, first you have to master the basics!

The winner is... ME!

2009-03-06T14:34:00.005-05:00

Yippie!!!

I won a Uprinting.com canvas print from Chicken Girl Design!

How awesome is that?

Thanks Jannie!

IF-Intricate

2009-03-06T11:19:00.003-05:00

There is nothing intricate about these shapes, but it took me a while as it was my first time!

I love hand cutting shapes, so this was fun to do digitally. I plan to play around some more in hopes of teaching myself new-to-me techniques. Did this this morning using an old sketch.

IF-Breezy

2009-03-05T15:56:00.002-05:00

I am so ready to leave the cold winter behind. Nice warm sunshine would be a welcomed change!

Yoga Blocks

2009-02-18T11:18:00.003-05:00

Here is the third font I made:

I love this one. It's based on lettering I did for a promo piece:

Also, I just wanted to make a 'fillable' font. Its been a great time working on these. Maybe someday I'll do some more.

Celebrate

2009-02-14T11:57:00.004-05:00

A quick sketch from my sketchbook from a couple weeks ago. I must have been feeling real good! I think that was the day I bought a big yellow self healing mat for my work table. It's so bright and uplifting:)

(In looking at it again, it reminds me of how Elaine from Seinfeld danced!)

Hey look what I did...

2009-02-13T19:49:00.003-05:00

I made a couple fonts. It was so much fun!

My daughter named them "Buggy" and "Mister Nibbles" so I put a couple lil'bugs in them. Mister Nibbles is my favorite. I started another one today. Can't wait to use them!

My Little artFLY...

2009-01-26T22:50:00.003-05:00

He's "climbing" in :)

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-27T13:48:00.001-05:00

We had a terrific Christmas and I hope all of you are enjoying your holidays as well!

NJSCBWI 1st Annual Illustrator's Day

2008-11-11T10:57:00.005-05:00

I attended the Illustrator's Day put on by the NJSCBWI in Princeton, NJ. From my perspective, it was a well organized event that I really enjoyed. Kudos to Leeza Hernandez for putting it together so well!

There were valuable critiques from art directors, Laurent Linn and Patrick Collins. I took away quite a bit from this day. Plus, it didn't hurt that I traveled with two fun illustrators; Donna Farrell and Lori Mulligan!

A trip to take the edge off turning 40!

2008-11-11T09:55:00.002-05:00

Here we are arriving. The weather was perfect.

The resort was beautiful

I love the signs. There's no mistaking which gender uses this bathroom

We went snorkeling, on ziplines, rappelling, and visited Mayan ruins

I made it across a rope bridge!

We enjoyed the amenities, including the swim-up bar!

It was a fun adventure...I'd love to have more milestones celebrated like this!

Happy Halloween!

2008-11-01T08:47:00.000-04:00

I'm down to only one Trick-or-Treater. But she's enthusiastic! Her 13 year old brother had friends over instead.

Peek behind the closed door

2008-10-27T16:05:00.001-04:00

...thinking about this post today while I paint.

sketches...

2008-10-07T09:46:00.004-04:00

These are the sketches I did over the weekend for the NJSCBWI Annual Illustrator's Day.

Panel Dicussion

2008-10-03T17:49:00.001-04:00

Our critique group put on a panel discussion Thursday night. It seemed to go well.

We all approached the same text and presented our process. The text we used was a poem called Picture Books in Winter by Robert Louis Stevenson. Here is one of my sketches on the way to a mock cover.

Marco!

2008-09-29T17:43:00.003-04:00

One of our critique group gals, Sheila Jarkins, just had a terrific book release party for Marco Flamingo! Here are four of us in front of one her dps.

inspiration...

2008-08-19T09:46:00.003-04:00

I have read other blogger mentioning Delphine Durand lately. We have been enjoying her quirky work over the last several months. I noticed her work when we were in Italy last year at the Bologna Children's Book Fair. A lot of what we saw was wildly different from what I am used to seeing in the children's market and I loved so much of it. However, I felt a lot would be scary or maybe too abstract for our book market. A few stood out, Delphine's work included.

distinctive style

2008-06-01T08:11:00.004-04:00

I was looking around the internet about this years' Surtex show in NYC. This post interested me because of her insight regarding distinctive style:

**As an artist it's imperative that you create work in a style that becomes you.**

If you do artwork that's all over the place and that doesn't have a look that can be traced to you, you can forget ever finding steady work. For this year's show I saw my art being divided in three ways that really stood out to me...

I designed three separate business cards so that people could take whichever card was going to remind them of what they were interested in my art for. It turns out that this idea was pure gold and I got a huge response from people who would methodically look through the three cards and then take one for their ever growing packet of artist materials.

Brilliant!

Clearly, this needs to be a focus of mine.

Zombie Me

2008-05-02T10:00:00.001-04:00

NYC was crazy. I woke up at 3am Monday morning. My dad dropped me off at the airport at 4:45am. Donna F and I met up on the plane. We managed the mass transit system and made it to our destination in Manhattan on time. But getting back turned out to be an unwelcomed adventure. It was rush hour, and therefore crowed. Among other missteps, we took a train that didn't stop at our transfer point and we went past it...Meanwhile our cushion for catching the flight home was closing. We made it seconds too late for the subway transfer and had to wait for the next train. I was concerned that we may not make it to the airport before take-off. So when we did finally get to the airport, we ran to the gate...Only to find out that our flight was delayed almost 5 hours due to weather! I just wanted to be home. We finally landed in Rochester after 2am. (My mom picked me up. I had left my car at their house, so I drove myself home the rest of the way.) I got into bed at 3:01am...24 hours after getting up. Then I got up at 5:50am to get ready to go into school for the day Tuesday. I took and hour nap before I had to pick up Ryan from track practice, then I had to go shopping and help him get ready fro his Boston trip. So it took until Thursday for me to return to even keel!

NY Trip

2008-04-30T11:03:00.005-04:00

Having my work critiqued by Mela B felt like taking several rounds in place of a punching bag. A rapid succession of good fists to the stomach. Her feedback was specific and I left better for it. I can now digest and hopefully use it to produce better work!

Nail down your style. Don't show too many mediums...confuses who you are to a prospective art buyer.
Work on narrative presentation. Each should tell a story. Show a series of three scenes (story progression) creatively. Do a sketch dummy to show you understand story progression.
Foreground, middle ground, background! "The image should draw a child in and back out." (Too much character/background, character/background)
Keep the "organic" quality in your work. This piece of advice confuses me and I wish now that I had clarification. She pointed out the two pieces, in her opinion, that were the most successful and talked about the organic quality(mentioning elbows in particular). By then my head was spinning as I was trying to catalog and retain all this feedback!

And here is a great post about improved portfolio content from an editor present at the Monday event.