IN LIVING COLOR!

I finished the picture for our good friends, and they received it yesterday in the mail. I'm very happy because it made them happy -  and that's what the whole thing was about. Mission accomplished - "For the good times."

READY FOR COLOR!

This has been an unpredictably interrupted week, so I haven't been able to do much drawing. Yesterday I finally finished redrawing the picture I'm doing for friends, and the clean-up from erased lines and smeared pencil was especially time consuming. Lately I've been omitting my usual pen & ink outline stage, and instead use a print out of the final pencil piece onto my Borden & Riley drawing paper. I don't like to redraw too many times, as it takes away from some of the spontaneous lines that the looseness of my pencil allows.

Today I start the color. Can't wait!!

 

SAY IT WITH HUMOR

Every year around January good friends of ours join the Snow Birds in Palm Springs for around 3 months, leaving their home in Michigan to the real snow birds .... ie, Blue Jays, Robins, Bald Eagles (thank you, Google). This is not only great for them, but for their California buddies, as well ..... namely, my husband and me. For three days and nights we are fed, entertained, bedded ---- let's just say we're basically spoiled to the core by these people. And I am NOT stretching the truth when I say that the wife, who is a stupendous cook, has 10 star restaurant quality food for EVERY meal - including snacks!! How does one show gratitude to such generosity? With a thank you card? .... not enough. With flowers?... not enough. With a free trip to a 5 star spa? ... too much. Soooo.... a light bulb went off. I'll make them a picture. She says she loves my work....... we'll see! ;o) 

Instead of waiting to put up the finished piece I decided to show it in stages. Here's the 2nd stage (you wouldn't like the first).

                                    The rather rough sketch.

CLEANING DAY

Today began with spring cleaning ...  starting with moving my living room furniture around! But that's not all I cleaned up.  After recently witnessing some friends navigating my illustration website I discovered it wasn't user friendly enough - so I did some major tweaking to remedy that. I would love your take on it if you'd take a moment to check it out - not fishing for compliments on my work.... would just like to know if you find it easy to navigate.

I started by removing the music that I spent a century picking out - under the advice of my never mince words younger daughter, saying it was too distracting. That was a huge decision, but it's proof that I have an open mind to suggestions. www.susandrawbaugh.com.

* NOTE: This is a FLASH site, so it can't be viewed on a cell phone or iPad.

www.susandrawbaugh.com

Thanks so much! I appreciate your feedback.

COMING FROM THE HEART

I don't like rules, and avoid being in a situation that calls for them if at all possible. But it doesn't mean I can't make up my own. 

Rule One: If there's an edgy feeling to something you've just finished, re-think it, stare at it if it's visual, and don't settle. I have a Rule Two, but it's irrelevant to this writing. 

I applied that Rule One yesterday because I felt the original picture needed more POP.... and I don't mean soda. So I decided to give it some pizazz in the hopes that all my efforts would not be a waste of my time

..... here's what I came up with. Anyone disagree?

DOG IS GIRLS BEST FRIEND

One of the great things about being an artist of Chris Tugeau's is all of the opportunities she brings to us to expose our work. For every holiday (how about "Popcorn Day"??!) she asks in advance who would like to do an illustration ... ie, Valentine's Day - to be included in a designed piece that she sends out. I jumped at the chance, and here it is.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY everyone! XOX

IT'S OFFICIAL!

Part of having an artist agent is putting together marketing material for the best exposure. I love my agent, Chris, because of her huge amount of enthusiasm to get things moving! This is the flyer that she'll be sending and giving out to publishing houses. I am so detail oriented that it was a marathon of working until I felt it was right. I started out putting the bottom two illustrations in square boxes, but decided it was too monotonous. The circles they ended up in was to give the effect of looking through binoculars, since the subject matter is so "secretive". Off to the printers - and onto the next project. :o)

You Get the Picture!

With the rush of the Holidays, the crashing of my computer and the first aid of putting it all back together again I've been away from my drawing board for way too long! 

One of the gifts I received to start the new year off with high hopes and excitement is a children's book agent, Chris Tugeau. She's clearly a gift... I would venture to say one of the tops in her field. Talented, warm, experienced, and a real go getter. But I had to earn her interest, and unbeknownst to me she took notice of all the work I've been doing lately and approached me with "Let's give this a try." 

The first thing I had to do was put together a portfolio for her website . Next came designing a flyer for her to distribute to clients as an introduction to my work. She asked that I include something showing kids in the middle school age range with a story in mind. So, I took one of the sketches from an Illustration Friday piece (with the Boundaries theme), and put it to work. See below. Next, a 2nd drawing to coincide with the theme. Stay tuned.

Art for the Holidays

One of the joys of Christmas for me is all of the wonderful scents that come with the season. The crackling of burning wood in the fireplace. The fresh green needles of a Christmas tree. The warm fragrance of burning candles. And last - but certainly not least -  freshly baked desserts smack out of the oven, which was my inspiration for this Holiday picture. Did I mention that baking homemade apple pies is my newest feat? And what are homemade goodies without the big- eyed pleading looks of sweet-toothed children (& their pets)?!

Illustration Friday: STRIPES

I love incorporating patterns into my illustrations! Polka dots, stripes, and plaids have been sort of a trademark of my work. A few years ago I wrote and illustrated a children's picture book, and went pretty wild on the wardrobe patterns of the characters. When I sent it proudly to an agent friend of mine to critique she pointed out to me that because of all these details it was too busy, and therefore difficult to focus on. After looking at it with fresh eyes I saw what she was talking about. I ended up ditching some of the characters, and toning down the dress. Here are the before and after illustrations. . . as you can see, I took out some, but gave the main character his stripes! There's something about those lines that I just can't resist....

Before

After

SCARY: Illustration Friday

I didn't have the time to do more than a line pencil drawing for the assigned word this week, so this is it. The idea popped into my mind after helping my daughter, Katy, to decorate her house this Halloween. She has some very scary animated witches and ghosts - topped off by the towering Grim Reaper, and she put them ALL around. I was surprised when I witnessed her 15 month old baby girl giggle when she got close to any of them! .... versus my grandsons, who ran screaming for shelter when they were her age! "I don't want Delaney to be afraid of them, so I make it like they're funny when they do their scary thing." she explained..... and it worked! So, the idea of drawing a tough little fairy princess standing up to the howling ghost sort of captured that scenario for me.

Illustration Friday: SCATTERED

Remember when you were a kid, and the smart alec at the family picnic spit watermelon seeds at you? I do. And there they stuck .... scattered in little heaps of black!

Illustration Friday: CONTRAPTION

For the past 20 years one of my businesses has been designing Daylight Savings Reminder Cards to sell to the hotel industry. This is one of them. . . thought it fit for the word "contraption".

I'd Rather Be Painting

I know one thing, this poor body of mine needs to get some exercise! I've been sitting like a hen on her nest at this computer screen for days on end, maneuvering all the intricate bells and whistles involved in updating my illustration website. Just when I'd think I had it down pat I'd see a glitch! .... and if I didn't see it, then my master critic, Cindy D., whose judgment I call on every time I need another eye, would find it! It's DONE .... and here it is. If anyone sees a flaw don't tell me - cuz I'M done! I can't wait to get back in front of the canvas. 

http://www.susandrawbaugh.com

Illustration Friday: FEROCIOUS

This is an illustration from a picture book that I wrote and illustrated, Pickles & the Poof. Poof is the "ferocious monster" that terrifies everyone .... and makes a hero out of Pickles. What no one realizes until the end is that the "monster" is not so ferocious, after all.

"Peering out through the trees was a monstrous thing,
slowly starting to fly without one single wing!"

A Little Glitter to Make the Wall Art POP!

It's not easy to see the glitter on this small photo, 

but hopefully you get the picture.

 Click on the image to zoom in more.

Once I finished my grandbaby Laney's painting, Say, Say My Playmate, I strategically added glitter here and there to it. WOW!! What a difference it made! To avoid it looking tacky, I was careful not to overdue it, so I just filled in a few select apples, part of the buggy wheels, and a spot on some of the characters' shoes or hair decor. It doesn't show up in this photo nearly as dramatically as it looks in person, but take my word for it it's eye-catching, and sparkles even with just a tidbit of light on in the room.

Illustration Friday: MESMERIZING

This was done originally as a chapter illustration for a book called The Wicked Truth About Love.... the Tangles of Desire. The art direction was to show the dinner guest mesmerized over the chef's girlfriend as the chef delights in the attention his trophy girl is getting. In this case, it's all about the desire to have what other's want. Lots of fun to illustrate!

Illustration Friday: BOUNDARIES

What's more confidential than your innermost private thoughts? When I saw the word BOUNDARIES the first image I had was of a diary. 

I've kept journals since I was 10 years old. I don't want to give away my age, but if I stacked them they'd probably go through the ceiling. They've been my venting outlet, my problem solver, my goal setter, and most of all, my place to reminisce. One day when I was a teenager I saw an entry - not in MY handwriting! Someone .... you know who you are... stepped out of their boundaries.... BIG time! 

A Toad, a Teddy, and a Turtle - Wall Art for Baby's Nursery

Teddy + Toad + Turtle = Tenderness. This was the feeling I was going for a while back when I originally created these characters for an infant bedding company. Scanning actual fabrics into my computer program for the colors was my medium of choice at that time, instead of my usual tools of paints or markers w/colored pencils. This was great for a quilt, but not enough pop for a wall print. So, after my recent decision to focus on creating children's wall art I decided to include these --- but they needed to be recreated. Last week it was back to the drawing table where I went back to using my standard markers & colored pencils and finishing them off with digitally created backgrounds. They're now ready for reproduction... each one to be printed on a 12"x12" canvas, or all three printed side by side on one wide narrow canvas. 

Now, it's back to the easel where my farm animal scene has been put on hold :o).

A New Beginning on a Blank Canvas

I'm on a roll of producing wall art for babies' rooms and loving it! I've been invited by an online gallery to submit some of my work for them to sell, but I originally created and scanned the artwork at too small a resolution for frameable prints, so I need to recreate some of them. This time I'm going from using my usual medium of pen & ink, markers and colored pencils to painting with acrylics. This will be only my second attempt at working with acrylics on canvas (see blog The Writings on the Wall Art to see the first), so I was a bit nervous to start. Once I began it felt great, and, like getting back on a bicycle that hasn't been ridden in awhile, the ride so far has been going very smoothly :o). 

As before, I first traced the large colored printout seen above (which is very pixelated) onto the canvas using graphite paper. The printout is taped onto my art table light for my referral as I paint.