Updated illustration for Animal Birthday Party

This is probably the 3rd rendering of this idea. It is amazing how much perspective you can gain from taking a break and coming back with a renewed and fresh view on things. I can say that 2010 was a growth year for me. I really struggled with my style. As much as I thought I had it figured out, I still felt the line weight and eyes were a bit forced and made the illustrations more stiff. Somewhere between the pencil and the inking, I was loosing the fluid feel of the drawing. My thoughts were confirmed when I had a very candid email exchange with an agent that represents very accomplished illustrators.

I have tweaked some of my past illustrations to make this small modification while keeping all the work consistent. I've gone back to working only with pencil and skipping the inking process. As of today, I am quite pleased with the work. Of course, that won't last for ever since it is only natural to keep evolving and changing as an artist.

I'll post some of the other revisions later this week.

RE-WORKED ILLUSTRATION

Old image


New Image


THANK YOU! I want to start this post by thanking the people that always seem to know when I need some encouragement and always know exactly what to say. I want to say thank you for caring and for taking the time to reach out. I really appreciate it!!!

The holiday season has been officially kicked off at our house, and that usually means that I'll be running around like a chicken without a head until the end of the year!

I wanted to share with you the re-make of one of my favorite illustrations. I had created and animal party a while back and really enjoyed all the characters in it. However, it no longer matched my current style and I had to pull it out of my portfolio. I decided to just re-do it with my new style and I have to say, I'm very pleased with the results.

What do you think?

Illustration Friday: Memories

Work in Progress...

This past two weeks I've been reminded that my time is not my own. We are back to school and I am realizing how little time I will have left every week to devote for my art. I enjoyed all of the extra time I had over the summer and had a lot of fun navigating to other blogs and learning about other artists. I am not sure how much time I will have during this school year, but I will try my best to produce one piece a week and to post once a week. I hardly had any time to visit some of my favorite blogs this week. My Google reader is about to explode with 'unread' entries!

Anyway, I didn't get too far this week, but I was experimenting again. New paper (cold press water color paper), gouache and ANIMALS! I was really intimidated trying out animals as main characters. I think last time I really drew an animal with bodies and everything was back in elementary school. I've always been into people mostly. 

I think these characters look cute. I'm not sure if original enough, but my kids really liked  them, and I enjoyed coming up with them. I thought the animal birthday party fit the 'memories' theme for IF.

My daughter has been painting a lot with me, and she wanted me to add her work to my blog, so I now have a corner on the left for my kids' art. Her favorite subject is horses!

I will be away for Labor Day weekend enjoying the family and some nice weather. I hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday weekend, and I hope to catch up a bit with my blogs next week!

Thanks for stopping by!