ODD COUPLE

This week, the theme was "Odd or Strange Couples". Here's my submission. He's a "10" in her eyes!

A PAINTING IDEA IS FORMING

I've been thinking of painting something that has to do with camping, friendship, roasting marshmallows and the feeling a ghost story gives you when you're outside, in the dark, under some looming trees, with only the heat of a campfire for comfort. I've been thinking of anthropomorphism and how it seems, in this situation, trees and such seem to come to life showing their ghoulish grins and grimaces.

Since this has been on my mind, I've been noticing freaky faces in EVERYTHING!

I recently traveled to Central California for my son's graduation from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and lo and behold, surrounding his little apartment were a ton of oak trees. They grew all along the driveway up to the house, on the side and behind the house, and along an old creak bottom. Let me tell you, OAK TREES ARE FREAKY! I wouldn't want to walk along his driveway at night, that's for sure! They really are a sight to see. Their branches twist and turn as they reach out, it seems, about ready to ensnare you. They are truly beautiful to say the least, just amazing trees, but since I had this painting idea on my brain, I was seeing freaky faces everywhere!

I started taking pictures. I think I took almost 200 pictures in all! This included trees from around his apartment, The Oaks State Park, and the walk we took to get to a beach down by Los Osos, CA.

I thought I'd share some of my favorite pics with you.

What do you see?

Oh, and this one is for my brother-in-law. Funny!

DANCING COWBOY

The theme in my illustration group for this week was Dancing Cowboy. This cowboy just can't help putting on his tutu, even if it's only for a moment or two.

BAD HAIR DAY

I belong to several illustration groups on facebook. One of the groups has decided to choose a weekly theme where each artist comes up with their own original take on the theme. For this week, the theme was bad hair day. This is what I came up with.

DRAWING SOME GOLDFISH

Here fishy, fishy...

DAWG ART

A friend/ schoolmate of mine, Alicia VanNoy Call, is having an art show tonight (April 5, 2013) at the Window Box Gallery, in Provo, UT. Animal shelters from different locations all over the world have sent her stories and pictures of dogs, cats, etc. that have inspired or touched the lives of people in a special way. She is helping these animal shelters by donating any proceeds from the sales of the artwork back to the shelter who sent her the story.  Even the Window Box Gallery is forfeiting their profit as well. What an amazing fundraiser. I'll be attending tonight. I hope all of you will check out her paintings. By the way, if you have a special animal in your life, she does commissions! She'll even have an online auction for the pieces. Check her out.

Here's a few of her works! I sure love her style!!!

SCBWI CONFERENCE

The SCBWI Conference was held last Saturday in Salt Lake City. It was AMAZING!!! Martha Rago critiqued our final pieces from her intensive (photo below). She had a lot of good things to say and I learned A TON of things I didn't know before! It was so worth the time, energy, lack of sleep, etc. to participate in her intensive and if another is ever offered, I'd sign up in a heart beat!

Mark and Caralyn Buehner  spoke for about an hour at the conference, as well. What a talented couple. She writes and he illustrates. An amazing team! I was so impressed with Mark's illustration skills, that I went home and bought three of his books. Caralyn wrote one of them. These books are a nice addition to my little library of children's books.


Here's the three I bought:

MARTHA RAGO INTENSIVE

I signed up for this years Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) conference and was excited to find that the conference seemed to be focused on illustration this time. It turns out that, along with the conference, for an additional fee, I could sign up for an intensive with Martha Rago! Amazing! She's the executive art director of children's books for the publishing company, Harper Collins! Can you believe it?! Well, to say the least, I'm a bit nervous to hear what she has to say about my sketches and book cover idea.

The intensive assignment was to choose between two projects. One was a book titled, Lolly and B. Bear (Goldilocks and baby bear). For this project, a dummy book was to be mocked up. The other project was to come up with a book cover illustration for the book, Princess Cupcake. This assignment also required sketches of main characters and different poses and expressions for Princess Cupcake. I chose this one to participate in.

The conference isn't until the end of February, but the intensive has already begun. Our sketches were due last Sunday to Sherry Miedell, a wonderful illustrator who also organized this event. She'll be sending them off to Martha, who will then give us a critique and let us know what we can do to make our design stronger. When we show up to the conference in February, we will have a finished piece to show her taking in all the changes she suggested. She'll then give us a final critique. Scary!!!

Let's just say, I'm a little intimidated with all of this. Anyway, below are the sketches I sent off. Wish me luck!!!