Old dog new tricks

Here it is. My first all digital piece done with the Wacom. I know, I know, its pretty simple. But its a big deal for me. I've been resisting (why?) going digital for way too long now.

You remember in the last post I had a sketch - a traditional pencil on tracing paper kind of drawing. I scanned that, and traced over it with the Wacom pen to get what you see here. Then I dragged the 'traced' digital layer over onto a new file and flattened it (I could also have just deleted the background sketch layer in the original).

It took me way more tries than I care to admit to figure out what kind of 'line' to use. At first I was trying to get a really clean, "Illustrator" line, which wasn't possible. It was taking sooooo long. The whole idea here is to speed things up a bit. Then I did a fatter, even width line. Etc. In the end I decided to just 'draw', the way I draw when I draw. Kind of sketchy. And I like it.

What's great about this is when you make a goof, you can just erase it and its gone! You can completely change your mind, do a new layer, try something and decide it doesn't work, etc. - and not ruin your paper.

I look forward to getting more proficient with this and doing some color as well. Right now I'm thrilled to be able to do this.

Back to work

There's nothing like work to help you get through a rough patch. So that's what I'm doing.

This will be in black and white, but I may also do it up in color to practice using Painter (when it gets here - any minute now). This is the first sketch stage, and needs some tweaking and adjusting.

These kids are setting the table. The older kid gets to put out the silverware, and the youngest little guy gets to do the napkins because they're "safe". The girl is old enough to put out the plates. The dog - well, he's the dog.

I love doing these kinds of pieces. You can see how many places have been set, and how many are left to finish. The older boy has the right number of pieces of silverware left to be put out to complete each setting. Same for the plates and napkins. Each place setting is in a different degree of completeness - one is finished, and one hasn't even been started yet.

When I was a kid I'd look at these kinds of illustrations - no, study them, and absorb every detail.

There are so many choices to make - what ethnicity are the kids? what is the time (contemporary, historical, etc.)? is it upper-class, middle-class, poor? indoors, outdoors? breakfast, lunch, or dinner? an every day meal, or a holiday or celebration? etc. etc. In this one there are 3 kids and 4 place settings - so what does that tell you? Is it a single parent household? Or maybe one of the parents is just working late and the other one is home with the kids. Although the table looks like it can only accommodate 4 people, so either they squish in when there are more, or put in a 'leaf', or there really are only 4 of them in the house. Or maybe the kids are having dinner at Grandma's and its her table, so it will just be the 4 of them.

I may put flowers in the middle of the table, or a candle, or salt and peppers - what else would you put? What's on your table? (Mine has a bowl of fruit - how exciting.)

So that's it for now. My soup is calling to me ~

CPSA show, Daniel Garber

Have you seen the CPSA Explore This! 6 show yet? Its online, here.


Do you enjoy looking at beautiful paintings? I've shamelessly borrowed this from Frank Ordaz's blog. He has a whole post with paintings by Daniel Garber.


Ahhh.

Its raining here today, a lot, so this is a nice change of scenery.

Looking forward

Yesterday I went to the bookstore to have a look around and try to get out of my funk. I wasn't looking for anything in particular, but rather, was just open to whatever popped off the shelf at me. Do you ever do that? Just wait for the 'right book' that you might need to read at that moment, to compliment something that's going on in your life, to kind of scream at you and make you stop and pick it up and have a look?

Well, it happened to me in a big way yesterday. In all the times I've walked around B&N, and looked at every shelf in the children's book section, I've never seen this book before. But yesterday, there it was, face-out, calling to me. Its called Tear Soup, and is about the grieving process. Its exactly what I needed, and I was kind of blown away. Its written for children and adults, and illustrated in a picturebook style that's also appealing to grown ups. The authors also have a website, called Grief Watch, which talks about grieving and has links to all sorts of helpful places to visit for help.

So if you're in a sad place like I've been, and need a little help, this might be a place to start.
A heartfelt thank you to all the people who've emailed condolences about my Isabella. I haven't responded individually to each of you, but I am so grateful and warmed by all of your well-wishes. And I'm sure she is too.

The sun is out today, yay! I'm feeling a little better, and am itching to get started on some new work. I feel like I've been on hold for a quite a while. I think some new fresh art and projects will be blooming forth soon. Not sure what it will be, exactly. I will share.

In other news, the ChildrensIllustrators portfolio site is about to be back up and running. Any of you who've had portfolios on there know they were hacked into, and have been down for a while. I checked, and about half my images are gone, so I'll have to do some new uploading in the next few days. At least some of the images survived - I know some people had them ALL go away.

So I am now off to go 'live life' and maybe draw something. There's an idea.

Saying goodbye

A sad day. I said good bye to my beautiful Isabella. We went to the vet one last time, hoping maybe there was something we could do, but he was pretty sure she had cancer. She'd been failing for quite a while, and stubbornly hanging on, but it was a blessing to let her go and not suffer anymore. I know she's in a good place and that I'll see her again. My Bella.

And even though my heart is broken, somehow I still managed to get a piece of art done for an assignment. It's amazing how you can do what you have to do, isn't it? I also had food poisoning over the weekend. I KNOW. Not a good week.

I am so looking forward to happier days ahead.

New direction

"Red Stripes 1", © Paula Pertile

I feel like painting stripes. Yet again another tangent to go off on. I did this one a while back, and would like to do more. Do you think anyone would buy them? This is pretty small, and done with watercolors and gouache. I could see doing these really BIG, but don't think I feel like committing to that just yet. Maybe I'll do a few and see where it goes.

I've been in a funk. One of my kitties is really sick, and probably dying. I contacted a pet psychic, who told me she's about ready to 'transition'. I won't bore you with all the details, but it was actually a good thing, having a 'reading' and getting some insight. So I'm now facing maybe having to let go of another one of my furry friends pretty soon. There's still hope, but it will be up to her.

Its hard to concentrate on work when you have something like this going on. I feel for people who have much bigger and harder day-to-day struggles with this kind of thing, and still manage to do what they need to do. I wish I had a non-creative kind of job sometimes, because I'm finding it nearly impossible to be creative or make a picture or think up a story or anything like that. The gloomy January rainy weather isn't helping either! Boy am I a Debbie Downer today. Well, I only mention it because I know we all go through this from time to time, and that you can relate.

And life goes on.

New step-by-step, ALA winners on TV

Just a couple of quickies:

I did a little step-by-step of the 3 Musketeers Mini drawing and put it on my site.
I hope to do more tutorials, and maybe include ones from other illustrators at some point.

~~~~~~~

The Today Show had the Caldecott and Newbury winners on, as they always do. Here's the video:


Here's the link to the article about them in Publisher's Weekly. It talks about how they each got the call that they'd won, and their reactions and all. Cool.

Its raining buckets here, but at least the scary wind has stopped - for now. Rain is one thing, but when deck chairs and trash cans go flying around, that's quite another! Hope the weather is behaving wherever you are ~

3 Musketeers Mini DONE

Finally.

"3 Musketeers Mini", © Paula Pertile
image is 8 inches wide (in real life the candy bar is 2 inches wide)
done with Polychromos and a pinch of Prismacolor red, on Stonehenge paper

I confess, there were times in the last stages when I got to thinking WHY am I doing this? Am I crazy? Could be.

But seriously. I think what I enjoy is the exercise of really "seeing". Drawing what's really there, as opposed to what you think you see. For example, when you look at an actual 3 Musketeers Mini candy bar, you see a shiny silver wrapper with red and blue lettering. It would be very tempting to just get out the Silver colored pencil and do the wrapper, then a single red and navy blue to do the lettering. Throw in some shadow and a highlight or two, and you'd be done.

But in reality, there is oh so much more to this. There are oodles of colors in the reflections - greens, reds, blues, of all shades. Then the shapes of the reflections and shadows are really complex. And there are warm and cool tones of greys throughout. When you take each 'sub-shape' and analyze it, its pretty crazy.

For example ~
This is the shiny bit top right, up close. Look at all those shapes.


And this is down left ~

I think they're really cool little compositions all by themselves. If I were an abstract painter I'd just do something like this REALLY BIG ~ and would also probably make a lot more money!
(Hmmm ... maybe I'm on to something here ... )

For a lot of my children's book work, I make stuff up. It helps to keep practicing 'really looking' at details of things to make the 'made up' things look real-er. Of course it also helps to get models or make maquettes, too. But sometimes you just have to rely on your 'making it up' abilities, and the more 'looking' you've done at things, the better chance you have of making something believable. (and I apologize for all the 'single quote marks' in that paragraph)

I will do a step-by-step to put on my site in the next day or two.

~~~~
In other news, the ALA has announced the Caldecott and Newbury, etc. award winners.
You can read the whole list here on their site.

Jerry Pinkney's The Lion and the Mouse won the coveted Caldecott. I've seen this book, and its bee-yoo-tee-ful.

This is the cover. YUM.

3 Musketeers Mini WIP #3

Its now officially at 'the ugly stage'.I skipped quite a few in between steps, and am showing you where it is now. Lots of red and the start of some blue, mostly. Now is where it gets really fussy (like it wasn't already), and I'll spend time with each little section, really fiddling. There's a lot of subtle nuancing that will happen in the next few steps. I'm leaving the red "3 Musketeers" type to the end, since that kind of red tends to smear easily. Also, its the icing on the cake.

So some of you have expressed an interest in my PLAN. I know, I know, you all just want to see what I do then copy off my paper. Well, I didn't say I could guarantee the plan would work or be successful - its just a plan, a roadmap of sorts, of where I want to go. I mean, we all have a sort of plan as we go when we schedule jobs, or if we're really good and do regular self promo mailings, that sort of thing. But I want to include some deadlines for myself outside of that for getting some more new art done, some picture book dummies actually done, some colored pencil art (like the above) done, some competitions entered, some galleries contacted, some publishers contacted, some art licensing people contacted - stuff like that. I just think that if I actually write it down and stare at it every day, and commit to it, I'll stand a much better chance of accomplishing something. I'm not saying I'm going to get to all of it in this first "semester" ~ but eventually.

I would also like to redo my website (which means learning a new program), maybe get and learn Painter, do more with my Wacom and try to be more digital, and finally figure out Illustrator. ha No, I'm not kidding. Illustrator has always scared me a little.

And that's my plan, in a nutshell. Nothing spectacular. Nothing that a lot of you probably aren't already doing. (did that make sense? those double negatives -)

One thing I've decided is to forget about ebay altogether, and CafePress and Zazzle, and maybe even Etsy. I still have my knitting shop and art prints shop on Etsy, but I'm not sure how long I'll keep them going. Its all a lot of work to do well, and if you don't have the time to commit to it, it ends up just being a drain, both financially and timewise. Just saying.

Its supposed to start raining cats and dogs this weekend, so I'm going to burrow in. We're stocked up on coffee and kitty treats, so we should be OK.

Ta ta ~

3 Musketeers Mini, WIP #2

I'm combining a few steps, and showing you where it is right now. I've added light ultramarine, grey green, caput mortuum violet and green yellowish. It has a long way to go! But its getting there. Amazing how much color is in "silver", isn't it?

I will do all the steps and put them on my website when I'm done. I don't expect anyone to actually try to copy this, but its fun to see it progress, step by step.

I'm working up a sort of "plan" for myself and my work. I guess we all do that, but I find that I just get caught up in doing it, and forget where I'd intended to go, and at some point find that I am usually way off course. I'm approaching it kind of like when you're in school, starting a new semester - you sign up for classes, and go the first week and get the syllabus and outline of what's going to be taught, when assignments are due, tests, midterms, etc. Then you know, week to week, what you have to get done, study for, etc.
So I'm going to do a 'semester' at a time, 3 or 4 months, and map it out, and just stick to it.
Really.
Maybe I should go buy myself a new binder or notebook as well - I used to looove those ones that had the divided up sections for each subject. *How old am I?* The kids probably type everything into their laptops or blackberry's or something now.

First thing is to go back to work on this drawing, then on to the PLAN. (funny word, plan - "plan plan plan plan plan plan").

See ya ~

More candy, WIP

I've started a new candy piece. Here's the reference I'm working from:

The actual candy bar itself is about 2 inches wide - it is a Mini, after all. But I'm doing the art at about 8 inches wide, like I did with the Twix.

I start with a drawing that I do on my lightbox. This is about 1,000 times darker than the actual drawing I made - I had to darken it up so it would show up here. I use a graphite pencil, H or F or B, and do a really really really light drawing of all the major shapes of type, shadows, etc.
Then I start the rendering. I'm using Polychromos on Stonehenge for this series. And no, I'm not using the "Silver" colored pencil in the box, ha ha, as tempting as that may be. I'm starting with greys - a Warm grey IV, and a Cool Grey III and VI. Here I'm just starting to establish some pattern and value, which will of course get developed way more as I go along.



This is all very slow and a little tedious. OK, no, very tedious. One's eyes can cross doing this, looking at all those little teeny tiny shapes. I'm also doing some editing as I go. I do make decisions about leaving out some of the teenier bits, or things that are just weird photographic hiccups, etc.

There is some nice reflected color in this - some reds and blues, which I'm looking forward to putting in. Also, I chose a 'silver' wrapper this time, since the Twix piece was gold. Kinda needed a change.

So that's it for now. More to come.

Also working on some little black and white children's book pieces. I'm doing them traditionally, but plan to scan them and fiddle with them on my Wacom. I'm trying to get more 'digital' with my work, at least some of the educational type stuff, as that seems to be the way to go. I will still do lush colored pencil pieces when its appropriate. Trying to wear as many hats as necessary to survive in this current shaky illustration world! Feeling like a one woman band.

Framed again

I love when people send me pics of my art, framed! Here's the most recent example - a print of my Twix Mini candy bar. Its an odd size, so it had to be custom framed. I'm touched when people go to the trouble. Its an ego boost, for sure!

And this reminds me that I've intended to do a whole series of these little candy bar pieces. I have the reference shot. Now "all I have to do" (those famous words) is actually DO them.

Since I blogged last I've been doing organize-y clean up kind of work around the house and yard. De-cluttering, organizing files and closets, pruning roses and cleaning the shed, etc. etc. etc.

I'm also working on some new children's book art. I would like to have a whole new portfolio, something that reflects a little more of my 'drawing' style, and that isn't quite as tight as the piece above.

This isn't by any means a finished piece - its just a doodle, but I like the 'drawing' quality of it. Its just done on printer paper with no tooth, and with a couple pencils. I had no idea what I was going to draw when I started, and this little guy just materialized.


And this is about a 5 second sketch, inspired by the color of pencil I had handy.

Its fun to sketch to get ideas. Sometimes I *think* too much before I start to draw, and get kind of paralyzed. Like, I can't start drawing until I know exactly what I want to draw (in the case of 'made up' children's book things). Sometimes just starting to doodle is a better way to dive in. It gets the creative juices flowing, and besides, its fun!

So I'm off to do more of all of the above, and will check back when I have something worthwhile to share. Hope everyone is having a good start to your new decade!

Life in the new year

Happy 2010! And let's hope it is. (happy)
Personally, I'm glad to see 2009 go, and the whole decade for that matter. Oh, there were good things, yes, but over all it wasn't the best 10 years of my life.
I'm liking that this new year is MMX in roman numerals. Has a nice solid look to it.
I also think its cool that there was a full moon (and a blue one at that!) on New Year's Eve - that has to mean something. I'm taking it as a good omen.

(click this for a larger view)

I did this "LIFE" piece a while ago. Its actually in color, but can I find the color digital file of it? Noooooo. So organizing some of my files and back ups are in order methinks for the new year.

But it seems appropriate. I've been doing a lot of looking back and looking ahead and thinking about the paths one's life takes, wrong turns, right turns, accidents, lucky breaks, 'what ifs?', where to go next, etc.



Whatever path you take, however well thought out, you're liable to hit a road block or something to test your metal here and there, and its anyone's guess as to which corner it will be hiding around. There are also wonderful unexpected surprises awaiting us all, which appear in just as random and unpredictable a way. The trick is to just keep going. Have faith, learn from the hard bits, and rejoice in the gifts.

I'm not making actual resolutions, but I am making some goals for myself. Most have to do with work and being creatively productive. I usually just make a kind of casual list of things I'd like to do or accomplish, then passively wait for the "good fortune fairy" to make them happen for me. Or I just run out of gas before I get all the way there. So this year I'm going to make some things happen. And no, I'm not going to tell you what they are - a girl has to have some secrets.



We were supposed to have a big storm move in today, but instead there was just a little light rain. I'm taking that as a good omen as well. Do I sound just a wee bit superstitious with all the 'good omen-ing'? Well, maybe. But why not. I was also happy to observe that despite the early frosts we had last month (which blackened a lot of my poor plants), the hydrangeas have strong green buds which have held up, and are promising to bloom come spring. Same for some irises and other leafy friends. I'm looking at everything through this kind of 'there is life after a dark time' lense, willing things to bloom and be green (literally and figuratively speaking) for us all.
So let's hope it comes to pass.

Didn't know I was going to get to philosophical when I started writing this. Oh well. Next time I'll probably be snarky about something just to even things out.

So here's wishing good health and happiness and peace and prosperity to all!

Merry Christmas

© me, colored pencils on bristol board

Not new, but fitting for the season. I sure wish there was such a thing as "healthy" candy. I mean that also tastes good. Like this stuff.

I think one of my new resolutions (no, not a new year's thing, I don't like those) is to start eating healthier. I mean, I love my Tater Tots, but I get lazy and eat that stuff too much. Organic veggies and fruits are so lovely, and even though they may pinch the pocket book a bit, in the end they're so much better. I was reading an article last night by a man who had cancer and eschewed chemo or radiation treatments, and instead went on a complete organic diet to get his body to heal itself, and it did. He's cancer free. That's impressive.
I'm also trying to get my cats back on a healthier food plan after struggling with my Isabella and her digestive troubles which I think stem partly from eating too many people treats for too long. So I'm on a mission.

Sorry, I know I'm supposed to be wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, and instead I'm writing about healthy eating. I've just had a few days to slow down and not be so stressed and to kind of let the spirit of the holiday and season and universe and all of that in, in a way that usually doesn't happen in our day to day hurried lives. And that's the message I'm getting from 'somewhere', so just thought I'd share.

I had a nice email from Laura at The Forgotten Brush who included the above ribbon candy piece in her list of etsy Christmas things she liked. How nice. Thanks Laura! I really do love perusing etsy and seeing all the wonderfully creative and inspired and quality things that people make. I often think "ooh, I wish I'd thought of that!". If you sign up for their updates you can get inspired collections they put together on their 'front page' delivered directly to your email box. This year I sold one of my braided scarves to someone who was giving it as a gift, which was nice. I also a few other pieces to different people, not on etsy, which felt good too. Its always nice when someone actually wants what you create!

On the art front, I'm working on some new simpler children's book pieces, like this:

© me, colored pencils on Stonehenge

I'm trying to work faster, but still using my colored pencils. I've gone back to using Prismacolors after not using them for a long time. They do go on faster than Polychromos, and some of the colors are brighter. But they break more often in the sharpener because they're softer. I've been using the old old old mixed up set I've had for over 20 years, which also includes other odd pencils in other brands like Venus and some that don't even have a label! A motley bunch of colored pencils, for sure. I even have some of the now coveted "Deco" colors which have been discontinued. But even though they're the 'perfect' color sometimes, I'm loathe to use them because I'm afraid I'll become dependent on them and I won't be able to get any more! So now I'm holding on to them like the people who buy Star Wars toys and never open the box. Maybe some day they'll be worth a bundle on ebay. I did treat myself to a new set for Christmas, which includes the new lightfast colors, so am committed to giving them a good run. I could now open a colored pencil shop I think, between these and all the Polys I have stored up!

Last night I drove around town with my Mom and looked at all the Christmas lights on houses in the nice neighborhoods - The Fabulous 40's, Sierra Oaks, Winding Creek Road, etc. Lots of tastefully done 'ooh and ahh' inspiring places, as well as a couple "well that's just tacky" over the top ones. But all in all it was nice. I love when people leave their front drapes open and you can see them eating dinner in their perfectly appointed dining rooms, unawares that the car going 2 miles an hour out front is spying on them. ha ha

OK, so I've blah blahed on enough for now. I hope all of you have a lovely holiday, whatever you're celebrating. I may take a little time off here to focus on life in general, like I imagine most people do between now and new year's. Here's wishing you all good health and prosperity and happiness and joy!!

Bits and pieces and Nutcracker books

Another week has just whooooooshed by! Golly. Its that time of year I guess. I know I've been trying to do all the extra holidayish stuff as well as a couple of illustration assignments and tend to my sick kitty. (She's doing better, thanks.)

So here are a couple of things I wanted to share:

Prismacolor has announced the winners of their annual "For Art's Sake" competition. Congratulations to Alex Vogel, Elizabeth Patterson, Sangita C. Phadke, Zelda Wang, Sherry Kostura, and Diego Anzunza!

There is a newish art tutorials website called ArtGraphicA.
They've included my colored pencil tutorial on how to draw a wedge of Cotswald Cheese. (thanks!) Click on the Free Art Tutorials link on the right side of the home page to see them all.

Last night I watched "The Making of Gone with the Wind" on TCM. I do declare! I had no idea. One thing that was fascinating was how many special effects there were, and how they were done. They had some artist wizardry going on there, for sure. Remember, this was 1939, waaaay before computers. They had a guy who hand painted scenes on glass and somehow superimposed them with what they had on film (which was often shockingly lacking) and made what we know as Twelve Oaks, Tara, the Burning of Atlanta, etc. Did you know that that burning scene was actually footage of them burning down old sets on a back lot (like stuff from King Kong), that was then doctored up to look like Atlanta? I sure didn't. Lots and lots of other really cool info like that, plus all the endless screen tests of really inadequate Scarlett wanna-bes (Katherine Hepburn?) and Ashleys and Melanies, plus all the behind the scenes director drama. Can you tell I enjoyed it? If its playing again and you can catch it, do!

And because its Christmas, I have nutcrackers on the brain. I even bought stamps that had nutcrackers on them (except that there were 4 designs in the book, and I had to use other ones as well as the nutcracker ones, oh well.)

Here are some of my favorite Nutcracker picture books, in no particular order. (I know there are lots more, but as usual, I ran out of steam a bit before I got to the end of the list.)
Click on the image for its link on Amazon.

Enjoy~

Gennady Spirin. I have this one. ooooooh

~~~~~~
Maurice Sendak

~~~~
Nan Brooks. I sure wish I could find a bigger picture of this!

~~~~~

Peter Malone.

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Eric Puybaret.

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Susan Jeffers.

~~~~

Renee Graef.



Diane Goode.
(This one has two different covers. If you click on this image and go to the listing on Amazon, it will show a different one than this.)


~~~~~

Gail de Marken.


~~~~~

Don Daily
(This is another one with different cover art.)

~~~~~

Lisbeth Zwerger


Roberto Innocenti

Michael Hague

Like I said, there are more. Gazillions more. I would love to do one myself someday. I did get to help design Nordstrom's animated Christmas windows one year when they did the nutcracker story. All little animated people and the mouse king and everything. I do remember going to Britex to pick out fabrics for the costumes, and blowing the budget on some fabulous cut velvet for the Mouse King's trousers. We only needed a quarter yard or so, and I just had to have it. And I got to make Drosselmeyer's hair - he looked a little like Rod Stewart, only grey. Good times ...

Off to relax a bit with a glass of wine and a kitty on my lap and the tree lights. To all a good night!