Here is the Bible story from the last post, finished.

(click to see it larger)

This is a Jewish version of a Bible story, so the clothes and beards and even hand gestures had to be very specific.

I originally had the guy in front's right hand with his fingers slightly apart, which made a nicer design - but learned that that particular gesture is a type of blessing, and was asked to make the fingers all be close together instead.

The tallits were originally done as a 'shawl' type design, but it was decided that this 'poncho' style was more historically accurate.

The beards had to be a certain length.

Etc., etc., etc. 

So this has been an interesting project so far! And very humbling to have rabbis reviewing my work. And a perfect example of the difference between being an illustrator (doing a piece to fit someone else's specs) and doing your own 'fine art' work. 

I did this with mostly a black Polychromo and a little Lyra Soft Black (both oil based pencils) on Stonehenge paper.

~~~~~~

Other things in the works:

paper dolls, a colored pencil tutorial, a book dummy (there's always a book dummy in the works, isn't there?), some knitting!, some drawings of knitting, and some architectural food pieces. 

I know!

And 'the guy' is coming this week to upgrade my Mac OS for me and install a newer version of Photoshop and all, so I will finally be able to get up to speed with ebooks, hopefully. Looking forward to that "publish to ebook" function in PS5.5!

The SCBWI Winter Conference is going on as we speak. Here's a blog devoted just to that if you want to peek in.

The Tomie de Paola contest winners are here.

An unofficial gallery of some of the contest entries can be seen here.

The Caldecott winners were announced last week. See them here.

The CPSA Explore This! 8 list accepted entries can be seen here. (no pictures, just a text list)

And finally, the prospectus for the upcoming CPSA 20th International Exhibition can be downloaded here.

I'm so glad to be over this awful cold I had for way too long, and am anxious to get back to work. How about you? What are you working on? 

In Progress

Happy New Year! Can't believe we're two weeks into it already. It will be Christmas again before you know it.

Anyways, I've been taking a bit of a blogging break. Everything I'm working on at the moment is in progress, or half baked, or in the planning and figuring out stages. And that doesn't always make for interesting blogging.

But thought I'd better pop in with something, just to let everyone know I haven't perished from the drought that seems to be taking over California this winter. Seriously. Brown lawns, people in t-shirts and flip flops, its appalling. We're supposed to be wearing chunky sweaters and sipping cocoa by the fire. I'm cranky.

So this is one of the things I'm working on that's in progress. Can't say anything about it, sorry. But its a Bible tale, and this is a first drawing, which I will now take to finish. It will be in black and white, yay!

(click to see it bigger)

I had fun researching Bible times and Jewish-wear. One of the perks of being an illustrator is all the things you learn, about things you never knew anything about before. Or things you thought you knew about, then find out how much you didn't know. If that makes any sense.

So its back to work for me today, no rest for the wicked. My reward will be a new episode of Downton Abbey tonight!