Illustration Friday!!! Creature

This week's topic for Illustration Friday is creature.   My first interpretation for creature was monster.  Since I LOVE Halloween….it's one of my favorite holidays, I have done monsters before.  Some are actual monsters and some are children dressed as monsters.

Now let me give you a bit of history with me and monsters.  About 2 years ago I discovered a wonderful illustrative treasure called Sketchtravel.  It has illustrations from over 70 artists from the world over.  It is a great book and truly an inspiration to me.  And the proceeds went to a good cause!  If you get a chance pick it up!

In Sketchtravel I discovered an artist whose work I fell in love with….Michael Knapp.  As I pursued his web site, which can be found at www.michaelknapp.com , I found the greatest illustration of a monster that he had done.   This little monster inspired me to do one of my own.  I used several references to develop my monster monster including a cupcake recipe, my kids imaginations and my dog's tongue to create my "creature".  Hope you like him!

Expressive Characters

The past two weeks I have been working on developing one of my character's further....a 4-yr old precocious little girl who I haven't named yet.  Since I am still developing her, I haven't found the right name yet, but I am open to any suggestions!  Just leave them for me in the comment section below this post:)

I spent one session working on developing her character and attitude through her body language and I spent the next session developing her through her facial expressions.  Since I want to use her in a children's picture book, the more expressive both the body and face are, the better!  The more gesture I can put in her body through the flow of her spine and the more action I can put in her posture the better she will read in a picture book.  Additionally, the more expression I can put in her face with eye and mouth placement and the more attitude I can give her with her head and neck positioning, the clearer her emotions will read on the page of a children's book.  So here is my work on her so far....let me know what you think!

Moustache Friday!

This week's topic for Illustration Friday is moustaches!  This is an illustration that I did earlier this year. I was thinking of the moustache of a walrus when I painted this, so I think it really fits for moustache Friday!  Enjoy!  Be sure to check out the other moustache submissions by artists from around the world at Illustration Friday!

Harry Potter, Spiderwick, and Little Red Riding Hood Teenagers

This week we were working on drawing characters who are teenagers.  Understanding their proportions and the fact that they are not yet adults, so they don't have all the angularity of adults, but they are no longer children so they are not quite as soft and curvilinear.  Actually, teenagers are a lot of fun because they have aspects that to their growth that illustrators can exaggerate...like big ears, feet, and hands on boys, and full hips and lips on girls.  This was my first attempt at drawing teenage characters so I'm not sure I pushed all of those areas enough, but I did get some drawings that are fun to look at:)

The first series of drawings were done from photoreference that the Academy provided me.  They do a great job with the costuming of people so we had a pouting girl, Little Red Riding Hood and a Harry Potty like character.  Here is how mine turned out!

The second set of characters we had to chose a manuscript that had teenage characters and then reimagine them.  I chose the Spiderwick Chronicles because I not only love the stories I love the art of Tony DeTerlizzi!  So here is Mallory and Jared Grace.  I used my twins to be the models and aged them appropriately to play an older teenage girl and a tweenage boy.  Let me know what you think!

Illustration Friday!

This Friday the theme for Illustration Friday is underwater.  I immediately thought of polar bears since they love to swim underwater:)  And I like to paint bears.  This bear was inspired by a National Geographic photographer named Joel Sartore who did a whole series of animals.  His work can be found at photoark.com  I gave myself only 1 hour to work on this so I wasn't going for perfection but just gesture and fun.  I also used a few filters in photoshop to help fill it out.  Hope you enjoy!  Let me know what you think.

Underwater