Thanksgiving thoughts

I'm thankful for different cultures and family traditions! Many people are afraid of things that are different, but I think if you embrace differences, your life becomes richer.

Thanksgiving

There are all kinds of thanksgiving like lying in a grass filled hill making pictures from the clouds. Being grateful there is someone to share your joy makes it all the sweeter.

Thanksgiving Thoughts - an oldie but a goodie.

Oh my goodness, I have not had time to paint anything at all the last week or so. I can't believe all of the great work that has been posted here the last few weeks. I must go back and take it all in. I'm so thankful for all of the inspiration other artists bring!

This is a painting I did a while back. Pumpkin pie is my favorite dish during this festive holiday. So, Pumpkin Pie Here I Come!

Closet Gnome

A humming, a twitter, a buzz, a noise beyond hearing emanated from the deep, dark, depth of the closet.

A puff of air, a small breath of breeze, a flicker of curtains opens a slit of light from a bright moon lit night.

Caught by a moon beam, held by a boy's clear sight, a closet Gnome stands frozen and frightened to move a minute muscle.

Perhaps unnoticed or not believed, perhaps thought to be imagined or seen as night's shadows dancing.

Hoping Mortimer the Gnome wills himself unseen to make himself invisible.

Knowing and now seeing what he knew all along his eyes locked and fixed on this creature of beyond.

The boy Felix stares gluing his eyes refusing to blink scared that his magical creature would disappear.

"You there. I see you. Yes you." And in a breath Felix and Mortimer were side by side, face to face and eye to eye.

"I know some serious magic needs to happen now or I couldn't do this." And with that Felix touches Mortimer with a eruption of faerie dust.

"I know something magical when I see it."

"It is a well known fact that Gnomes live among us unseen. This has been going on for a long, long time and we like it that way. Sometimes people will see us and do not believe it, this happens all the time. You got to be nuts to believe in little people, you need glasses. Well those are the rules and that is just the way it is. Grow up! And go back to sleep I am just a dream. Forget about it."

"Now you touching me like that was out of line. OK OK maybe I do owe you a little magic. And maybe all this Faerie dust is a dead give away."

"Caught in a moon beam; they warn you, they tell you never ever get caught in a moon beam. So I did. Big deal. Or it wouldn't be if you hadn't touched me. Now my whole world is changed. I have to... never mind. Magic is what you want and magic is what you will have."

Surrounded by white fluffy clouds flying in a toy red boat Felix steers and guides not knowing where. Mortimer wedged in the front of the boat with arms out stretched like a plane.

Mortimer; "You can not find where we are going by knowing how or by looking. There is no route in fact the more you think about it and try to find it the more it will elude you. Do not try this on your own. Just follow the Faerie dust."

Just then the clouds part and an island appears flowing in the sky.

"We're here. We're here. I'm home. I'm Home"

The Island is lush and green and thick with forest.

There is soft gentle music flowing and inviting.

As soon as they land Mortimer scrambles out and scurries into the forest followed closely by felix never leaving him out of his sight.

And so it begins....

Charlotte travels again

Character drawings

Still working on Minnie, the St. Bernard, character. Not consistent yet with the character but having fun working on it! You wouldn't think that a 100 lb dog could jump and play like a puppy, but she does (just get out of her way--she doesn't know her own strength)!

Pippi Longstocking (a character in an adventure)

Itty Bitty Bear is back

And doing double duty: for WaWe and IF: Music. Not exactly an adventure for this character, but a quiet moment with a friend. He's really quite fond of music and dancing!

Charlotte travels in her dreams

Charlotte doesn't get into many adventures during the day, but at night she's brave enough to ride around on a wild thing!

character

On chilly evenings little Samantha would find herself in another world when she snuggled up with an old leather bound book filled with whimsical stories of far away lands...

Still catching up here! This was really more of a rough draft to play with the colors and ideas. I rushed it a bit and so it's definitely not where I want it to be, but I'm really amazed at how looking at the image after it's scanned helps me see what I want to change and adjust.

wild thing

Finally, finally, finally! This has been sitting on my desk for weeks, and I just got it uploaded. After Linda's invitation to join WaWe (back in October - oy!) I'm "finally" jumping in!

I had in my mind the thought of the wonderful imagination of a child, and how fun it would be if those wild things were fun furry things that came in at night to play hide-and-seek with!

Background got a bit messy, unfortunately. And apparently I still am unsure of how to upload my image properly (so that when you click on it, it opens up enlarged)... assistance please? Thanks!!!

character

I'm double-dipping here also because I used this image for IF this week. This is Bella Minnie, my new character (she appears in the banner above but looks a little different). I'm working on making her into a picture book character to show at SCBWI-NY conference. She's actually based on our newest adopted dog, a sweet St. Bernard (we have a house full of animals who are all loved). I'm working on showing her in different positions & different actions. Wish me luck!

Wild Thing

This is an absolute mess--my washes got away from me & I will be redoing this. As a child, my "Wild Thing" was anything under the bed and especially the monster in the closet. If I piled all of my stuffed animals on the bed, I was much safer!

Value comment ex.

Here is your image in black and white.










Here is one with highlights and dark tones. It's not well done I just threw it into Photoshop, but even still you see a difference immediately.



Here is the adjusted image in gray scale.

HTH. :)

Stepping Stones

I admit I'm doing double duty with this piece. I'm using it for this week's WaWe adventure prompt, but also IF's unbalanced.

Crossing the creek by way of stepping stones, was not as easy as Victoria thought it would be. Only one of them on this adventure didn't seem to have any trouble: Whiskers. Cats were just nimble that way. Claude on the other hand, didn't even make it to the first rock without sliding in. Well, "sliding" wasn't exactly the word to describe what he did, more like "galumpfed" in. Thank goodness Nevin wasn't around to see this. As far as big brothers go, Nevin was the worse. He always complained about how clumsy and klutzy Victoria was. It was a relief he wasn't here to see this spectacle.

What do you guys think? Sometimes my work feels flat. Do my pieces convey action, movement, expression or do they feel flat to you too? Honestly, the truth may be painful sometimes, but that's how we grow. Thanks!

PB artist interview Wednesday.

This moth's interview is with picture book artist Bonnie Adamson. Next month will feature Cyd Moore.

Visit my blog to read the interview and see samples of Bonnie's beautiful work.

Banner Art for WaWe

Anyone interested in designing a banner for WaWe for December? January? February?.....??? The banner format is approximately 660 pixels long. Let me know which month you'd like to design. Thanks!

Create a character | Itty Bitty Bear

Doodling with a pen, I found myself drawing this little fellow...

I then did a bit of a color sketch, and decided to call him Itty Bitty Bear.

Not sure what kind of adventures he'll be having, but he sure looks comfy in his little teacup :-)

Young miss Charlotte

For young miss Charlotte, who was a very timid girl, even skipping rope was an adventure of its own.

The story...

 

The Closet Gnome

And there he was from out of the shadows.

Twinkle in his eye with an attitude and presence.

Done for Watercolor Wednesdays.

I liked the faeries and gnomes of Brian Fround and Allan Lee and wanted to create my own.

I was having my own gnome problems with anything mechanical while making this. I thought my scanner was broken but I think it was my thingy that I plug the ubs cable devices into. Then my answering machine wasn't on and it was giving me the time and not recording my outgoing message. I bought a new scanner which I may not of needed and had to install it. It have me problems because I was still using a plug that didn't work. When I was reinstalling the photoshop that I like using wouldn't open again because of those plug thingy that were not working. So it is now 2:30 am as I write this had I known I could of had this done by early evening. This gnome is a mischievous fellow who seems to be living up to his name. The wild thing boy in the tree and this fellow will get into all sorts of adventures.

I love to hear comments please feel free.

Monkeying Around

I worked this WaWe challenge backwards. Here's a watercolor and pastel illustration that I finished today for the children's book I'm working on. These monkeys weren't that fun for me in the sketch concept phase - this book has lots of fun animals and they seemed kind of weak compared to the others. I started falling in love with them last Tuesday when I moved onto final line art.
Now they're my favorite. I started thinking of these funny little monkeys as characters so I could fit them into last week's challenge. I did a little bit of sketchy character development so I'm not cheating the system. ;) I can't wait until I have the time to devote to these "Munkies."
I've pulled them into today's PbIdMo scenario too.

Here's Moanalua Munkie:
and her brother, Jon:

Smoky

Inquisitive and brave, sweet and tart, Smoky was a girl who craved adventure.

Princess

I've written a story about this princess which I hope to some day take all the way to publication. Thanks, Vanessa, for getting me to do something I've been meaning to do for some time!

I finished my first "picture book" a couple of weeks ago, so now I will hopefully take advantage of a little bit more free time and do some more posting! Everyone has been turning out some very impressive stuff and I hope to do the same!

Eleanor

The girl is Eleanor. She is an orphan. Nobody knows what's on her mind because she's so distant and cold. Just one thing, she's always carrying an empty bird cage around.

Honestly, i was so nervous while painting this illo 'cos i'm still practicing with watercolors. I'm not very good at this medium, my watercolor drawings start well, but i always manage to ruin them in the end :D

I hope i didnt ruin too much this time, i dunno... but i tried to do the best i could for WaWe ^_^

Have a lovely weekend everyone!

The Character...

and soon the little story...

Nice weekend for everybody!!!!

A Puppy and A Wild (Chicken) Thing

When I sat down to paint a child or animal character, this is who showed up.

Happy Puppy!

Does he look familiar? I think he looks a lot like the puppy I did for theFrankenstein prompt and the Halloween character prompt and maybe a little like this puppy too. They are all supposed to be the same kind of dog, so maybe they’re different puppies from the same litter.

For the Wild Thing prompt, I was originally going to do an image of the characters from the book/movie, but then I decided to do something slightly different in the style of Maurice Sendak. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to complete this painting, and honestly I could have spent another week or so on it to make it look the way I wanted it to look. Since I have other projects that I need to get done, I cut a few corners to finish the painting. There are parts I really like and parts I wish I could have spent the time to do right. I think I’ll be using some of the techniques and the palette in future paintings to see what happens. So, here’s my wild (chicken) thing painting.

Wild Chicken Thing and Max