Finally... all three projects from CBook2 are FINISHED!

I told you they would all be due today, didn't I?

Let's start with our folktale project, the story of Sigo the boy who lived with the bears...

Left side of the double-page spread...

Right side of the double-page spread!

Both pieces of art were wood-burned on (scrap) pine, scanned and then put into Photoshop to do the page layout.  I tried to make the words look like they were "burned in" too!

Here are the final double-page spreads for Mother Nature.  I've included the text, though it is copyrighted to the author, but this is for educational and learning purposes, and I hereby do not take any credit whatsoever for the text.  I find it an important part of the process, because the assignment was to work around the original text layout, versus coming up with one like we did with Mooin. (Should anyone find this to be problematic, contact me and I will remedy it immediately.)

In case you forgot, these were done in ink and watercolor on pre-stretched Arches 140lb hot press paper.

As for our collage project, my "Song of Spring" poem has yet to be actually merged with the art in proper layout form.  I still haven't had the time to re-learn how to do a text path.  Yeah, I know it's one of those silly easy things, but hey I've been busy!  Also, it needs to be re-scanned because I've got a seam in the middle, where the gutter usually is.  Here it is anyhow, so we can see the whole body of work together in one blog post.

Once again, this was done by painting old Chinese and English newspapers with non-toxic acrylics, cut and pasted with Matte Medium, with a few finishing touches done in either acrylic or colored pencil. I almost feel like it needs some little blossoms in the tree... but I'm going to wait and see what it looks like with the words before I do anything else to it.

All in all, a very satisfying semester! Four finished double-page spreads, a finished picture book manuscript, and a cover letter.  I don't think I could of asked for more, especially in a three month period!

Now... What's next???

From Start to Finish - Mooin, The Bear's Child, Part 3

(Note: I realized that I hadn't actually posted my last blog post when I created it, so it looks like I posted twice in a row...I swear I didn't mean to!)

Critiques are life savers.  Yes, they're a royal pain in the patootie, and man can they draaaaaag!  But without some of the crits of art-classes-past, and the one on Monday, many of my pieces would have turned out entirely differently.

For example, during the last crit, a very smart and insightful person brought up that most of my stuff is super colorful.  Like straight-from-the-tube colorful.  And I've been trying extremely hard to stay away from that, because I tend to yield better results when I do.  My problem is that I wasn't brought up to use neutral colors, or rather, no one seemed to point out that I didn't mix my own colors. That explains why I have such a problem deciding which colors to use in my art, because I don't use a limited palette.  If the whole wide world is available, why not just use them all?

So I am very thankful to my dear friend for bringing that point up, and reminding me that I'm an artist, and not a toddler with a 280-count box of Crayolas, (or whatever number they are up to now)! Those days were much simpler, though.

Well I'm done blathering about that.  Here's what I've been up to in the past few days...

New composition and style to my design!

My wood-burning friend, the tool I'm using for my line work.
(I wear a mask and turn on the kitchen hood fan for proper ventilation when burning the wood.)

Left side of my double-page spread.

Right side of my double-page spread.

New & Improved! color palette, using 3 primary colors, white, and one brown.

Not done yet... but I'm liking the results!  Thank goodness for the color changes!

This project, as well as "Mother Nature" and "Song of Spring," will be completely finished by Monday, and all three will be scanned and posted here on my blog most likely a day or two after that.  I'm so glad to have some nicer pieces to put into my portfolio! Can't wait to have it all done!!

From Start to Finish - Mooin, The Bear's Child, Part 2

It's color study time!


Although I'm still working on (and constantly thinking about) my final composition, a color study is still a helpful exercise to do.  (Plus, it's due this Monday in CBookII.)  After much deliberation, I have decided to go with my first idea of painting on pine wood, with burned-in accents. 


When I told him this, my husband asked me, "If one of your problems is that you haven't stuck to a certain style, why are you trying this new style on a new project?"  That is a valid point, but I told him what I'm going to tell you now:  If I don't experiment enough with different techniques, how will I know which I love the most?

Also, I have already done a project using this techniques, and I really enjoyed it.  This is a part of said project:

I did quite a bit of research and messing around to figure out the kind of look I was going for, and came up with this rainbow of colors:

(These are my happy acrylic paints.  I use the student grade stuff for now.)

And my color comp:

Let's see what teacher thinks in class!

From Start to Finish: Mooin, the Bear's Child

Project Number Three has commenced!

You may notice that I've still got a little bit of work to do on my two previous projects, however, as many of you students out there understand... What Teacher says, Student does!

Our third and final project for Children's Book Illustration II is a storyboard and a double-page spread of a folktale.  It must include a child, and it must be completed in acrylic paint!  It can be any size, theme or style we choose, as long as it matches well with the story.

I chose to do the Native American tale of "Mooin, the Bear's Child."  In this class, I have done a Japanese themed project in watercolor, a Chinese themed project with acrylic and cut paper collage, and I think it will be fun to try a Native American theme for the last project.  I love nature, and all things woodsy (my daddy does woodworking- love the smell of sawdust!) so I am entertaining the thought of painting this all on pine... but I guess we'll see how it goes.  Art tends to have it's own mind when it comes to things like this!

Our first job was to paginate the story, which means we need to break down the story's text and determine where it will go, and on what page, in a way that enhances the story.  I've learned in my writing class that this is also an essential part of writing a picture book - you need to make the story build itself up, create tension and excitement, and slowly bring it back down to a conclusion.  And you can do all that not only with the plot, but also how and where you place the text.

Here's what my story looks like paginated:

 

The next step is to do a storyboard, or a visual layout of text and page composition of the entire story.  This includes things like borders, square-ups, and page bleeds.

Mine read from left to right- across both pages. 
(The pages are numbered...follow those and you'll get the idea!)

Then we choose our favorite double-page spread that features a child, and we work on possible compositions:

(I didn't include the ugly ones...maybe one day I will when it won't be so incriminating!)

Then we need to work on the final sketch.  This part is much harder for me, because my story is about bears, and I've never actually drawn real bears before!  So I went surfing around the web and watched some nice bear videos, clips from Disney's Brother Bear movie, and browsed Google images.  I also reserched Native American iconolgy and symbols, because I might be using them for a border. 

 Here are some sketches I can now use for my composition:

That is all I've got right now, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done!  I've got more wrestling bears, boys, and comps to draw, and some serious polishing up to do.  Though I've got an image in my head, I'm still excited to see how it all turns out!

In the meantime, Happy Drawing and Writing to you!  :)