WIP Better late than never!

Here is a very unfinished version of my Goodnight Moon Contest submission. Please excuse the sloppiness...it's how I work things out.

Sketchies

Not a lot of free time to blog, but I am trying to keep my pencil/pen moving at all times!

This is hedgie surfs. I am hoping to turn a lot of my sketches to color soon!

Alice in Indecisive-land

 

So like my fellow SCBWI-Carolina illustrators, I've been drawing and painting away on my contest submission. I'm afraid I need to stop. I'm on the verge of overworking this sucker. I need to stop messing with it and get it in the mail. Now to choose between my two versions. hmmm..... I know these 2 versions look entirely different, right? They do when you stare at them much much too long.

Tomie de Paola Award Update

*UPDATE!*

Check out the awesome winners of the contest here.
You can also see a lot of the submissions put together by Diandra Mae.  (So great that she took that on!) I love seeing them all together.

Hey! I hope you bunnies and squirrels have a warm and wonderful Holiday season! I'm working on getting back to the swing of this illustration gig after this school semester is over.

Flashback style

Yesterday I was dropping of lil' Ro at his daycare and saw one of my old books from my old gig as a staff illustrator laying slightly tattered on the floor. It made me flash back to a time when I was happily drawing in my little cubicle, with my knick knacks in place, and money funneling weekly into my 401k and the stability of it all made me feel panicky. I miss having a full-time job sometimes. Just showing up and ticking down a list of fun projects was nice, clock out at 4:30...done. I didn't have to market myself, or pound the pavement for new work, it just showed up on my desk. This freelance stuff is fun, and exciting, but the unknown sometimes creeps in and scares the heck out of me. I also miss having co-workers to chat with or ask questions or advice.

I also noticed how differently I draw now. I still love the soft look of the watercolors in Painter. Maybe I'll do some experimenting again when my deadlines slow down some.

On a side note, I mentioned to Ro's teacher that I illustrated that book (I didn't mention the 5 others on the bookshelf..) This morning, Ro's teacher gave me a sharpie to sign her book. I felt like a total dork, a very flattered dork though. :)