Creating a Buggy School - From Start to Finish

Work-in-progress shot of the ladybug

I finished a custom illustration for a preschool auction in Colorado, the other day. You might remember the t-shirt design I showed a few months back (click here) for the team Alex's Angels, as they biked in the Courage Classic race to benefit the Children's Hospital... well, this illustration was a request by Elizabeth, who I worked with on that piece. I loved designing the Alex's Angels illustration and was more than thrilled to work on this one - and thought it would be fun to share my creative process from start to finish.

My style is very... scribbly - and if anyone were to ask me what my technique is I'd probably have to say I'm a blendy scribble-scrabbler. Kind of like a preschooler, so its appropriate that this picture is going to benefit a preschool!

Okay, there are a going to be a lot of pictures, with the final, finished illustration at the end, but I wanted to show the layers of color/blending that went into this piece. For the other color pencil artists out there, I used Prismacolor pencils, and my time spent on this illustration, which measures 11 x 14 inches, was about 7 hours (time gauged by my 60 minute CD played 7 times - its a good mix of music).

SNAIL

Layer One: A little bit of Cool Grey 20%, little bit of Limepeel, little bit of Goldenrod.

Blend, then another layer of color:
Little bit of Burnt Ochre, Pink, French Grey 70%, and Grass Green

Blend, then another layer of color:
Little bit of White and Warm Grey 70%

Lots more blending.

Okay, at this point, I can't move forward with the snail until I get the background around him finished. So here comes some Spring Green grass, some Light Cerulean Blue sky, and French Grey 70% of the eyes.

Okay, I skipped a couple of steps, but I think you get the idea. Shade with Grass green, blend. Shade rock with Violet Blue, blend. Outline with black, blend. Add white to highlight.

Done!

BUG SCHOOL

Yikes, what a mess. Okay, Spring Green grass, Cool Grey 20% rocks, Crimson Red school, Burnt Ochre roof, and Spanish Orange windows/door

Blend!

Okay, I clearly skipped a lot of layers here, but I shaded similarly to the snail/rock, with the exception of adding Tuscan Red (I heart Tuscan Red!) to shade the school.

And then BLEND!

Here is the finished school. The flag features the caterpillar logo of the preschool this will be auctioned for, and was the inspiration behind the entire piece.
Is that not the cutest logo you have ever seen in your life?

As for the entire illustration... well, I won't go in detail on each step, but here are some work in progress photos, as well as the final, finished illustration.

Aw... its just a baby! Here's my newborn sketch. Quite a bit will be changed and polished. Like the bee - I didn't really like him flying upside-down. Also, I made the snail, caterpillar and ladybug larger for the final illustration. You can see in the next picture that they take up more of the foreground than they do in the sketch.

Ah, here we are at the gawky teenage years of my illustration's work-in-progress life.
Very scribbly, half blended, and a little difficult imagining that it will turn out cute in the end.

Now it's a full blown college student, somewhat confident, but still finding itself in the big, bad world of illustration. We have a long way to go before it graduates into a finished illustration.

DONE! (click to see larger, if you want!) Yay, it got its diploma and is ready for a job. Way to go.

Before I go, let me just say... If I can creatively inspire people with my illustrations, I feel like its been a job well done. Four-year-old Gracie, who loves pulling up a chair and working next to me, was inspired to create a little buggy school scene of her own, and I've just got to share.

Nothing is cuter than the work of a preschooler!

Okay, I hope you liked seeing my process from start to finish! If you are interest in seeing more of my work-in-progress posts, click on the link: Inside The Artist's Studio

And if you have any questions about my creative process, just ask!

Enjoy!

xoxo,

Friday Flashback: Age 13 (i.e. My Hell on Earth)

In case you can't see it, my shirt says,
"He's attacked trained, he's one tough trout. He's RAINBO
- I'm coming for you!'

I'd like to say that in 1994, when this picture was taken, dorky glasses and even dorkier t-shirts were totally in... but that would be a big fat lie. Let me tell you a little something about me: I was not little miss popular... Nope, I was gawky, awkward, and socially stunted.

Age thirteen was the worst year of my life. Oh wow, the dorkiness that radiated off me on a daily basis is still humiliating, 15 years later.

I was the girl who hid in the bathroom during lunch hour in 7th grade (ew, that's sick), hoping no one would notice I was eating lunch alone. Never in a million years would I wish my 7th grader life on anyone. I had no confidence, terrible grades, close to no friends, and absolutely zero sense of style - when all the girls were shopping at Clothestime and Wet Seal, I was buying boy's shirts from K-mart.

The summer before 8th grade, my mom pushed me into joining the colorguard team (the only dance-type team my school had back then) and I made some friends, which was pretty much a life-saver for me. Thank goodness. No more sitting in a dank and dirty bathroom to eat my sandwich. My friend Molly finally said to me one day, during colorguard camp, "Marisa, listen. Your shirts are really lame. Please don't wear them anymore."

Yes, I was stunned... I had three fish shirts that I interchanged daily: RAINBO, the SALMONATOR, and ROBO-CARP - you mean my shirts aren't cool? What??

She was right, of course. When you are only minutes away from your first day of 8th grade, and you are secretly hoping that maybe, just maybe, this will be the year you are popular and that maybe boys will think you're cute... wearing a t-shirt claiming that a colorful, machine-gun toting fish is 'attack trained, and one tough trout' probably isn't the best way of going about it. So I started shopping at Clothestime and Wet Seal, and my dorkiness... was mostly gone. I was still too quirky to be truly cool, by middle school standards.

Did I get a boyfriend that year? No. I still had stupid hair and even stupider glasses... but at least I didn't eat lunch in the bathroom anymore.

Never again will I have hair that lame, or Harry Potter-esque glasses (Will likes to call me Cousin Ian, after his BOY cousin, when he sees my old photos)... but as for my shirts - I'm not gonna lie... I STILL think they're awesome and I'd wear them today if I had them. Seriously, super tough fish holding machine guns? Rainbo, The Salmonator, and Robo-Carp? That's funny!

Do you have a flashback of your own to share this week? Come on by Tia's blog at www.ChristopherandTia.blogspot.com for the most awesome meme in town.

xoxo,

Hot Chocolate and Snow Angels

I know this photo is rubbish... it was taken on Will's phone.
But don't the snowflakes look festive?

My day at The Mama Dramalogues. If you're thinking my post is going to be about kids, snow angels, snow in general, and hot chocolate, you are totally right!

Come on by and say hello!

xoxo,

Illustration Friday - Entangled

Poor little mermaid, caught in a fishing net! They aren't just bad for dolphins, you know. This week's Illustration Friday prompt is Entangled, so I thought a little ACEO of a mermaid in a net would be just the thing.

Gracie decided she wanted to participate in Illustration Friday, too... so she drew a mermaid, but didn't have the heart to tangle her in the net. Gracie is clearly a nicer illustrator than I am - but I'm not sure how her picture fits in with the theme... maybe she is entangled in her grid paper?

Now, if that isn't the cutest mermaid ever drawn, I don't know what is! Check out those hands! Maybe I'm biased, but I personally think my 4 year old is an artistic GENIUS!

xoxo,

NaNoWriMoFAIL

Today is officially the last day of November 2009, which means one thing... Word count verification day.

Will I be verifying my word count, you may be wondering? Will I be getting my congratulations for writing 50K in one month?

Uh. No. I hit 16,000 words and then stopped. Well, not completely true. I didn't just stop. Yesterday I wrote about 6 words... but then I deleted about 3 of those. None of my NaNo buddies hit their words either - I think I may have fallen in with the wrong crowd.

Haha, just kidding. But seriously, last year's NaNoWIN went a little better for me than this year's fail, but if you're wondering if I feel like a failure, the answer is NOPE! I really love my story (pssssst! If you are wondering what I'm writing, its a modern YA urban fantasy retelling of Sleeping Beauty) and can't wait to work on it in the evenings when the girls are in bed. But one thing to note, my book does not want to be rushed. Meaning, sitting down and churning out 50K worth of crap (the point of NaNo) is not my book's idea of a good time.

With that said, I still think NaNoWriMo is an awesome thing to participate in. Believe me, I'll try again next year, because what it does, is gets me sitting in my seat, typing when I would ordinarily be watching a Gossip Girl marathon on TV and binge-eating on pumpkin pie. And not only that, but it keeps me writing, even when I think my writing sucks (like just about most of the time) because hitting the word count is more important during the month of November, than writing quality material.

To all the NaNoWINers out there, a heartfelt congratulations! Hitting that word count is hard, and you deserve a HURRAH! And to all the NaNoFAILures out there... meh, join the club. And hopefully I'll see you again next year!

xoxo,

With Love, From the Elves

An elf has been running rampant in my shop, dropping $4 prints all over - a savings of between $4 and $17 on assorted prints!

RUN now and grab yourself a holiday gift, to give to someone who loves cheerful, colorful illustrations, or for yourself (hey, at that price, its a-okay to indulge!)

Its first come, first serve, so grab one while you can!

Come on by Elegant Snobbery and I hope this makes your holiday shopping a little more fun this year! Enjoy!

xoxo,