PiBoIdMo 2015 - Winner!

I do solemnly swear that I have faithfully

executed the PiBoIdMo 30-ideas-in-30-days challenge,

and will, to the best of my ability, parlay my ideas

into picture book manuscripts.

Wow! My sixth year of participating in Picture Book Idea Month (#PiBoIdMo) was a success!! (even if I was delayed by visiting family for the holidays)

It's always a wonderful challenge… and I'm looking forward to continuing my writing experiments with these ideas. That's been a slow, slow process for me, but definitely something I'll be concentrating on in 2016!

Congrats to all the other winners as well—it's a long haul, but WE MADE IT!

7th Annual Picture Book Idea Month — PiBoIdMo 2015

I have been SLACKING… how can my SECOND blog post of the year be in late October?! I guess it doesn't help that I've have a mysterious illness for almost 2 months… but thankfully that's getting better and I almost feel like a person again (although I still have no idea what it was/is).

It's harvest time for group projects and creative challenges! PiBoIdMo 2015, here I come!

Head over to Taralazar.com to find out more about PiBoIdMo. This will be my SIXTH year participating (and PiBoIdMo's 7th year). 

I'm really looking forward to the month-long guest blog posts, inspiration, and support that PiBoIdMo provides.

I finally started writing last year… and while I've made some progress, I'm still not where I'd like it to be—so, as usual, #PiBoIdMo is a reminder (and a good kick-in-the-pants) to revisit my collected ideas and start WRITING… you know, to go along with all my artwork. I'll just say it: I'm tired of waiting around for someone else's story—time to create my own stories.

I'm so excited, I've started already. (…just a minute ago…idea #1 was recorded for posterity…I think I feel another idea coming on…this is what it's all about)

PiBoIdMo 2014 - Winner!

I do solemnly swear that I have faithfully

executed the PiBoIdMo 30-ideas-in-30-days challenge,

and will, to the best of my ability, parlay my ideas

into picture book manuscripts.

Wow! My fifth year of participating in Picture Book Idea Month (#PiBoIdMo) was another success!! It's always a wonderful challenge… I don't know if it's because so many others are working right along with me and our combined motivation keeps us going or what, but it works… every year for me!

The best part, after 5 years of participating in generating ideas… I've finally started writing! Well, I actually started before PiBoIdMo, (and I've started several projects in the past, but I'm not counting those, because I never finished any of them!), but it was a real confidence booster overall—actually writing something, being happy with it, working through ideas and story structure, getting it critiqued (by friends and an editor!)… it's a whole new avenue for me and I'm super-excited to keep going! On to revisions!!

Congrats to all the other winners as well—it's a long haul, but WE MADE IT!

PiBoIdMo 2013 - Winner!

I do solemnly swear that I have faithfully executed 
the

PiBoIdMo 30-ideas-in-30-days challenge,


and will, to the best of my ability, 
parlay my ideas

into picture book manuscripts.

My fourth year of participating in Picture Book Idea Month (#PiBoIdMo) is a success! I even tried a new approach which has landed me at the end of the month with even more than 30 ideas!

I can't believe it's been a whole month and PiBoIdMo is done once again. This whole year has positively flown by! I'm so thankful for all my experiences and opportunities this year has brought, and I'm especially thankful for the excuse PiBoIdMo has given me to daydream a little extra every day.

PiBoIdMo 2012 - Winner!

I do solemnly swear that I have faithfully executed 
the

PiBoIdMo 30-ideas-in-30-days challenge,


and will, to the best of my ability, 
parlay my ideas

into picture book manuscripts.

My third year of participating in Picture Book Idea Month (#PiBoIdMo) was another success. And, once again, I find myself thinking… this is really something I should do more regularly – keep a PB idea list going all year long. I still haven't found a way to make it a regular practice, but I think it'll definitely be on my 2013 Resolutions to find a way to make this happen!

And of course, I'm interested in the follow-through of the these ideas. Even if they're only dummies, turning these ideas into completed books is the next big challenge!

I can't believe it's been a whole year since the last PiBoIdMo, and here we are at the end of another one. I've done a lot in the past year, including completing my first finished picture book (as illustrator only), signing on with an illustration agency, visiting the SCBWI-LA Conference for the first time (and as an SCBWI Volunteer), and reading over 200 picture books (as a self-study project to just read more PBs regularly - I posted about it here and here). I did start writing a few of my own picture books, but haven't gotten very far with them yet. I keep stopping myself. It's the one step I haven't figured out how to approach, but I  continue to try and in the meantime – I'm keeping the new ideas rolling in and ready for me when I do figure out the right process for myself, to write AND illustrate my own stories.

Catching-up at Summer's End…

It's been a long, distracting summer here. There's been so much going on, I obviously haven't had much time to keep up with the blog. But here are some of the biggest news items…

I have a new agency representing me! I'm very happy to have joined up with the nice folks over at Beehive Illustration, out of the UK. I'll also have a page in their annual catalog coming out next year, featuring several new pieces from another project I finished this summer…

Beehive Illustration Agency, UK

The Zoo's Annual Piggyback Race is a picture book project I worked on over the summer. It was just so much fun, and the best part is being DONE! I did all the illustration, as well the layout and design. The book is currently in production, so stay turned – I'll be spreading the word when it becomes available for purchase.

New book work complete! Look for news later this fall.

New book work: sneak peeks!

And last but not least, I finished a private fantasy commission piece as well. At 16"x 20, it's the largest completely colored pencil piece I've ever done.

Fantasy commission

I also went to the big SCBWI conference in LA. I've been to the big NYC Conference and several Regional conferences before, but visiting LA was a first for me. But I'll have more on that in my next post… 

PiBoIdMo 2011 - Winner!

I do solemnly swear that I have faithfully executed
the PiBoIdMo 30-ideas-in-30-days challenge,
and will, to the best of my ability,
parlay my ideas into picture book manuscripts.

My second year of participating in Picture Book Idea Month 2011 (#PiBoIdMo) was another success. Once again, I find myself thinking… this is really something I should do everyday, keep this list going all year long… or at the very least, find a way to make it a more regular practice. Of course, I've got two long lists to work through, and this year I'm more interested in the follow-through of the these ideas. The next step… turning these ideas into real books!

Happy Halloween!

Just for fun, I started this piece last weekend and finished it during the week. I put a couple pics of it in-progress up on Instagram, but I wanted to share it with everyone here, today. This little character (Charlie the Shy Pig) has really stuck with me and I had SO much fun dressing him up for halloween.

New Work: The Z-Kids 5 yr Celebration

Last week I learned from my friend, Christina Rodriguez, about Aaron Zenz's art-blog project (loveingly titled: Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty) started for his kids (the Z-Kids). Turns out they are going to be celebrating their 5th anniversary next week, wow! In celebration of this anniversary, Aaron and kids invited artist friends to peruse the collected works on the blog, and recreate it in their own illustrative style (an event they started 2 years ago with the Z-Kids blog 3rd anniversary).

It was hard to choose, but I ended up picking this little Wabbit, by Gracie. I enjoy venturing into the darker side of illustration once in a while…but the more playful side of the darker side, kinda like Tim Burton ;). Anyway, I started some sketches, and just kept working at it for a few days, all teh while planning to incorporate the wonderful subtitle of the piece into the artwork (because it's just too funny and I also enjoy hand-lettering)… and here are the results:

Gracie's Original Drawing:
My Recreation:

Aaron tells me the celebreation post with the collected submissions will be posted around the end of this coming week - check for it - and visit the Z-Kids blog often, they're awesome!

Illustration Friday: MIDSUMMER NIGHT

Once again, I've run out of time… but I'm still trying to keep my promises to myself and participate & post for Illustration Friday regularly. So, here's a work-in-progress for the Midsummer Night theme: a mock-up book cover sketch. I plan to add a whole lot more (possibly animals in the tress, fairies?, etc.) and make it a real melding of illustration in the background with designy elements in vector overlapping/transparent on top. I also couldn't pass up a chance to do some hand lettering. Love it.

Basically I just started doodling and my mind wandered and eventually landed on this idea for a book cover. All while on a plane, being watched by fellow travelers.

Illustration Friday: LAUNCH

This week has turned into something crazier than I can manage. I was hoping to do a finished drawing of this, but I am just not going to have the time this week… so I decided to just post this concept sketch and be done with it - accept and move on. Fun stuff happening, so I can't be too upset about it. :)

New Work: Aesop's Follow-Up

Just finished this little guy for the back of my new promo card, such a little cutie. I was drawing for a good part of the day and I didn't even notice the time going by - I LOVE that feeling. :) Tomorrow, I'll be figuring out where/who to send these to… while trying to not to breathe in the smoky haze drifting over us from a forest fire in Arizona!

Illustration Friday: ASLEEP (1)

Hello IFers! I'm planning to do some new original sketches for this theme later, but I couldn't resist posting these two pieces for this week's topic "Asleep". Enjoy folks!

"Deep, dark, sea sleep."
The bowhead whale catches
winkson drifting arctic waves.

"Cold, cavernous, huddled hibernation."
Kodiak bears sleep through chilly winter
months in comfy dens on the islands of
the Kodiak Archipelago in Alaska.

New Work: Charlie's New Friend

Last weekend, our local SCBWI Chapter sponsered a special Illustrator's Professional Development Day, with art director, Laurent Linn, from Simon & Schuster. It involved working on a picture book project, a double page spread from a text that Laurent Linn supplied (he sent all participants two manuscripts to choose from) -- in advance of the actual event. The process involved getting direct feedback from Laurent at the sketch stage and finished with a 20 minute individual critique on the day of the event.

I chose a story about a shy little pig learning to make new friends. I really wanted to get a strong portfolio piece out of this assignment, and I think I did. I have a LOT of photos and scans from the whole process, which I will post soon - but for now I just wanted to share this with everyone! Enjoy!

New Work: Bella Sara SPRING CARNIVAL

The new series from Bella Sara has arrived! I worked on Nova for this series, a character that was introduced in the recent Starlights series, and is making another appearance here at the Spring Carnival. Once again, I did not work on the background art, but only concentrated on the character. As usual, I had so much fun working on this project that it can hardly be called "work". Creating the transparent decorative silks and elaborate "Mane&Tail-dos" were particularly challenging. I enjoyed stylizing her "angelic" wings as well. And special bonus, the Bella Sara team has made a digital "poster" of Nova that is available for download at their website - previewed below. Click on the image to go to the site and download it for yourself, along with several other characters from this series!

New Work: NESCBWI Conference 2011 Illustration & Promo Material

This year I had the honor of being asked to create an illustration and promo material design for the New England Region of the Society of Children's Books Writers and Illustrator's annual conference. The theme of the conference this year is "Celebrating Milestones" because both the SCBWI and the NESCBWI are celebrating big anniversaries.

Honestly, I really got myself worked up over this one. I mean, the PRESSURE. I was struggling with the deadline, the theme, and what style to go with. But with the help of my crit group pals, I finally landed on a solid concept that fit the theme and would be fun for me and my whimsical-fantasy artwork preferences. The main idea was based on the Gloucester Sea Serpent, a New England local legend, which grew to include a sailing ship to represent a long, on-going journey. I threw in a couple subtle references to the organizations - a feather pen for the writers, a brush for the illustrators and a kite to honor SCBWI National.

This was also a bit of an experimentation for me. I knew I wouldn't have the time for my favored colored pencil work and since I also love line drawings and work with vector art often, I decided to play around with blending both. I arrived at the final stlye by combining a vector color base, layered with several textures to add an organic feel, and finished it off with a layer of hand-drawn line work on top, to bring it all together.

All in all it's been a very fun project and experience. The conference organizers have been wonderful to work with (and so patient with me!). I can't wait to attend the conference myself, this May. :)

Illustration Friday: CHICKEN

Yay! I finished an IF, just under the wire (in my own time zone anyway). I've recently been experimenting with a new style and decided to keep playing with it on this. It's all just for fun and experimentation.

PiBoIdMo Winner!

This year, for the first time, I decided to join in and participate in Picture Book Idea Month (#PiBoIdMo for short). It was a totally new experience, one I really enjoyed (even if my last three ideas arrived just this morning… for me it was more like 30 ideas in 32 days). I actually think this would be a great thing to do on a daily basis, idea generating is sometimes the hardest part! Developing a habit of collecting ideas for any kind of ongoing or long term projects is a good habit to incorporate into a daily routine, IMHO. Now if only I can practice what I preach. ;)

Published!

The new Colored Pencil Society of America's Signature Showcase book is out! I received my copy this past weekend and got to see my very own piece in print… in a book!

New Work: Bella Sara MOONFAIRIES

I'm pretty late with this update - this set came out way back on late spring, but I've only just got around to posting the artwork I completed. I was fortunate enough to be asked to work on four characters, two of them special promo cards (the dancing couple: Woodlock and Twilight). I don't have any actual samples of these cards, but I'll be keeping an eye out. As always, it was a super fun project.

This is Sylphie and the only card for which I worked on both the character and the background art. The rest of the designs were character art only.

Woodlock

Twilight

Mote