Illustration Friday: UNICORN

My favorite topic EVER is this week's Illustration Friday theme: UNICORN! Okay, I have quite a few, so I'm going to share them all with you here—and don't forget to check out and 'like' your favorites on my instagram account: mb.illustration!

A gift for a friend… back in the mid-1990s, I drew a lot of unicorns like this.
1999. Colored Pencil & Ink.

The Spanish Unicorn… the one that started me on this project of Unicorns of the World.
1998. Colored Pencil

Detail… I was still 'discovering' colored pencil back then, as you can see, I was having fun.
*didn't have a great scanner or auto-merge in Photoshop back then either… so all my images of this one are fairly poor.

The Caribbean Unicorn (I call them Licorne Caraïbes)
1999. Colored Pencil

Ki-lin, the Chinese Unicorn… or one of them.
1999. Colored Pencil

An African unicorn of the Serengeti (Saamoja Upangatiga).
1999. Colored Pencil

The Volcano Unicorn of the Pacific Rim of Fire… Lae-Hao-Kela
1999. Colored Pencil

The Amazonian Unicorn, Unchifre.
1999. Colored Pencil

  

The Japanese Unicorn: Kirin
1999. Colored Pencil

The Arctic Unicorn, Yksisarvinen.
1999. Colored Pencil

  

Another African Unicorn… the Saharan.
2000. Colored Pencil

One more African Unicorn, the Madagascan Unicorn.
2000. Colored Pencil

  

Inspired by Illustration Friday itself: Smitten
#feartheunicorn

Mixing, Blending, and Burnishing: Colored Pencil Workshop

Photos my helper, Lynn Platow, took around and about the workshop day.

As in MY workshop! My very FIRST workshop.
And, MAN, was I nervous… it it all turned out to be wonderful. :)

The workshop was part of the MasterWorks Show here in NM, you can see from the pictures, it took place right in the show space—surround by gorgeous art to inspire us. I had 12 students, which was the perfect size class for the day. Of course, 3/4 of them were members of my colored pencil group, people whom I knew, and knew me, well. I knew they were all there just to learn how I do what I do, so that  helped ease my nerves I think.

Me and my table FULL of supplies and examples

Here's my class, hard at work!

MasterWorks of New Mexico: The Judge

Behind-the-scenes.

What an honor to be asked to judge a Show that I've been involved with almost every year since I've been in New Mexico. I had the pleasure of going in and seeing all the accepted miniature work yesterday—then had to the challenging task of handing out awards.
Don't let anyone tell you it's easy to judge other people's work, it's not. Although, that being said, I think I may have had it a little easier than the larger works judge. Miniatures have strict rules & regulations against which to be juried into the show—I was a juror back in 2011, that's also a tough job! But the jurors did a fabulous job selecting deserving works to be included in this year's display.
There are 7 categories: Oil, Acrylic, Water Media, Drawing/Printing, Mixed Media, Colored Pencil and  Three-dimensional—each of which I had to award 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, plus 8 honorable mentions, one Best-In-Show, and several awards for excellence, detail, etc.
It was a daunting afternoon, but more than rewarding for the honored recipients—it was a rich and inspiring experience for me. I walked out of there brimming with ideas and motivation to push myself more in my own work, experiment, and perhaps even branch out into other media.

I'm looking forward to the reception next Friday, April 4th 5-8pm… and to the next year of ideas and experiments and new miniature work to come!

Signing documents while the show is hung.

p.s. I'm also teaching my first workshop during/at the show. It will focus on mixing colors, blending, and burnishing with colored pencil—specifically how these relate to working in miniature. I'm nervous and excited for it, wish me luck!

Illustration Friday: SPARK

Hey, so there didn't seem to be a new word from the folks at Illustration Friday this week, so I'm totally going to use this edited piece as my submission for SPARK. Ideas can come from the tiniest sparks of inspiration—keep an eye out and you'll see them everywhere!

Guest Speaker: Illustration Media

My good friend, Neecy Twinem, teaches several illustration classes over at the Southwest University of Visual Arts (SUVA) here in Albuquerque—and I'm always happy to visit her classes when she asks me to come in and talk about colored pencils & illustration.

As usual, I packed up about 3 bags worth of supplies, samples, books, and finished pieces to share with the class. I discussed a few different methods of working with pencils, did a short demo, and talked a lot about how I got into pencils and developed a way of working with them that suited me (a lot of it was trial and error, luck of the draw, and timing).

I'm thinking about writing a post specifically about all this… sometime in the near future. For now, let me just say—I have used Prismacolor a lot in the past. I still have a rather large collection of Primacolor pencils… but these days I'm using mainly Caran d'Arche Luminance 6901 pencils—for three very important reasons:

One—they almost never break inside the barrel of the pencil. Prisma breaks often and easily, I've wasted whole pencils on breakage like that. 

Two—they do not bloom, there's not waxy white haze that forms over unsealed artwork that is heavily burnished.

Three—they have the best lightfast rating of any colored pencil on the market.  

 I'll see about putting together more posts about working with colored pencils… soon.

MasterWorks Interview

After a few scheduling snafoos, the MasterWorks of New Mexico team was finally able to make it over to interview me, on camera (eeeeek!), as this year's Judge of the MasterWorks Miniatures Division. This is my first opportunity to be a judge for a show and I'm so honored to have been asked by MasterWorks. I've been submitting to this show since I moved out to New Mexico, and I'm extremely humbled to have received multiple awards (2009, 2010, 2011, 2013)  from them and served as a juror for the miniature division in 2012. 

I was quite nervous, I really don't like being the center of attention, but it went fast. I'm sure I'm not going to want to watch it… ever—but it was actually a pretty great experience, thanks to MasterWorks Mastermind, Barbara Lohbeck.

And, hey… New Mexico locals! I'm giving a colored pencil miniature workshop at the show in April. Check out the details here.

IF: Entangled

Hey, what?! Two days in a row? No way…

So, this one's a bit of a cheat since it's from a book I worked on last year (The Zoo's Annual Piggyback Race, March 2013 - available from me or the author/publisher)… but it was just so perfect for this #iFri prompt, and it was definitely one of the more challenging pieces from the book.

"The snakes became tangled, around and around"

I actually tangled up two different colored stings for reference, and drew directly from that. Apparently I never took a reference photo of the tangled mess, but I think the result speaks for itself!

(I plan to do a new piece as well, continue with experimenting, etc.)

IF: Moustache

Long time… Yeah, it's just been a long time.
I've been talking about experimenting for over a year now, and I haven't really gotten around to it, so tonight I sat down and forced something out. I don't necessarily like, but I think it's a real start of something.
I'm excited I finally did an iFri too (even if I am getting in about 40 past the deadline). I've been all wrapped up in "stuff", I gotta learn to have fun doing what I do again.

Jack-MustachiO's

*anyone catch my shout-out to Little Pea? LOVE that book!

New Work: Masterworks Miniatures 2013

Once again, a new batch of miniatures are complete and submitted! Keeping my fingers crossed they are all accepted into the MasterWorks show.

After taking a year off to participate in the show as a miniatues juror last yea, I can only hope I do as well as I have in past years (2009, 2010, 2011). While I’m still inspired by my travels throughout the state of New Mexico, this year I’m focusing on it’s beautiful skies and sunsets. Like a couple years ago, I raided my own photo archives for inspiration on these pieces, but I started planning these piece for last year’s show… but I never was able to work on the finals. As usual, I left most of the work to the last minute—all pieces were completed last week, and submitted on Saturday.

Driveby Sunset

4.85" x 3" On Arches, 140lb. Hotpress

(6.75" x 5" framed)

This piece is based on yet another snapshot I took while driving home from Santa Fe one evening. I just loved the light of the sunset, outside the frame of the image and unseen directly, but reflecting it’s warmth into the image—while the blues and purples of twilight hide in the shadows of the clouds. It was a surreal moment I was lucky to catch.

Ember Sky

4.75" x 4" On Arches, 140lb. Hotpress

(5.5" x 5" framed)

Once again, I was inspired my the many layers and colors of the sky for this piece… the small yet intense colors of the sunset, so focused in one spot, while the sky above is still hanging onto late afternoon and dancing with frolicking wisps of clouds.

Sunset Aflame

3.65" x 2.65" On Arches, 140lb. Hotpress

(4.75" x 3.75" framed)

This one is a bit more traditional, a real flaming sunset—although maybe a bit more wildly colorful than reality. More desert silhouettes play beneath what looks like a writhing storm of fire, but I was there and I know just how peaceful it was.

-------

PROJECT NOTES: This year it was a little harder for me to get back into the minis. Maybe taking last year off to be a juror wasn’t such a good idea. I’m hoping I can find a new spark of inspiration to really get my head back in it next year.

Audiobooks/stories listened to while working on these pieces:

Neverware, by Neil Gaiman (BBC theatrical radio production)

The Map of the Sky, by Felix J Palma

Pencil Nubbins: What to do?

I'm giving the advice/tutorial blog post a try – let me know if you like it!

nubbins, nubbins, everywhere

Being a colored pencil artist, I've developed quite a collection of pencil nubbins - you know, the stubs left over when you just can't sharpen them anymore? For most colored pencil brands, this generally isn't too much of an issue, they're pretty cheap and easy to replace. But there's still a lot of waste involved, not only in the nubbin ends, but tip breakage and leads that creak inside the barrel. It's frustrating!

In the last few years though, I've upgraded my pencil stock to Caran d'Arch's Luminance 6901 pencils. These are the créme de la créme of colored pencils (IMHO). There are all kinds of technical and longevity benefits to using these pencils, besides the brilliant smooth color and ease of use in burnishing and blending. They have the best light-fast ratings on the market (probably the #1 reason color pencil is looked down upon as an artistic medium) and there's a lot less breakage inside the pencil. Unfortunately, these advantages show through in the price, about $4 per pencil. It usually adds up to a  a small fortune for me when I'm restocking. So I want to save & use every little bit I can.

There are lots of pencil extension tools on the market, but most of these products can be made from household items and scraps if you have the drive, know-how, and time to experiment and find what works for you.

some current consumer products to aid in pencil extension

the tools i use

I've always made my own pencil extenders from used-up ball point pen tubes. Just remove the pen tip & ink well from one end, and the cap from the opposite end. These tubes are general a bit smaller that the barrels of colored pencils, so depending on your level of comfort, you can either chew the end of the pen tube until it's flexible enough to wedge a pencil in (just let it set for a bit and you can easily exchange pencils) –or– use a candle flame to soften the pen-tube ends and expand them with an awl or screw driver and gradually enlarge the openings on either end, until the pencil fits snuggly. As long about about a quarter inch of the pencil fits in the tube, it should offer sturdy use.

However, no matter what you use to extend your pencils, you eventually get to a point where you can't sharpen them anymore, they're just too short to hold AND turn a sharpener. I've ended up with tons of little nubbins of the colors I use most. *I never throw them away - I've used them in craft projects and various other things… but ideally, I'd like to find a way to use them up in my artwork! When I saw the Glu-it To-it product online, I thought it was a pretty clever solution, but being the thrifty/crafty artist I am, I thought it might be a pretty easy thing to make myself (and by that I mean I KNOW someone that works with wood regularly, has scraps and know-how – and I asked him if this would be a relatively easy project: he did, thanks Dad!). 

It's a simple concept, a narrow wood block with a pencil-barrel-size channel cut in it, and one area hollowed out as a waste/glue-drip well (so your pencil doesn't end up clued inside the channel). Simply put a little crazy glue on one end and hold the ends together until the glue sets (which is pretty quickly). Now you can keep sharpening the nubbin all the way to the end!  

this is how it works

There does come a point when there's so little of the glue left that the joint breaks, but in my first try it lasted until the very tip, which saved me about ¾" of pencil. That doesn't sound like much, but I either go through a LOT of pencils where these nubbins add up (white for instance, I probably have one or two whole pencils worth of white nubbins) … or I run down to a nubbin of color I'm currently using and I need to order another that will take a few days to arrive – using this technique just might hold me over until the replacement arrives!

So, did you find this post helpful & informative? I hope so… because I really should be working on a few other projects and the "procrastination blog-post monster" took over! ;)

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… 

New Work: Colored Pencil, Small Work

I have a show coming up! These are my new small works for the show (not technically miniatures but all under 25 sq. inches). In addition to these new pieces, my Bandelier, No.2, Catch a Flying Star, Hey Diddle Diddle triptych (only Cow and Moon shown in link), Aesop's Fables, Fox and Grapes, New Mexico Christmas (the original graphite drawing, not colored like the link), and Sleepy Bears will also be hanging in the show.

New Mexico Colored Pencil Society, DC 219 Annual Show
at The Old School House Gallery
November 4-27, 2011
Opening reception November 4th from 5-8pm

DIRECTIONS: On the Turquoise Trail just north of Cedar Crest, NM.

FROM Albuquerque: take Interstate 40 east to the Cedar Crest/Tijeras exit 175 and head north. The gallery is 6.1 miles north of Interstate 40, on the east side of NM-14.

FROM Santa Fe: take Interstate 25 south to exit 278, the NM-14 South/Cerrillos Road
towards Madrid. Follow NM-14 south for 40.9 miles, the gallery is on the east side of NM-14.

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.

Illustration Friday: FUEL

New: Drawing Morning Pages (Doodle Edition)

Groups of four seem to be working, so I'm going to stick with it… new installment of morning doodles, most of which actually took place in the morning. ;)
JUN 13-16 2011

New: Drawing Morning Pages (Doodle Edition)

Four new pages… still going. :)

CPSA Meeting: Plein Air Drawing in the East Mountains

Yesterday I took a drive up to my friend Betty's house, were our local CPSA chapter was gathering for our monthly meeting. Usually we meet in town, but this month Betty invited us out to her house to do some Plein air drawing. We were invited to trek around her property, but being a rather warm day (up to 104°F in town -- WHAT, already?! It's not even June 1st yet), most of us opted to stay in the shade and sketch from her porches. Can you believe this is her back yard?

(the view from the front is equally impressive… frankly, her 360° views are impressive).

And then I started drawing the yard/mountains. (… well, I did a little illustration sketching first… more on that in a few days). These were pretty quick little sketches in my moleskine sketchbook, so I didn't really put time/effort into my full-on burnishing technique. This was mostly just fun practice… playing with line and color. It was so nice to just sit with a group of people and draw together, chatting about this and that - including our mutual love of colored pencils.

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.

NESCBWI: Aesop's Fables -- Award Winner!

Wow.
I mean… WOW.
What a whirlwind of a weekend at The NESCBWI Conference: Celebrating Milestones. This was my second visit to the NESCBWI Regional Conference and I have to say it was the most fun, the most informative, most everything SCBWI Conference I've ever been to - and I've been to some great ones. It really does make me feel like New England is my home and I belong there… I've just gotta move back some day because these are my people. (they like me, they really, really, like me!)

Not only was it just an awesome conference experience: the gathering of like-minds, meeting awesome people, meeting several twitter friends in person, learning-learning-learning, absorbing, retaining (hopefully)… but I also earned myself some recognition! In the past, I've always been one of the many attendees, a face in the crowd - a face on an extra-tall frame, yes (I usually have a good view of all the other faces)… but for the most part, anonymous. And for the most part, I like it that way. It was a challenge making myself speak-up and meet strangers. But this year…

I knew a few people going in - People I met last year, people I met via email volunteering to help out with the conference promo art and registration banners (my name was on EVERY FOLDER label at the conference, how cool is that?!), I knew several twitter people that I had met previously, or I just knew would be there so I could look out for them… and I made myself do NEW WORK before I got there - especially my submission for the Poster Showcase Competition.

I've done these competitions before: Everyone comes in with big hopes and dreams (which is great, it's inspiration)… but (speaking for myself, of course) very often, I go in unsure of myself. I forget that there's limited room (submissions), limited time (for viewing/judging), and overall it's all hugely subjective - it has to be. I've often been completely deflated when my art didn't win or wasn't recognized. I've ended up walking away from conferences feeling hugely inspired, by also incredibly down on myself and my art. I was constantly setting myself up for this massive let down - I was taking it personally. The simple fact is, everyone can't "win".

And then I won. I got not one, but two awards. I received 2nd place in the unpublished category from the conference judges, and the HUGE honor of 1st place People's Choice - meaning everyone from the conference that looked at all the poster art submissions and cast a vote for their favorite. I mean, WOW. I could not believe it! I still don't think it's sunk in.

But really, overall… my conference experience was not much different than it's been in the past in the best possible ways: still great people, still awesome presenters & faculty, still making new contacts, still learning… always learning/absorbing. I think the reason I had such a great and what I consider, successful conference is not because I won some awards, but I felt more confident in myself and my work going in. I worked hard (even if it was last minute) and I truly liked what I'd accomplished (which doesn't happen every time - come on we all know every piece we work on isn't always our best) I wasn't afraid to speak to people (I couldn't hide from them really, I had what felt like minor celebrity - so many people stopped me to congratulate me and tell me they'd voted for me - I still don't have words!). I can't quite describe it, but I just felt like I belonged… and I'd actually done quite a lot to get to that point: being on twitter and cultivating relationships there, volunteering, joining a crit group of AMAZING illustrator peers (all of whom at any given time I consider better, more experienced, more confident, or more successful than myself (it's great to have your mentors all around you, calling you a peer. What a major confidence boost, right?).

It wasn't any one thing, but it all made a difference, and I can still feel it all changing me and how I look at things. And I'm still reminding myself that the 1st place winner in Unpublished also, won 3rd in People's Choice, and ALSO won the "Best in Show" award from R. Michelson Galleries, as well as a spot in their upcoming illustration show - Jeanette Bradley was a TRIPLE winner with her beautiful cover submission! ;) Congrats Jeanette, and all the other winners and participants as well! A bunch of brave souls that put themselves OUT THERE!

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!