Illustration Friday: "Flawed"

We all are a little flawed in some way! That's what makes it so great.

Congrats Christina!

I would like to send a huge congrats to my friend and fellow children's book illustrator "Christina Rodriguez" who had the exciting news that not one but 2 of her books had won medals from the Mom's Choice Awards for 2009. "The Wishing Tree" won a gold medal and "Storm Codes" won a silver. This is even more exciting since my book "The Sick Bug" was also a gold medal winner so we will have to get together and have a toast to the "Mom's Choice Awards 2009"!

In news from the studio, it has been a busy few weeks. I have been putting some final touches on a book project and hope to get that one in the designers hands by the end of the week. I also have been working on getting all of the backgrounds done for a new book project that is close to going to final illustrations. This one is going to be the same texture and technique that "The Sick Bug" had so it should be a lot of paint flinging around soon. Stay tuned for images to come of this new project. As you can see by the picture, there is much work to get done yet!

Storing original illustrations

One of the things that often gets overlooked as an illustrator is what to do with all of the illustrations when they are finished. For the most part, if you are creating images that are one off's and are not tied to other illustrations, you can simply put them in a flat file for safe keeping. But what happens when you do children's books and have 20 or more illustrations tied to the same project and a number of these projects lying around? Well, the simplest way is again to store them in a flat file, but then every time you need to get something out of the file, you might have to adjust, move, or take them out. So, what I have found to be a great way to store them is to build a small storage box so that all of the illustrations from each project can be kept together and safe. With that, you will ensure that all of your artwork will be kept safe for years to come. Now you can surely go out and buy acid free boxes and storage units, but looking at the cost of those, I have decided to make them on my own and save a little money.





Tips to remember:

1. You want to make sure that you are using acid free foam core to build the box. Having acid free with help with eliminating discoloration in the artwork.

2. Create the box 1/2" larger on each side so it is easy to get the artwork back out. The last thing you want is to have to damage the art when getting it back out.

3. Use glassine in between levels of illustrations to ensure maximum protection of art.

4. I also like to put a copy of the book in the box as well. That way if you happen to give out all of your samples, you will at least have the one copy along with the original artwork all together.

5. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT. MAKE SURE YOU STORE IN A DRY AND COOL PLACE. Heat and humidity can damage artwork over a long period, so take care of your art before it is too late.

A new addition to my collection

Image copyright Mark Haglund

Closeup of boats. Copyright Mark Haglund

Happy Sunday everyone. Hope you are all enjoying a warmer weekend than what has been sitting around here for temps lately. It is nice to be finally above zero! Anyways, I am so excited about a new piece that I have added to my collection of fellow artists. At least I will be when I am able to pick it up at the end of Feb, when the show comes down. The piece itself is titled "Boats in Nice, France" by Mark Haglund and is beautifully framed in a copper colored frame. It really brings out the colors of the buildings. I first saw the painting a few weeks ago when I was taking some of my art out of the Elk River Art Gallery and he was starting to hang his show. Its funny how you can tell sometimes right away that you love a piece. For me, I saw it but didn't do anything about it at the time until yesterday when I went over to the gallery to see how the show came together. Well as you can tell by the post, It went well and I ended up getting it. So, if you happen to be in the Elk River area before the end of February, I would say go check out the show at the Elk River Arts gallery and see the great paintings that he and Roxanne Current have up. It is definitely worth a visit. The gallery info is as follows

Elk River Arts Gallery
716 Main Street
Elk River, MN

Show runs through Feb 28
Gallery hours: Thurs-Sat 12-6

Illustration Friday: "Pale"

With this cold, its hard not to be pale!

Plane-in-the-sky-cycle

After many many months of procrastinating and looking at the forms for an illustration competition that is going on here in the twin cities, I have finally finished the illustration and it is all framed up and ready to be dropped off tomorrow (the deadline)! It feels good to get it done and am hopeful that it is well received. The good thing is it sounds like they have almost 50 submissions so far so it should be a great show coming up in March at the Minnesota Center for the Book Arts. The competition itself was a collaboration between the Minnesota Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Last years competition involved writers coming up with poems and 5 were chosen as winners. Then this years competition was for illustrators to choose a poem they liked and illustrate an image to it. My favorite poem was called "Two-Wheeler" by Jane Thomas Noland. The illustration above is an illustration to that poem. I just hope that I have done it justice. So with that complete and on its way out the door tomorrow you might think that I am looking for something to do, but don't worry, I will be busy with booksignings, more illustration projects and the like in the upcoming weeks. Hopefully I will come back with another original Illustration Friday tomorrow! Take care and stay warm, which is kind of hard when the temp right now is a mere -21! Yikes!

Illustration Friday: "Contained"

This is an illustration from a memoir I illustrated titled On the other side of the Ocean by Ruth Elisabeth Schoch.

The art of Terry Stanley

"Along for the Ride" copyright Terry Stanley

Of all the people that I have been blessed to have met over the years as an artist, there are few that have made such an impact on my work and life as one of my mentors Terry Stanley. Having met her a number of years ago at a fundraiser art event in White Bear Lake, I have come to enjoy our regular chats over the phone. Unfortunately since she lives all the way over in Green Bay, WI, it makes it a little harder to actually get together in person. That's why come the end of next week, it is going to be great to spend time over there, checking out her great new studio space and hopefully doing a little painting as well. The pastel work that she does has wonderful palette's of color and composition. I would definitely recommend checking out her work at either "Red Bubble" or her blog at "Art Lady Confidential".

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Wishing each and every one of you a happy and prosperous New Year!