Stitching Butterflies is Far from Finished

I completed the Stitching Butterflies book dummy... or so I thought.

Turns out there is a contest out there for illustrators not agented or published who are writing stories about diversity.

I'm entering of course! SB is all about two girls with diverse backgrounds, two different points of views and different interactions with the world. These interactions clash until they realize they are more similar they than thought.

Do I think I'll win? No, I don't, but I'm sure going to make sure that I try my very best and I make SB the best I can make it.

 These three images never seem to go away
or be completed. I want to make them perfect
but I need to move on (I need 6 completed pages!) So my next three I must do in a short amount of time. Everything MUST look SPLENDID, fantastic, it's gotta be a like a delicious cake where all the ingredients as a whole make people want to consume my cake. This is the next one I'm completing. I hope I can do this fairly quickly!

And in other news, I'm trying to complete a book dummy for Hello Robot by completing Dani Duck's book dummy challenge. Oh yeah, it's also INKTOBER and next month NaNoWriMo and the last Tomi competition is due in December.

I have a lot of projects...THIS SOUNDS FAMILIAR.

So, Let's Go!

Lately I've been stumped on the many projects I've buried myself under (what else is new, eh?) and created what is known as a "writer's block" or "creative block." Some authors and creatives debate on wether this "creative block" exists. In these SCBWI conference notes, one author, Pam Muñoz Ryan, says there is no such thing as a writers block. On the other hand, Neal Shusterman on the same note page says writers block is very real. 

Is this creative block real? How does one overcome this wall blocking the way to the land of creativity and success? 

Well I for sure don't know... BUT...

Here's what I've been up to to help me through it, even if I'm doing everything to procrastinate:

• Read some topic related books to get my mind reeling. Favorites at the moment: Pete the Cat series, Where the Wild Things Are, Millions of Cats, How do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight, and Dragons Love Tacos. 
• Yeah, I read articles about Picture books too... Tara Lazar always has some good stuff. 
• Jot down ideas even if they're lame. This can also apply to the PiBoIdMo challenge as well as NaNoWriMo.
• Work on something other than my stories, like this postcard contest piece!
• Work on one Picture book at a time. WORK ON ONE PICTURE BOOK AT A TIME. Should I say it again. ONE PB A TIME. <3 This is probably the most important one of all haha.
• And, since I'm working on Nightlander continuously, I've decided to focus on character building until November for NaNoWriMo. ONE CHARACTER AT A TIME. 

And that's it! Personally, I don't believe in a creative block necessarily. I do however believe in a creative meltdown, consisting of a list of procrastinations/reasons why the creative force should pause because of "real life worries" (day job, bills, health, dealing with the "real world") Indecisiveness can also pause the creative force (what project will be more successful? Which project won't waste my time?) 

The only way is to power through. So, let's go!

Critique from Lorraine Owen and the Organisation!

Stitching Butterflies got a critique!

To sum up the critique, I need to work on my tone/color and drawing a lot more.

They seemed to like the Lily piece more, and I would agree.

The Stella piece needs more work, particularly I think with big Stella I need to draw it again (haHA!)

Overall, very helpful. I will say that I want to keep my color palate. I don't think that children's books must be radiating with color and brightness and I want to keep my palate. Work on darks and lights? Yes. Work on drawing? Yes. I'll make sure to practice these but I like my palate and I want to stick with it.

Postcard in Progress!

The Maryland/Delaware/West Virginia SCBWI has a post card contest each year. This year's theme is From Dreaming to Doing. 

This is my take on that theme. 

I've never entered the postcard contest before so this is my first time. Will I have a chance? Ehh, maybe. I see this more of a chance to perhaps make a portfolio piece, or even just an activity that's not my own personal project. 

This is the original sketch (after a few thumbnails.)

The image below is a digital color sketch. After working on it, I see I need to go back to the drawing and re-work the fish in the back ground along with the underwater city background.

I have until october (I think? Got to check that...) to complete this piece.

Better get to working!

No, No, No Negative Nancy

I've reached passed 15,000 words and I'm so behind in the word count. I think what is truly destroying the creativity is the word count and the deadline. As soon as I get a deadline, I freeze up and can't get anything done!

On the plus side of NaNoWriMo, I've never  been dedicated to a story as much as I have with this one. Each time I go and write a story, my creative and non judging self disappears and out comes the critic, the negative Nancy (who've I've started calling Bethany Jones in a super annoying illustration doodle) the editor that says I should give up on writing and illustration because I'm never going to be quite good enough, not with the competition out there. What chance do I have? With this month challenge, I've been able to go past the editor and the critic. I have 15,600 words and that is more than I had about two weeks ago, I should feel accomplished!

I also finished my little red riding hood piece! That is another goal I met for the month, and maybe with the contest piece finished, I will have more room to write.

Lil Red Contest

The NaNoWriMo novel I'm working on was inspired by the Tomie dePaola contest that's due on the 1st of December. The challenge is to create an illustration based off of the Philip Pullman’s version of “Little Red Riding Hood” from FAIRY TALES FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM.  With both November challenges, family projects, and this contest it's going to be an overloaded month ahead of me.

BRING IT!!!

Anyway, during the time I was experimenting with acrylic, digital, tea/coffee staining, I realized that the medium that I work best with is and always will be oil paint. That wouldn't be too bad if oil paintings didn't take so long to dry. The more I draw and work on my own projects the more I find that all my work has a sense of realist whimsy and I personally can only achieve that through drawing and oil painting.

Oh well, it is what it is and I should focus on what I'm good at instead of trying to work with something that just doesn't work with me.

Another November countdown image!

Enchanted Contest

Yay! Another contest! No! I haven't won any yet!

Annnd that's it for the exclamation points. 

The next SCBWI Draw This theme was "Enchanted". If there are any members out there who just so happen to see this post and have not entered into the Draw This yet, DO IT. Just look at how much I'm flailing around trying to get decent work together each month, you should be able to do it no problem!

My idea was an enchanted dress and I personally loved working on this piece. The painting is completely digital with my line work (I'm starting to really like working this way) and because this was digital I was able to paint different color themes quickly to see which one I liked the most. What I have here is just the blue and the final yellow. I might make a pink and a green one for more digital painting practice. 

Is It Ever Finished?

I don't know if I'll win, but after showing some people and getting feedback on small things it was well worth going back to this piece. Just a little lighter, eh?

Moar Space Theme!

I've been working on this piece for some time. With my overwhelming pickiness getting in the way, I think trying to work digital and traditional is clashing a bit. 

Maybe I just need some critiques! 

Space themed! :D Yay!

Another contest! Due the third thursday of for this contest here! I love science fiction and hopefully that'll show in the final piece. If I don't win again, hey, I'm getting my process down pretty well. Starting out I thought I just had to make a few sketches, think about a plethora of ideas that I'll never complete and then paint.

WRONG.

It takes a process.

So of course I always start out traditional but I have found ways that digital has helped me, especially with value and color planning. This first image was the beginning to an end. I like that space ship and the character slowly creeping off into the unknown land.

Then after this I added more to the story. Can you see the little guys near the bottom? Very rough sketch (I'm miss my tablet! poor broken tablet...) but I just really wanted to know where that light was going to be and how dark the mountains should be against the night sky.

Will update on this piece! Illl probably change a dozen times before the finish, but I'm as confident as I can be in where the work is going. ^_^

So I have a long way to go

I've been wondering if I should try mixing digital with traditional again. I did that with the experimental portfolio, "The Boy and the Changing Being" maybe I could explore that again with this piece. 

Anyway, this was for the 3rd Thursday contest. I didn't win this one either, but now I look back at it, definitely wasn't fun enough, or finished enough. So of course I add it to this blog. Maybe I'll do better next time. 

and the final...

Definitely think I could go darker on the right side. Still, I think this piece wasn't fun enough for kids. I'll try for a little more light hearted scene next time for the Jack and the Beanstalk spread. 

Discovery Draw It Again

Like every piece of art I make I had many hiccups so I needed to hold my breath while submitting it to the contest. I think it was fairly successful but it could be better!

In the meantime, here is the process...

I always start with thumbnail sketches, but I already posted those on my other website for the 12X12 month. Here is the sketch and the color sketch. I think the problem lies within not making a full, fleshed out sketch before making the color sketch, a mistake that I managed to avoid in another piece for another contest. I'll post that later.

Only a few pictures taken. I think I may need to upgrade to video to just to make this look recent, I kinda feel like I'm going old school here. Anyways, here are the images that I did manage to document and will be going for a more update look in the future :)

Discovery!

This little piece here is the for Susanna Hill's awesome illustration contest that is pretty much world famous, Discovery. If any illustrators out there sees this post and want to enter, you should definitely go here for the rules.

After the contest I'll post normal Draw It Again posts...which means all my mistakes and treacherous (lovingly treacherous!) journey to get to the final.