Illustration Friday: “Kernel”

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Something for Illustration Friday and the word prompt “kernel”.

Each drawing is a learning experience, in this case, how to personify a wheat kernel…a PENSIVE wheat kernel, at that. And then how I might, in general, go about illustrating this little mention of wheat in one of Jesus’ parables. Should I put legs on the kernel..? Should I show a whole wheat field verses one stalk..? The simpler the better, I think.

Since I was looking at  images of wheat kernels via Google, I also saw a number of photos of foods using whole wheat or the grain of a particular wheat.  I love bread–and all kinds of baked goods. And seeing photos of  these and these Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies made my moment. Yum.

New Work! May 2012 Chirp: “Hop To It!”

I love doing spreads like this for my clients! It’s like a puzzle within a puzzle for me, to work out the fun activities for the kiddos to interact with! I took a photo this time, but have the art specs from the AD, my rough, and some pull-outs from the final to show you. The designer made a good call to drop the color background on the pavement in the end. It really made the game pop out!

Below: specs from designer.

Below: my rough.

Below: my final.

Below: some pull-outs.

(c) Owlkids

Thank you, Chirp!

Illustration Friday: “Jump” #3

Using Illustration Friday this week for my warm-up drawings. This is #3.

Illustration Friday: “Jump” 2

This week’s Illustration Friday’s prompt “Jump” lends itself to lots of ideas, so I might just use it as a warm-up for the week.

Below is an illustration where I played around with type and a painterly style.

Illustration Friday: “Jump”

There’s a lot of leaping and jumping around here! Just a little drawing for Illustration Friday’s prompt “Jump”.

JUMP!!!

New Work! May 2012 High Five: “Love From Lisa”

Here’s another fun spread I created that’s in the May 2012 issue of Highlights’ High Five magazine (story by Marianne Mitchell)! So many other fine authors and illustrators contributed their work to this issue, too. Thanks, Highlights!

(c) Highlights For Children

Illustration Friday: “Heights”

This week, the Illustration Friday word prompt is “Heights”. I was doing some illustrations of frogs a few weeks ago and I guess still have residual “frog” on the brain. Nothing clever here; just frogs leaping. Check out the height of that leap!

And be sure and check out the other Illustration Friday submissions. It’s great to see such creativity abound!

Illustration For Children Spring ’12 Promo Postcard!

Hey everybody! Illustration For Kids has put out a new spring mailer (below)!

Illustration For Kids is a group of 7 illustrator gal-pals (one of them being me : ) who together promote and encourage each other in the illustration biz.

Our theme was “Spring Rain”. Each of us went to work creating our own interpretation of this theme. An enlarged version of my spot is below.

It really took me a good while to create this final piece. It went through many variations, but even before that, I had tried multiple ideas. Some of those ideas are below. It gave me an opportunity to play with my looser, painterly style, and figure out what character I wanted to use, whether a human or animal.

And then…I thought I got to my final piece (below). I worked on various editions of this girl walking her dog in the rain, and it was all ready to go.

Then a number of days later, I decided to try another idea. And that led to the NEW final piece. Some samples of the progression of the final art is below.

In the end, the little girl ended up with a red rain outfit, and the rainbow got switched to a different position at the last minute. Sometimes it takes a lot of time and all kinds of different ideas to get the FINAL final, right? Right!

Illustration Friday: “Return”

An Illustration Friday submission for the word “return”.  Duck is all nice and tanned from his stay in the sunny south!

Illustration Friday: “Swamp”

An excuse to draw an alligator…who tends to live in a swamp. This one’s having a hard time getting a phone signal. You know how swamps can be.

Lions & Tigers

Just a little something I’m working on…

Bunnies Working 1

Refreshing part of an old drawing as a warm-up exercise.

Illustration Friday: “Shades”

Playing around with my style and lettering for Illustration Friday.

Highlights Mag Illustration: “Bringing Music To Life”

Here’s a spot I did in the recent issue of Highlights magazine (March ’12). Part of it even made the cover (speaking of, nice cover there by Tim Foley!). I’m being silly with the “Lookity!” comment, but it is cool to see it displayed on the cover.

Below is the final spread. I knew the AD planned to drop it on a color background so I had to think about that.

Below: The first round of roughs I sent of the kids with NO instruments! Not sure what I was (or wasn’t thinking) at this point. I was more concerned with how I wanted to show the kid-conductor and the orchestra. I think I thought I was doing a choir. Silly me.

Below: After the AD kindly pointed out the need for instruments and notes, I went back and reworked it. Much better, yes?

Below: The above rough was approved and I didn’t deviate much from the rough. Only a few changes to the kids and cleaned it up. But I wanted the line work to be loose and easy and not over-worked, which I think I achieved. It’s usually something I feel inside me as other people can never tell when I over-work a project.  My thanks again to Cindy for the project, her patience and the fine job she does/did with the magazine!

Illustration Friday: “Intention”

Yellow Bunny is wondering what Pink Bunny’s intentions are. Good?  not good?

To see other Illustration Friday ideas, click here.

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