Happy New Year!!

Well another year has come and gone; 2012 was a great! The highlight of the year was the birth of my son in April and it seems like since then time started going in fast forward. My son will be 1 in a few months and my daughter is turning 6 in August.

My second highlight: Last September I started working towards becoming a Children's Illustrator. Illustration is something I've always been interested in, but felt that I just didn't have the time to devote to it. I thought it was something I could get into after I retired. But I just couldn't wait! I had an ever growing passion to do something more with my life.

Then I googled "How to become an illustrator"… Boom! First hit was Holli Conger's blog "Becoming an Illustrator". Talk about inspirational! Here was this woman with a full time job and a new baby trying to do the same thing! She found the time to work on her portfolio, market her work and deal with everything else that comes along with being a mother. I had to find a way too…

So I did.  When the kids go to bed I stay up for 3-4 hours working on my portfolio. I wake up early to create and update my website. I use my lunchtime at work to write blog posts (I'm doing that right now in fact.)

It has been 4 months now since I made that decision. I now have a Facebook page, Twitter Feed (with over a hundred followers, yay!), website, and blog. Not too bad for someone who only has about 20 hrs a week to work on them.

2013 here I come!

I completely understand that my road is a very long one. I don't have as much time as I'd like to work on my portfolio or update my website. I need to make postcards and marketing materials to get my name out there. It may take longer than a year to get work, but I'm in this for the long haul.

My goals for 2013:
Strenghthen my brand - Design a logo, redesign my website, redesign my blog
Join SCBWI (Doing this today!)
Go to Regional SCBWI in Syracuse (planning for March)
Save money to go to the Winter or Summer International SCBWI in 2014 (NYC or LA)
Complete a consultation with Holli Conger (planning for April/May)
Strenghen my portfolio (currently working on this…OK, always working on this)
With a stronger portfolio I'll join the Children's Illustrator.com portfolio site
And if I'm really ambitious, I'll create an Etsy site. (This is really an extra goal so if I don't get to it, it'll be OK)

Well, I've got an exciting year ahead of me! I guess I'd better get to work…

What do you have planned for the new year?? New projects? New resolutions?
I'm always happy to hear from you!!

Illustration Friday "Snow"

This new piece works perfectly for the Illustration Friday subject "Snow". I spent a lot of time on it, especially the scarf. I was trying to get a lot of detail in the texture. I mostly used watercolor and added some colored pencil at the end to beef up some shadowing. I'm going to add it to my portfolio and it was also my Christmas cards this year. Hope everyone enjoys them!

The end of Sweet Squares...the beginning of something new!

Well, I wish I could say that I completed all those sweet squares for November, but I didn't. This isn't the first time I didn't accomplish a goal nor will it be the last time. I need to re-think what types of goals I set for myself. Maybe instead of commiting to draw a sweet square everyday for 30 days, I should have given myself a more attainable goal of creating a portfolio piece by the end of November. OK so what? I didn't acheive my goal. The world still turns AND I did actually make a portfolio piece! In the future I'll make my goals more relevant and challenging, as well as attainable.

And now here is the remainder of my sweet squares...

A little mouse. Probably looking for a morsel of food. Graphite.

A mouse with a mustache of course. Why not? Graphite.

Just a quick little doodle. My daughter decided it needed some color. Graphite, colored pencil.

I got an awesome scarf at Old Navy that has all these great colors in it. It's so bright.

A little comic joke. :)

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm so thankful for my family. They've given me so much support on my illustration journey.

And here's all 20 of my "Sweet Squares"! Looks very pretty all together.

Sweet Squares November 8th-14th

Well that last week went fast! Turkey day is coming up, I can almost smell those mashed potatoes. So here's week 2 of my Sweet Squares. It was a fun doing these, I played around with more color and loosened up a bit. Enjoy!

Nov. 8th - November wouldn't be complete with out putting a moustache on something. Here's a cat for Movember , complete with moustache and top hat. I think he lost his monocle. This one was quickly done in watercolor pencil. I dipped the tip in water so the pencils had a soft feel to them, almost like pastels crayons. Probably the wrong way to use them, but I really liked how this turned out. Don't be surprised if you see something else with a moustache later this month.

Nov. 9th - Here's my attempt at a self portrait cartoon style. It need some work to say the least. Talk about helmet head…

Nov. 10th - After reading runaway bunny I had this vision of a bunny in his den after the carrot harvest. Totally stuffed, he had to take a little nap. He'd sleep in his bed, but it's covered in carrots!

Nov. 11th - Bunny theme continued, this is a pattern idea for a sleeper, or a tee. I colored it digitally in photoshop. Quick, fun, and easy! Will definitely try this method again.

Nov.12th - A study of a polar bear for my christmas cards this year. It might be a little early, but if I don't do it now no one will get their cards until January. Bring on the snow!

Nov.13th - I need a background for my website and twitter accounts. I thought bubbles would tie in nicely with bits n baubles.

Nov. 14th - Another sketch study of a polar bear for the Christmas card. This is the one I'm going with. I'm going to add couple of penguins and color it in. Not sure what medium yet.

Well there you have it! Week 2 of Sweet Squares. Are you doing sweet squares this month or SkADaMo ? Post your link for me, I'd love to see everyone's work!

Sweet Squares November 2nd-7th

Well the first week of this project went fast. Christmas will be here before we know it. Not very colorful this week. It's been easier drawing at the end of the day than the beginning, so most of these were drawn while I was in my jammies.

Nov. 2nd - Eeek! I didn't want to post this one. It's not really finished. We have all these great Prismacolor markers lying around the office from the yesteryear of catalog design. Most of them still work too! Found out that soft graphite pencils tend to smear when the marker is applied so it looks a little muddy. Do you believe they used to give all the employees here milk and cookies everyday every afternoon?? Add a nap in there and now you're talking!

Nov. 3rd - I love coffee. Nuff said.

Nov. 4th -Can this squirrel possibly fit another seed in his mouth?? Yep, he's going to try...

Nov. 5th - Contour lines...what else can I say about contour lines?

Nov. 6th - I voted for President...Barak Obama won. I'm not into politics so I'm not going to say who I voted for.

Nov. 7th - A little bit of character work. I keep wondering if my characters have enough depth to them. These were fun to do, so I might keep trying some more.

So that's that for the first week of Sweet Squares. Feel free to drop a line, I'd love to hear about your own sweet square experiment. Just leave your blog or web address. Onward to week 2...