Portrait of a Lady

Good Tuesday afternoon! Finally feels like summer here in Vancouver, after a rather chilly start to this month.  It is very lovely to see the beautiful sun and feel it's kind warmth.  Also been pretty stormy in a lot of other places this year, eh?  Those of you that have been through some harsh storms already,  I hope you are all well and safe.

So, I posted this a little bit back on Facebook..(which I've been naughtily been on more and more lately.)  Since I had started a picture book for my mum, as a gift for her birthday back in May,  I soon realised that I wasn't going to finish in time.  So, I created this as a backup drawing for her.  It was finished about three days after her birthday and I was so happy to finally give it to her!  She loved it.  Which makes me more happy. *laughs*

I wanted to go for more realism this time around and found a gorgeous photograph in a hair magazine and just could not resist the call to illustrate it myself.  The fur ruff was quite the process!  I started out with flat pencil rub and slowly built up the lines, then took a fine pointed eraser to create highlights in the ruff.  That process I did several times over, until I was eventually happy with how it looked.

I didn't want to overdo the background or do something that was too busy and have the woman disappear, so I kept the background simple and uncluttered.  I kinda really liked doing more of a realistic style and so want to do another like this at some point.  It was so much fun!

I've been pretty busy lately working out the kinks to my book, revising the writing and characters; and, been have loads of fun creating maps and drawings for it.  I never thought map making would be that joyous to do!  So far, things are going slowly, but surely. ^_^

I wish you all a wonderful and sun filled day!  Cheers!

Princess Peach

So, a little video game art today.  I've played Super Mario Brothers since it first came out on the Nintendo system back when I was a kid in the '80's.  It's still one of my favourite games ever!  I just wish I had the new Wii system to try the new ones out on. *sigh*  One day...one day.

My inspiration for this one was, I thought it would be awesome to be able to play the Mario games as just Princess Peach herself, but for that game to have all the beauty and game play as the Zelda video games.  I would adore that!

I wish the castle could have looked a bit better...maybe, more Gothic for Bowser's castle.  I should have used a reference for it.  I'll remember that for next time though. ^_^
This pose came from an older drawing I had done a few years ago.  I so loved the pose, but not the actual drawing itself, so I re-used the pose and revamped it for this drawing.  Much better results this time round.

Took my mum to Starbucks for her favourite coffee and a peanut butter cookie....delightful way to spend an afternoon!

Wishing you all a wonderful and coffee filled day! Cheers! xoxo

A Doodle A Day

Hello!  How is everyone this fine May afternoon?  I think last post I mentioned that my mum had given me a challenge to do every day....as you can see from the picture above, it was to do a doodle every day.  Doesn't matter what it is, only I can take just thirty minuets to one hour on any doodle in the book.  And the stress point is, the doodle doesn't have to be perfect.  The idea here is to try and free myself from the trappings (which can sometimes be crippling when it comes to finishing the drawings for me) of perfection.

I've really enjoy doing this, it was very hard at the start not to use the eraser constantly, but it's fun and offers a way to do stress free drawings.  And I get to play with some new styles. Heeheehee....
The idea came from a book my mum bought for me called by the same name, "Craft - A - Doodle".  The book is by Jenny Doh and features 75 different artists to inspire creating doodles.  If you can find this book, my gosh...check it out!  It's an awesome book!

I used a sketch book I had laying about for awhile to use for this challenge.  It has a lovely craft cover and was perfect for drawing on.  Makes this feel more personal than just going out and buying a sketch book with an already pretty illustration on it.

I've already done a few doodles in it:

This purple heart, created with a purple Faber castel fine liner:

I also tried out a little digital doodle on Coral DRAW:

And so far my favourite of all...these little Catfish:

I have a fair bit more, but I'll share those a bit later.  Anyway, I'm loving this challenge and will most likely continue long after the deadline, it's so relaxing.

Also, my mum turned 67 on the 20th of this month....

I started a picture book for her, about her Nana...but soon I realised that finishing the book would take a little longer than I thought,  I started this one for her instead:

I still didn't quite finish, but I still presented this to her on her birthday.  I was so happy when she loved how it looked.  I'm just finishing the background and I'll be done tonight. Woo to the hoo!

Wanted to try a bit more realistic style and doing portraits.  It's not as hard as I thought it was going to be, so I just may do more like this.  ^_^

Well, that is all for now...I wish you all a wonderful and creative week ahead! Cheers!

Springing back to life- Or known As Long art filled post!

Hi everyone! Happy spring to you all.  I've been gone from blogger for much too long now, longer than I would ever had wanted.  Things have been rather crazy lately and I had a serious bout of a very dark depression that robbed me of all motivation and drive to do or create anything. I'm very glad to say now though, that I'm finally crawling out of it.  I've never been in an Art Block before and I hope never to experience that again.  Now, with a fresh, new and happy outlook on life again; I'm overflowing with art ideas and story ideas again and I'm so excited to get started on doing work again!  I don't think I'll be able to draw fast to enough to get all the ideas out. *Laughs*

After this three month break, I'm so glad to be back here and to get back to blogging again. <3

So, I know it's not much of a return gift to you guys, but I have some line art up of Harry Potter, which you can see up there.  I hope to have it finished at some point.  This is a "Thank You" for always coming by my blog with all the awesome comments.  You all rock!

I turned thirty-four on the sixth of this month:

(I'm about eight years old here. ^_^) For the first time, it actually feels weird to be this age.  I kept going over and over that for the last week. *laughs* But, I'll still never, ever act my age or grow up.  I'll leave growing up for six months after I die, far in the future. Haha!  Cartoons and sugar cereals on a Saturday morning forever!

My mum bought me a DVD copy of "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug".  I cannot wait for the final film to come out.

I also did a little bit of  video game fan art last month:

This is "Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time".  It's 8 1/2 x 11 " , pencil and white ink on Deleter Art paper.  It took me what felt like forever to get this done. *Laughs*  I've been playing so much of this game lately, that the art bug bit me quite hard and I wanted to show how much I adore Link and the Zelda games.  Plus it was fun to draw what Navi might look like, outside of a floating ball of light in the games.  

The Great Deku Tree came out a bit darker than I would have liked, but that's alright...I think it still came out wicked looking! ^_^


I also had a marvelous surprise in the beginning of March:

 

 

I was flipping through the current issue of Cloth Paper Scissors and found my submission for The Faces of Mixed Media art call, in their current issue...alongside of some pretty wonderful and creative artists.  I was so happy to see it there!  It was a bolt of sunshine in the chilly March weather.


Also did some random line art for a picture book I've put on hold for now,  as I want to focus on getting back to my novel with no distractions.  And adding a picture book to that makes it hard to focus on one story.

So this is a sketch of the main character, who for now is called "The Grey Girl".  I hope to get back to her when my novel series is finished.


*Phew* Okay, so that's all for today.  There's so much more I want to share, but I'll leave that for another day, as I don't want to bog you all down. *Laughs*  I am going to announce a challenge that my mum has given to me to keep me going next post.  It's worked wonders in keeping my motivation up.

Wishing you all a happy, creative week!  Many hugs to you. Cheers!

Empress: A Royal Elf

Hello! *phew* My bad for not blogging in a few weeks!  My laptop died and I had to wait a bit before I could replace it.  I have a nifty little tablet now, which I'm still trying to get used to.  It's only seven inches big, so seeing things on-line is hard. *laughs*  But I love it!  Been busy catching up with everything, since.

So, how was the New Year for all of you?  I completely forgot about the countdown, (I was busy playing Zelda for, like, six hours), until my mum woke up, she had a bad case of the flu, and reminded me.  I love opening the patio door and listening to the city as everyone makes noise at midnight.  It's such an awesome sound!

Anyway, this little lady here I finally finished!  I had to stitch some of the art together in an art program because it was much too large for the scanner, but I still did not yet quite fit all of the drawing in the frame.  She is going to be included in my book, though, she won't show up until the very end of the series.

As for the book, I am about midway through now and I'm guess that the first draft will work out to be around 90,000 words.  It's very hard not to edit as I write the rough draft, but I have to keep reminding myself to think of it as a rough sketch to stop myself. *laughs*  What I'm enjoying most out of the writing, seeing the characters come to life on the page!  I'm still in awe of them taking over my brain.

Well, my lovelies, I hope you all are having a wonderful week.  And I wish an early spring thaw for those of you going through the terrible winter storms. Cheers!

Tangled-Plus a NaNo and PiBoIdMo update

Oh hi there! My goodness, December already, where on earth has the time flown to?!  November was so crazy busy, but I feel that I got the most done out of all the other months past. Yippee!
I'll start with this drawing here.  I finished this actually close to the end of last month.  She's done with pencil and white ink again, as I'm running very low on my watercolour pencils and the like.

She's inspired by one of my favourite, and a little rare, Grimm fairy tale of  three women who are turned into flowers and only one can return to her good husband at night.  They form a plan and he rescues her from her enchantment.  It's such a sweet little story, and by little I mean very wee.  It's barely a paragraph long.  I wanted to illustrate something that might go along with it, so I hope I did it a fair enough composition.  Hmm, it might also make for some lovely writing paper.

I also participated in NaNoWriMo and PiBoIdMo this year as well.  It wasn't a challenge juggling the two as much as I thought it was going to be.  For NaNo, I managed to make it just past the 20,000 mark by the end.  Which I think is still quite good for my first try, since I didn't quite know what the heck I was doing in the first place. *Laughs*  But, I have a super awesome start (finally) to my first middle grade book.  It's all very exciting to see the characters, settings and plots come to life.  I'm still writing strong and have a goal to make it to almost 50,000 by this month's end.  (I'll try my best at least, so no biggie if I don't quite make it.)

And I totally completed PiBoIdMo! Woo to the Hoo!  I have about 40 ideas written down for a children's picture book and I've narrowed it down to five ideas now.  I've two really rough manuscripts started and I'm currently noodling around with some rough concepts for the illustrations.
It's a brave new world and experience starting for me and I'm very much looking forward to see where that sails me to.

I never knew at first that I would start to head in this direction of children's books and writing, until last year I took a serious look at just who I was reading out there in blogger land.  I was very surprised to see it was mostly mums who were writing, illustrating and crafting, but the largest majority was children's writers and illustrating.  That actually surprised me, as I've done comics for so long.  It's weird how you don't always know yourself, isn't it?  So a change was in definite order.  The thought of being able to one day inspire a little one (maybe one of own one day too), fills me with a joy I never got from doing comics. I just can't wait to get started!

Oh no! I'm rambling...I'll be quiet and leave you to your lovely tea! *laughs*

I've been doodling a lot lately.  More so than getting to finish pieces, really.  This one here, "Forest Elf"  is for my middle grade novel.  She's a lot nicer looking than she really is, so don't  be fooled too much by that elegant face. *wink*  I'm almost done with her, I just hope my colours will last long enough for me to finish.

And one more sketch to show you...

This again is for my middle grade book.  I'm calling her "Empress" for now.  She doesn't show up until the end of the series, but I wanted to draw her so I can flesh out her details in writing a bit better.  She a very nice young elf lady and has a twin.  I'm going to have to use pencil for this drawing, I wont have enough colours left after I finish with another drawing.

How was all of your Thanksgiving my dear American friends?  Did anyone dare to go Black Friday shopping?  Omgosh, I never do that kind of shopping, I'd like to keep all my limbs intact, thank you very much indeed. *laughs*  This is why I'm very grateful for having Hanukkah early this year.

Wishing you all a very merry and candy cane coloured week! Cheers!

Featured In Art Doll Quarterly!

Hellooooo! First I want to apologise for last week's sorta dark post that I wrote.  I've made a note that when feeling lower and low and not my happy self, leave blogging till that passes. *laughs* So, I'm also sorry for not going around to visit. Forgive me, please! *Giving Sad Puppy Eyes*

Anyway...I'm feeling sky high happy today, which is such a great feeling to have again. I think I said some time back that I would have some news in November? Riiighhhtt?? And if you've been with me on Face book during the summer, I kinda blabbed early, but I was so excited!  I'd like to announce now that one of my paper dolls, Toko has been featured in Art Doll Quarterly!!!  I'm still excitedly waiting for the issue to arrive in my mail slot, but I just couldn't wait to share!!

And here's the little lady:

And the gorgeous front cover this the winter issue:

I'm just so super happy to be part of this issue, with all the marvelous doll artists that are are always in there and to share a page with them is such and honour and treat that I could ever hope for!
So, in my uber excitement, I'm going to create some new paper dolls this weekend.  I have one here that is actually part of the book I'm working on:

Her name is Fable and I'll have a better photo shot of her up a little later on. She's fully articulated, her wrists, ankles, head, torso, knees, elbows and shoulders all move.  My first time making a larger paper doll.  I have another one waiting, for the past two months actually, to be inked and coloured, then put together.

My gosh, I still cannot go on about how happy I am.  I've spend the last four years really pushing at the direction I really want to go in.  Submitting things and submitting things and feeling like I've been getting no where. No even getting rejection letters....just a void of silence.  But with this, I strongly feel a change in that, I see a light at that dark tunnel's end.  Seeing that email in the summer, that joyful acceptance letter....someone saying "yes" and thinking that it fits in with their publication, has given me the courage and strength to keep fighting for longer now. You guys have given me that too! So thank you all and Art Doll Quarterly!  The future looks bright again!

Ooh! Before I go, I'll share a little sketch:

I originally posted this on Face book. This is "Juliet" from William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet". Just a simple pencil sketch while watching a movie.  I always liked Clare Danes outfit from the 1996 film version and I wanted to draw something like it.

Well, that's all for today. ^_^ Wishing you a wonderful, happy and creative week! Cheers my friends!