Heading Out to my First Ever Book Signing

I'm pretty excited and weirded out. :)
First of all, it's not a solo book signing, it's simply all of the published alums of my college congregating at the college book store. Which really makes it the perfect intro into book signings for noob author like me. :)

But, as usual, I'm still in a rushed mess, trying to pack and do the dishes and finish printing off the things that need printing.

Like this, for example. :)

For the unlikely yet fantastic occurrence that I should sell out.

;D

Or, simply to hoodwink bystanders into thinking about a purchase even if they don't make one tomorrow.

To be completely honest, I'm also simply excited to see several of my college friends. It's going to be an awesome weekend for several reasons!

Playing With Watercolors

I'm woefully out of practice with watercolors. What does this mean? More watercolors!

Just a picture of a pretty lady to warm up my watercolor skills.  I'll post the finished version soon.

:)

Guess What Came in the Mail....!!!

I'll give you a hint: it came in a box and contained many copies of something I've been working hard to polish this last month!  :D

If you guessed the first ever official copies of my self published illustrated children's book, you were right!

Ferris Wheels and Faraway Places: Adventures at the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair

The blurb on the back cover reads:
"Explore the 1893 Chicago Worlds fair! See the first ever Ferris Wheel, a wooly mammoth, and learn where some of the objects in Beloit’s museums came from."

Look! A cover!

And look! Inside pages!

Please ignore my chapped hands.  Also, both the books and my hands are much less grainy in person. ;)

The books got here, they look fantastic, and I'm super excited to have them finished and tangible in my hands.

If you are interested in a copy of your own, check out the lulu.com page where they are sold

Each paperback copy is $15.

I don't even know what to do with myself  now. 

I'm obviously going to have to find another huge project to throw myself into. ;)

Drawing in the Fresh Air

Lately I've taken to drawing outside as much as possible.  Now that I'm working, I just don't get outside as much as I would like, so I found that forcing myself to do art outdoors kills two birds with one stone.
I'm not sure how much longer this lovely trend can continue, what with the weather turning colder already, but for the moment at least I'm enjoying it.  (Although I now have a set of sunburned shoulders...)

This is my favorite spot of all.  It's a picnic table on the far side of the lake near where I live, tucked a bit away from the path.  It's beautiful and partly shaded -- you can't get much more perfect than this spot.

So far most of what I've been drawing has been the Mad Jack project (which I can't share with you juuuust yet -- spoilers!) and just warm up drawings to get myself back in the habit of drawing for fun.

But tomorrow I have some exciting news to share, so check back!
Hint: something is coming in the mail. Something I've been working on for a long, long time.

I'm Back!

It's been a long while since I've updated this blog.  I've since found a home in a new town and found a job to pay the rent. :) My life has gotten exciting!

But I've also been busily working away on several art projects, including ones you might be familiar with from past posts!

One of the projects that is near and dear to my heart is Mad Jack, a joint comic written by my good friend Amber and drawn by me. It's still very much in the works, but we're both very excited about not only where it's at, but what it has the potential to be.

This morning I roughed out the first two pages of our prologue.  Luckily, they don't contain any spoilers and so I'm going to give  you folks a sneak peak!

The Maze Pg. 8

And finally, the end has come.  What you see today is the final and last page of The Maze.

The Maze

Written by Kaitlin and illustrated by me

Previous pages:

Pg. 1, Pg. 2, Pg. 3, Pg. 4, Pg. 5, Pg. 6, Pg. 7

Pg. 8

The end.

Thanks to everyone who read!

Next up, I'm gonna finally put gobs of effort into my other comic project, Mad Jack, and get back into working on the Chicago Worlds Fair children's book!

:D

P.S.

The blog is undergoing some design changes, so don't be too weirded out if things look a little different as it gets settled.

:)

The Maze Pg. 7

We're almost through the Maze, folks! Just one more page after this one and we'll be at the end.
:)

The Maze

Written by Kaitlin and illustrated by me

Previous pages

Pg. 1, Pg. 2, Pg. 3, Pg. 4, Pg. 5, Pg. 6

Pg. 7

The Maze Pg. 6

If you guessed today I would post page 6... you were right!
;)

The Maze
Written by Kaitlin and illustrated by me

Previous pages
Pg. 1, Pg. 2, Pg. 3, Pg. 4, Pg. 5

Pg. 6

The Maze Pg. 5

We're over half way there, folks, and things are getting exciting!

The Maze
Written by Kaitlin and illustrated by me.

Previous pages
Pg. 1
Pg. 2
Pg. 3
Pg. 4

Pg. 5

The Maze Pg. 4

And now for my favorite page of the bunch...
This page took by far the most time to do, but I think it really turned out well. :)

The Maze
Written by Kaitlin and illustrated by me

Previous pages
Pg. 1
Pg. 2
Pg. 3

Pg. 4

The Maze Pg. 3

Whopse! I meant to put this up yesterday.  Guess that means today will be double the Maze. :D

The Maze

Written by Kaitlin and illustrated by me.

Previous pages:

Pg. 1

Pg. 2

Pg. 3

The Maze Pg. 2

Here's page 2 of The Maze, the comic drawn by me and written by the amazing Kaitlin for our Graphic Novel class.  You can find the first page here or by scrolling down to the earlier post.

:)

The Maze Pg. 1

This semester one of the classes I'm taking is a graphic novel class.  My half of the class does the art, while the other half writes it.  Luckily for me I got paired up with my friend Kaitlin who is a fantastic writer and we set to work. :)

This comic is a short, 8 page story.  I will be uploading it one page at a time over the course of the next week.  It was drawn in blue pencil on 11x14 inch bristol board and then inked by brush with india ink and (rather disappointing) sharpie pens.  

The Maze Pg. 1

Ferris Wheels and Faraway Places: Adventures at the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair

After a too-long absence from the blog-sphere, I return!
And guess what I have news about...

Later today (when I finish cutting and cropping and resizing my huge folder of images) my illustrated children's book will be sent off to Lulu.com for its rough draft printing!

And even more exciting than the draft printing, my book now has a title. "Ferris Wheels and Faraway Places: Adventures at the 1893 Chicago Worlds Fair"

For months I've been calling it "the book" and "the worlds fair thing" so a title was a much needed addition for this little project.  The title is all in thanks of professors who were able to think of titles less corny (and silly) than my initial idea of "ferris wheels and lightbulbs!"  XD

Blue Doodles and Noodle Arms

Remember that blue sharpie I nabbed from the SEA conference? It got used quite a bit.  :)

So I drew this lady, stealing this kid.  And decided, despite it's similarities to Tangled, it was awesome and there had to be at least two more drawings of them.

;D

I really enjoyed using this bendy people style.  It was liberating and oodles of fun.  These are going in my "do more with these" pile to develop further.  Along with a whole slew of other doodles... *sigh* 

Character Sketch: Sheena

Surprise! I've got a blog update and it's using real media (what a shocker, I know!) I'm trying to use up the last few pages of my notebook so I have an excuse to buy a new sketchbook. ;)

My friend Kaitlin is working on a young adult novel and let me draw her main character, Sheena.  It's rough and not quite the character, but it's ... close.

I'm going to try and re-work it in Photoshop.  One of the first things I'm going to do is to make that afro bigger!  (It kinda looks like a deflated beach ball... and that's just not right.)  :D

Doodle: Hippo Illustration!

I doodled a hippo last night.  He is pretty flat as far as illustrations go, so I'll probably leave him alone and move on to more exciting drawings.
:)

I'm always looking for prompts to draw, so if you have an idea feel free to blurt it out in the comments section.  I can't promise I'll draw it, but chances are high!

Speed Paint: Bird Illustration

I've been in artistic overdrive lately!  I'm getting a lot of work done on my book project and even moving onto new projects on the side.

Now that I've been thinking more seriously about doing illustration professionally in the future, I've been working hard to amp up my portfolio.  And that means more drawing, more painting, more illustration!  And then more after that!

Speed Paint/Drawing
Time elapsed: 1 hour (plus change)
Medium: Photoshop

Not particularly pretty, but I'll be going back into it later.  Feel free to critique! There's already a lot I'm looking forward to changing.  You'll see this guy again.
:)

Worlds Fair: Pages 9 & 10

One of the big projects I'm working on this semester is an illustrated children's book about the Chicago worlds fair of 1893.  I've posted about it before, and I'll probably post about it many more times.  It's a project I'm hugely excited about, but to go with that huge excitement is a huge amount of work.  When I say huge amount of work, I mean it.  Lots. Of. Work.  I'm getting faster and faster at the painting process (it's in Photoshop) but it still takes me hours upon hours to finish a page.  And the level of "finish" I get isn't quite high enough, even when I get there.

It's wonderful because I'm focusing so much of my energy on a cool project, which isn't something I usually get to do.  But at the same time, I really can't do anything else...

Here's a peak at spread pages 9 and 10:

There are a couple of kinks to work out of it, but it's pretty well set. :)
Just have to finish one today and one tomorrow and I won't be behind!  (o__o)

Back to work for me!

Self Employment in the Arts (SEA) Conference

This weekend I was lucky enough to attend the SEA (Self Employment in the Arts) conference in Napervile Il.  It was pretty cool and full of stories of success (and failures) and tips on how not to be a starving artist (but still be an artist).  The thing that was the most valuable to me was realizing that as long as you are able to support yourself (either through your art or not), your level of "success" is yours and yours alone.  Not the NY artist across the way.  Not what your friend/brother/aunt things it should be.

Now, I don't plan on being able to use my art for my full time career, at least not at this point in my life.  But I'd be lying if I said making a living off of my skills and the things I love doing wasn't very, very appealing.  So I'll be honing my talents and building my portfolio and keeping my little dream lit.  And maybe someday, maybe someday soon, I can take that step.

In the mean time: art!

(They gave away fine tip blue sharpies from Blick Art. Score!)

A doodle during one of the conference sessions.  It was a lecture on copyright law and very informative!