The Pom Pom Girls

A friend needed some cheering up this week, so I took a break from thesising and dummying to draw a quick cartoon. I was going to make something along the lines of a get well soon card, but I ended up with this gaggle of gals instead.

So for all of your life-cheering needs, I present to you...

Clearly they're going to need their own story.

Thesis Dummies

Halloo my dear blog readers,

First, thanks to everyone for the congrats and well wishes. The scholarship was a really exciting surprise this week.

But moving on... you've all been extremely patient. I keep dropping hints about my mysterious thesis, one book, two books, three, four, maybe six book project. Perhaps I should tell you what I'm doing. Originally, my thought was to make a dummy of two or three different ideas and then pick one to finish for the thesis. However, picture book publishing looks less kindly on finished work... an entirely fleshed-out book leaves no room for the excellent collaboration that happens between an author/illustrator and her editor/art director. Publishers do, in fact, prefer to see dummies in the sketch stage with two or three finished pieces thrown in to show how you would render the final artwork.

So why pick one book to finish? The upshot is I'm not. Rather than one book for thesis, I'm doing very finished dummies of three - six original books with two or three finished pieces of art per story. I have one 99% done, a second nearing that 99% mark, and then the third - sixth book... well, loads to do still. Depending on how satisfied I am with the work, I'll show three or six of the books. Though admittedly, a bit schizophrenic, it's been great to have more than one project to work on. When I get fed up with or sick of or stuck on one of them, I can shift gears, work on a second book, and then return to the previous project refreshed and ready to go.

You've already seen a couple of the finishes going into the books, but here are some of the sketch pages that I've been working on this week for book number two.

Be forewarned, the images are not for the faint of heart... here be monsters...




Good news

Last semester, I submitted an application for an Alumni Scholarship to help fund my thesis project. It required a big 'ole proposal, budgets, thumbnails, image descriptions... it was a long process and a lot of work, but in the crazy of the New Year, I had mostly forgotten about it.

In any case, I had some pretty exciting news this past week...


It seems that I didn't just get an alumni grant but won the Illustration Department scholarship. Neat.

Thesis show!

Mark your calendars folks! The opening reception for the MFA thesis show is going to be May 5th. It may seem early to start planning, but in addition to all of the actual art, there's printing, binding, designing promos, getting prints made... loads to do, as it were.

We've been working on the official promo card for the show as a class, so that our work is all equally represented. Each of us is doing the portrait of one of our classmates.


Philip!

Playing around

Just doing some experimenting...

... Day!


(If you're just arriving, you may want to backtrack to Saturday's post, and work your way forward for the full effect of the warm, fuzzy sentiments of this fine February day.)

Snow!

For those of you who aren't in New York, you may not know that we've had a snow storm pretty much on a weekly basis since the year started. All of the winter weather has meant a fantastic heap of snowy reference for a picture book that I'm working on about a flamingo and a penguin.

It's an absurdly silly and extremely satisfying project. What could be better!?




Issue One - Hey Girl Here: Sweet Gear For Salty Tarts

Halloo dear readers!

Today marked the release of the first issue of "Hey Girl Here", a little homemade zine by my sassy and saucy lady classmates at SVA. It's fab, and we're hoping to do a whole bunch more issues.

It was an amazingly quick turn-around... less than a week from original idea to stapled zine.

Assembly line production:


Snazzy pink cover (hand-lettering, courtesy of the talented Mz. Supinski):



My piece:


Sneak Peak

Shhhh!

I'm working on a super secret collaborative project with a bunch of friends from school... from what I've seen thus far, it's going to be awesome.

Sneaky peak:

Scratchboard Fun!

Heya everyone,

Just a quick post of a piece I did a couple of weeks ago. In drawing class, we played around with scratchboard, and the assignment was for each of us to do a portrait of another student. I did a portrait of my friend Dasha, a firstyear in the program, a fellow aspiring picture book artist, and a super talented lady.

Dasha


I inverted the image just to see what would happen.

Calling All Mix Masters

Some of you may have been following the whole art school saga and know that I'm currently finishing up my last semester. This is it! The final push! As such, I'm going to be sitting at my drawing board for the next couple of months finishing up my thesis. One of the best things about making art is that your mind is -for the most part - free... free to wander, free to listen to podcasts, free to daydream, or, more often, free to rock out.

Here's where you come in. I've been listening to the same few tired mixes for the past couple of weeks and realized that I'm bored. Totally, entirely and utterly bored of my predictable little mixy-poos. So, if you feel like procrastinating from you own work or have a moment to spare, I'm soliciting music and mixes to shake things up and help me pass the working hours.

If you're interested, in exchange for music, I will send a little note or cookie or sketch or something (as of yet to be determined) after thesis-crazy is over.

xo
L