Summertime

Hey there blog readers,

It was a busy June filled with loads of projects. I ended up with a big job requiring pages and pages of sketches. Incredibly fun, but I can't say much more than that. Non disclosure agreements and all. I also recently started work on two new projects with a couple of different publications, more about those in coming weeks as things get underway. Alas, jobs and massive amounts of sketching left little time for blog-ifying. But I'm back... albeit briefly. On Thursday, I'm heading off for vacation, on a Pacific Northwest adventure extravaganza, visiting Seattle and Portland for the first time with the boyfriend.

I may try to post once or twice while away (I do have to bring my computer along as the aforementioned new projects will require some work), but more likely than not, it'll be a quiet few weeks. Sooo, I'm going to leave you with a whole bunch of sketches and some summertime fun.

While in the process of getting ready for the big SCBWI conference out in LA (early August), I decided I needed a new Coco and Oscar painting. Clearly it was time for some brainstorming.

My first sketches are usually pretty rough, but these few are exceptionally sketchy. I actually did these first couple of pages on the back of two photocopied crossword puzzles while on the subway.

When I got home, I began to firm up a few of my favorites.

With a quick revision...

I actually really loved this last sketch. It might just be my favorite. Alas, I decided it would be a hard read for someone unfamiliar with the characters, so I went in a different direction. I will probably still go back and paint a bunch of these when I have some time. They're too much fun not to.

And finally, the full color painting. 

Happy Summer everyone!

Book Project Part II: Delays

Book Project Part II: Delays

In which the project is nearly scrapped and an identity crisis ensues...

Again, apologies for the delay with these. This week was technically Spring "break"... I use the term "break" extremely loosely because break for me meant a week of 8 hr (sometimes 8+, except for Tuesday, when I took the afternoon off) workdays in the studio. As such, I finished three (soon to be four) new paintings for this very project, which I'm not going to post tonight because we have a bit of catching up to do first. Soon, dear readers, soon... all in good time.

So let's get to it, shall we? When I last left you, I had just finished the first dummy for the book. It was fairly complete - a full 32 pages - textless, but complete. And then, then there was the meeting - the meeting that turned everything upside down.

Each of us met with our creative writing teacher, who, when it was my turn, suggested that I scrap my entire project. I'm not going to go into the gory details, but it led to a series of successive identity crises that had me questioning everything from the kind of work I do, how I do it, why I want to do kids' books, if that's really what I want to spend my time on... oof... exhausting. Ultimately I did not scrap the story, but I spent the next three weeks doing heaps of sketches, reworking the story itself, changing it from the inside out, and playing with adding text. In my last post, I mentioned that I felt that the story lacked a central conflict, and while the reworking isn't entirely complete, the story arc is much more solid. So the crisis-inducing meeting, despite turning my world upside-down and inside-out for much of February, ultimately strengthened the story, forcing me to push it further. There is a lot I still have to work out about the story line and actual text of the manuscript, but the ideas are there.

And as I mentioned earlier, only one of the sketches you've seen made it into the book. Post crisis, the new dummy had 30 new illustrations (a number of which, I'm still doing revisions on). Here are a handful of the new images:

After spending so many weeks working out the story and sketching, the next step in my process was to start figuring out how I wanted to render the artwork. Watercolor? Ink? Gouache? Acrylic? So many options! I knew that I wanted a really saturated series of images, so I started looking back at the work I had rendered last term and finally came to Carl's final project - a folding screen rendered on black rag board. Perfect! Because the story takes place at night, the dark board would be perfect for rendering night skies and likewise would help the colors pop and shine in vibrant contrast to the black background. And so I gave it a go, rendering a couple of test illustrations in gouache on bits of board leftover from the Four Seasons screen.

Success!

And thus, I'm on my way.

And so I shall leave you until next time (until the first of the colored spreads and spring break paintings) with this marvelous quote by Madeleine L'Engle (who was, it is worth noting, a Smithie).

"You have to write whichever book it is that wants to be written. And then, if it's going to be too difficult for grown-ups, you write it for children."

Avocados are Delightful

Happy snow day everyone!

The weather-folks predicted a major snow storm here, of the school-closings-and-snow-days-for-everyone-so-let's-rush-to-the-grocery-store-and-clear-the-shelves-of-milk-and-bread-and-batteries variety. So here I sit at my little table in Park Slope, enjoying the snow on the trees (though admittedly there is a lot less snow than was predicted and likewise less than I would have liked... but SNOW!) and a cup of tea, and I realized that it would be an excellent day for a couple of catch-up posts. There is much to be done today (even though it is a day "off"), so we'll see if I have time for that second post. Perhaps I shall save it for tomorrow, keep you on the edge of your seat, mouth rounded in anticipation - whatever will she post!?

But alas, as usual, I digress...

Though it is snowy and winter outside, indoors it is all kinds of cozy and excellent... made even more so because of the lovely avocado and hummus sandwich waiting for me. If you've never had one, you should make one right now (except if you're snowed in... then wait until tomorrow) - it is a life changing sort of sandwich. Dead of winter doesn't exactly scream avocados; it's more of a time for the warm and hearty rather than the green and tangy. But I was inspired to pick up an avocado at the grocery store yesterday - no, I did not buy milk and bread... just an avocado - because of my gouache class this past week.

My fab Britishish prof assigned us to do small paintings of food. We're playing with using the paint to get fairly accurate renderings. This week, he showed us a technique of using an entirely magenta underpainting to get the shadows to pop. You paint the darkest shadows with the brightest magenta and use a lighter wash over the rest of the piece.

Magenta!

And then, once the underpainting is complete, you paint your other colors. I wish I'd thought to photograph it in process because it was sort of neat looking with just the avocados painted and this screaming magenta everywhere else. Anywho, it was quite fun to paint. I still have some finishing touches to do to complete it - touches within the salad, additional highlights, and of course the background - but overall, I'm pretty happy with it... and my sandwich.

Avocado Salad!

The Great Book Seminar Saga Part The Last: Storytime with Viktor

The Great Book Seminar Saga

Part The Last

... in which Viktor has some wine, and we conclude...

Well kids, it's that time. Time to wrap up the Book Seminar saga. It has been quite some time since I last posted on the seminar, in part due to finals madness and likewise because I didn't want to ruin the surprise of the final product. But it's done. I know... crazy. I can scarcely believe it myself... I'm still shaking my head in disbelief. Disbelief that my first semester of art school is nearly over... disbelief that we had our last class with Viktor (sniff)... and disbelief that I actually finished the project. It was looking doubtful there for a while.

But let me share!

The project actually came together last week. I ended up rendering some images that Viktor wasn't initially crazy about, but which came out pretty well. I also ended up (with some advice from our resident type-design guru... thanks Erin!) designing the book layout and not just printing out the spreads but binding them (thank you interwebs).

And without further ado, the book!

During the whole process, my studio wall exploded... there are literally five or six layers of sketches and scrap paper and test paintings...

Binding... I had never actually bound a book by myself before, so I googled some help from the trusty interwebs.

Book!

Endpapers:

First spread:

Interior spreads with new art:

My favorite spread (old art):

And second favorite spread:

The End!

And finally I brought it to class. For our last class with Viktor, a bunch of us thought it would be spiffy to bring a few bottles of wine. When we got to class, we all hung our final work up on the wall, and class turned into a bit of a wine and art, almost art-opening sort of affair. Twas lovely. And after popping the bottles, shmoozing, and walking around and looking at all of the amazing art everyone had hung, we settled down for our final critique.

Storytime with Viktor:

Viktor was quite complimentary.

"... excellent..."

Which brings us to the saga's conclusion. So ends the book seminar, so ends class with Viktor, and so ends (nearly) the semester. But don't think that the crazy art whatnot end here. Oh no. The seminar project was only practice for our big second semester book project (essentially a mini- thesis). I daresay we're in for a whole new adventure... so stay tuned for further artness, a few more posts about winding up the semester, and all new art next term!

An Apple a Day

Happy Saturday my dear readers!

I hope that it is drier where you are. Brooklyn today was and still is a cold, wet mess... but the perfect sort of day for staying inside, drinking buckets of tea, and making art. I ask you, what could be better?

So while taking a break from today's projects - further work for Viktor... I'll share soon, I promise - I realized that it's been entirely too long since I last posted.

A couple of weeks ago, we switched gears in Marshall's class and started talking about representing an entire article with a single image and turned our attention towards op-ed illustration. Marshall gave us each a copy of an actual NY Times' opinion piece and asked us to bring in sketches for the following week. AND the great thing about this project was that Marshall told us he would take all of our sketches and final illustrations and send them to the op-ed art director at the Times. GRIN!

So the big question: how to distill an entire article in a single 4 x 6 image? It's not easy. I've never made conceptual, metaphor-based or symbol-based images, so it was a really interesting project and process. It's a little like working out a puzzle, and it took me a fair amount of time... but with decent results. Marshall liked the concepts I put up and suggested I render more than one.

For your educational benefit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/opinion/02engel.html

And finally, my take:

The Great Book Seminar Saga Part VI: What Now?

The Great Book Seminar Saga

Part VI: What Now?

...in which Lisa grosses everyone out before Thanksgiving...

Happy nearly Thanksgiving everyone! Best wishes for gatherings of family and friends and pumpkin pie!

Week eleven brought with it a couple of new paintings, a whole bunch of new sketches, and a wicked looking crawfish, and yet, no concrete work for week thirteen. (Wait, Lisa, didn't you skip week twelve? No, my mathematically-minded readers. Alas, alack, no Thursday Viktor class this week due to the tofurkey holiday.)

But no work? How can that be? you ask. How can you bring in four new sketches and not have any work to do for two weeks?

I shall explain, but first, the new finished work:

Final render of the porch scene. Double page spread.

Text-less double spread. The riverbank.

I have a little bit of tweaking to do on the riverbank scene. I may darken things up a bit. But for now, I'm happy with how it's working.

And now on to the sketches... I brought four new sketches to class:

The comments on the sketches were on target. The first is a bit too out-West-home-on-the-range for Bulgaria. The second, maybe too quiet. The scale in the third makes the crawfish look the same size as the boy... (Yegads! Crawfishzilla!) And the fourth? Not Viktor's cup of tea. Viktor suggested I look back in the story for my next sketches.

"How about the dugout scene?"

"You mean the one with the revolutionaries and the dead goat?"

Perfect picture book material, no?

Don't get me wrong... from my posts, you may get the impression that I don't like Viktor. Not true. I have been frustrated in this class, but the frustration is mostly self-directed. It has been a long haul figuring out new ways of working and trying to fit the project to my style and aesthetic. That being said, my work has evolved considerably since September, and Viktor has been a great help. He has an excellent eye, and his critiques are almost always fairly dead-on. However, there are moments when Viktor's aesthetic and my own don't necessarily overlap so well.

As to the sketches, I had hoped that I would have a few approved sketches to paint from during these two weeks, but instead, I had to take them back to the drawing board... Admittedly, I was a little frustrated leaving class last Thursday, so I put all of this class work aside. Sometimes it is just best to walk away... because when I finally returned to the sketches, I may have come up with a couple of new compositions that work even better than these originals!

But I shall leave you in suspense... you'll have to be patient. New sketches (and perhaps even a few finishes) next week!

I will, however, leave you with two presents.

The first... Prsenting Viktor (center), in yet another black t-shirt:


And:

Ewwww...

And thus ends Part VI and both week 11 and 12. Will Lisa draw more gigantic-creepy-crawly-roaches-of-the-river? Will she ink a sketch that (GASP!) hasn't been approved? And does Viktor own a t-shirt that isn't black? What will Part VII bring?

Find out! Next week!

The Great Book Seminar Saga Part V: Process

The Great Book Seminar Saga
Part V: Process

...in which Lisa divulges secrets...

And we're back.

Week ten was super productive, and I brought three new paintings and sketches for four new spreads to Viktor's class. It was amazing to see everyone's progress this week. Though everyone had a ton of beautiful things on the wall, it was a admittedly a harsh crit this week for all of us. I have quite a bit of tweaking to do on nearly everything I brought in. That being said, I do feel pretty good about the work.

AND I may have even received ... gasp! ... a compliment from Viktor on one of the paintings.


Sweet!

I still have a bunch of tweaking to do on painting number two, so I'm going to wait to post it. In the meantime, I thought I'd post the in-process work for the third painting.

The lighting is slightly wonky because they're photos rather than scans. Regardless, it gives you an idea of how I've been putting these images together.

This is the sketch I brought to class two weeks ago, and the major comment was simplify, simplify, simplify. Why clutter up the background and foreground? So I took everyone's advice, scanned it into photoshop, erased all of the superfluous pencil lines, shrank Grandpa and the boy down, stretched the tree, and printed my pencil sketch super lightly onto a piece of watercolor paper.

Once I had my sketch printed, I hauled out my brown ink and dip-pen, and inked the sketch. When the line-work was done, I set it aside to dry so as not to smudge any of the nice clean outlines.

Step two is laying in a brown wash using the same ink as the lines. I started with the tree because it is the largest shape in the image and was probably going to remain just an ink wash with no other color laid over it.

This is the painting all inked. When I was done with the wash and once the wash was dry, I went back in with my pen in a couple of places to darken the shadows and reinforce some of the lines. And you guessed it, another round of waiting for the whole thing to dry.


Once the ink wash was completely dry, I began dropping in spots of color in places. A little green in the leaves, the grass, and grandpa's sweater. Blue on the boy's jeans and a little ocher and raw umber on his shirt. And finally a little of the reddish umber color to warm up some of the browns

Ta da! All done!

And thus ends Part V and week 10. What will Part VI bring? What insanity ensues during week 11? Will there be more art to show? Will Viktor wear another black t-shirt to class? The suspense is killing me...