More Character Play with MATS

Another character illustrated for MATS Bootcamp 2022

April’s assignment focused on drawing children. We were provided a fun story snippet of a young girl named Florencia who had a sidekick and a time machine!

I sketched a variety of kids’ bodies and studied their proportions, and I eventually came up with this young whippersnapper with a penguin sidekick.

My illustration for MATS Bootcamp 2022, April

Another year of Make Art That Sells Bootcamp!

I’ve been participating in the MakeArtThatSells.com Bootcamp since 2015, and the assignments never disappoint.

Instead of having an entirely new focus each month as in previous years, this year’s Bootcamp has an overarching theme of “Character Play.” We’ll be creating a character each month, both for book illustration and for toys and games.

I’ll update more in a few, but I promised myself I’d get this posted tonight. My submission for the illustration part of this month’s character, a happy little donut named Coco Moloko….

My illustration for this month’s Make Art That Sells Bootcamp. An assemblage of freehand ink drawing with a few pops of color.

Another submission for the Tomie dePaola Award

Yesterday, I submitted another illustration for the Tomie dePaola Award. This is my third year participating — I blogged about the 2013 contest here, and I was a semi-finalist for my 2014 submission, which you can see here.

The assignment was to "illustrate a moment from the following passage from Philip Pullman’s version of “Little Red Riding Hood” from FAIRY TALES FROM THE BROTHERS GRIMM (Viking, 2012)." (You can read the full prompt at SCBWI.org)

I chose this passage:
"When Little Red Riding Hood had only been walking a few minutes, a wolf came up to her. She didn’t know what a wicked animal he was, so she wasn’t afraid of him."

Below is my digital collage...

Editorial illustration for Girls' World magazine

My editorial illustrations for Girls' World magazine are now in stores! I am beyond thrilled. I love the story by Sona Charaipotra, the images look great in print, and working with the art director couldn't have been better. It was an excellent first experience in editorial illustration, and I look forward to many, many more.

A tiny picture book about a hermit crab (and collage)

I'll be giving a short presentation about illustration and collage to my son's first grade art class today. I plan to bring random textures and objects, my scissors, a glue stick and improvise a little story with their help. The first graders have been learning about hermit crabs for the past few weeks, and they were also required to create their own stories about them, so I will start by cutting out a main character of a hermit crab. From there, I'm hoping the kids can help me shape the story.

My main goal is to show them the fun (and freedom) of constructing a tale with collage – that with simple shapes they can create a character. And by changing elements slightly (eyes looking up or down, changing the mouth shape, moving the character forward), they can even create action and emotion. 

Just in case my improv presentation is a total flop, I also created a takeaway booklet for the students, so they can see the potential of illustrating in this way. This is the takeaway booklet below. If you'd like to download a free PDF, please feel free to do so here. (Please just link back to me if you reference it, and let me know what you think!)

Creating my own scene for MATS Bootcamp

In Lilla Rogers' MATS Bootcamp course, our main assignment this month is to paint a picturesque scene on a round wooden surface.

I started my mini assignment by sketching scenic plates that Lilla had provided (you can see one of them here). I then moved on to create my own scene, using collage. But I decided to eliminate the texture and work toward more of a cinematic, dark effect.

This was my final layout. Now to transfer it on wood....