Transferring my collage onto wood

The collage I'd made for this month's MATS Bootcamp really lent itself to a burnt wood look, so I bought a few rounds of wood and a wood-burning tool at my local art store.

Though I really loved sketching with the wood burner, I just couldn't get an even burn for large flat areas. So I found this great Photoshop tutorial, made some additional tweaks, and submitted this final piece:

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....

More sketching for MATS Bootcamp

On Monday, we began our second assignment for Lilla Rogers online class, MATS Bootcamp. As I've mentioned in earlier posts, Lilla always starts with a "mini." The minis help us warm up, draw, paint and enjoy ourselves before we're given our actual assignment.

This month's mini is the scenic plate. She showed us several cool plates from her own collection, all with different kinds of scenes painted on them. Yesterday, I chose a plate with a pastoral landscape to sketch from, as well as one with a charming lord and lady courtship setting.

(I had some difficulty keeping my paper and pencil away from my new, extremely-playful-and-cuddly kitty, as you can see in the picture below.)

Sketching today

Yesterday, I went to the Met to see the Madame Cézanne exhibit. While I'd gone to view the paintings, it was Cézanne's sketches that I was most drawn to. I was once again reminded of how much I love swift and unfinished work. How a quick graphite sketch can capture more for me than a detailed portrait. I just love them.

This morning, I set out to sketch a bit myself. Here's one of today's drawings of my husband.

Making fonts with my kid

This morning, my son's school was delayed due to the snow, so we spent the extra time creating our own fonts on paintfont.com. My son worked on his while I shoveled, and when I came back in, I realized he'd made pictures, instead of letters — his own hieroglyphics! Or secret code.

Below is Archer's super-cool picture font (look at all those cool characters!!). My handwriting font follows. We had a great time, and I highly recommend trying it!

Archers super cool picture font
Kendra Shedenhelm Handwriting Font

Creating my illustration portfolio

Yesterday I took the train to Manhattan to meet with Carmine at Graphic Lab about printing my portfolio. When I arrived, he'd already printed one of my illustrations on two types of sample papers, which was extremely helpful, and we discussed the binding options. Because this is my first printed illustration portfolio, and I'm just not sure about the order of pages yet (or which images to keep/ditch), we decided to go with a screw post binding and a scored, heavyweight paper.

Below is a sample print, which I thought turned out pretty great. I'll post more once it's all completed.


An early sequence

As I'd mentioned in yesterday's post, I am putting my first illustration portfolio together for the upcoming SCBWI conference, and I've been looking through my initial illustration work. 

I found this piece that I created one Sunday morning in 2012. I'd just recently started to work with cut paper and collage, and I had a leftover square. I challenged myself to create a little story with it. This is what I came up with...


Early illustrations from my first illustration course

I've been putting my portfolio together for the upcoming SCBWI Conference in NYC in February, so I've been looking through a lot of old files and thinking about what kind of work I want to make in the future.

When I began my first illustration class in 2012, I hadn't painted since college (see this post for a little background), and I almost never drew anything by hand anymore. Carrying a sketchbook around was in the past for me, and almost everything I'd created in the previous decade was done on the computer. Although I really wanted to make art with my hands again, it felt uncomfortable and scared me. So I chose to work in Adobe Illustrator and got started.

Per Mark Mitchell's instruction, since I didn't have a story in mind, I went with a simple song to illustrate, Mary Had a Little Lamb. I started with a rough storyboard that I sketched using the pencil tool in Illustrator. Instead of Mary living in the country, I felt she should live in a Brooklyn-style city. I wanted the lamb's attempt to follow her to seem somewhat vast and overwhelming, and I wanted them to be happily reunited on a city street shortly thereafter. Below are some of my beginning illustrations:
 

Finding Mary

Looking for Mary




Happy Holidays!

We just returned from an incredible week in Florida with my in-laws, and I made this little collage on the plane ride home.

With tremendous gratitude to all of you, I wish you a very happy holiday!

xo,

Kendra

Random bird watercolor post

Lately, when I'm having difficulty getting into an assignment, I pick up a brush and loosely watercolor. I find it helps me feel productive, and the lazy brush strokes somehow free me to move forward.

I straightened up my studio space yesterday, and I found these warm-up sketches from last week. This blue one below is my favorite.