Illustration Friday "Capable"

Illustration Friday

 "Capable"

Capable? yessss!
Smart? Hmmmmm..... 

Picturebookdad Unofficial review

You will not find this review on Picturebookdad but Ken was nice enough to allow me to print what he had to say about Why Am I Me?

Stephen,
I appreciate you interest in Picturebookdad.com.
I enjoyed Why Am I Me? I found it to be thoughtfully written and nicely drawn.
However, I feel it doesn't have quite enough dad-appeal to reach my target audience of reluctant-reader dads.
I hope you understand.
Best wishes,
Ken

I do/did understand I took shot, this book is the closest that I illustrated to what he looks for in picture books for his audience. But if you don't try you will never know.
It is a great site and I would suggest to go visit it often.

IF "FLUID"

This week’s challenge was

“Fluid”

What comes to mind when you think of that word?

Water was my first then air so as I was sketching out my drawing I realized I already did it back in 2008 the title is called “Sea Breeze” it was going to be used for a movie festival, unfortunately the only thing done to make the festival a reality was my artwork

Pen & Ink with water color                      

Lost & Found

How often do you misplace something?

How many years later does it come back to find you?

Well it happened to me yesterday.

 On Valentine’s Day I sent out my email V-Day cards my mentor Patti Stren was one of them. She loved the little snail so much she asked me about the little guy, if there was a story?  I said yes and after talking about it she insist I re visit him and make it into a picture book. 

Okay I am now looking in an old sketch book were the little story has been sleeping and in the front of the sketch book is a card from Sandie Rosa; Sandie and I worked together many moons ago at equinox. We opened the new Columbus circle location together, she was the spa coordinator and I was one of the massage therapists.          

The sketch book is gift from her when she decided to leave, it was her way to say thank you for all my hard work. It came with this great jacket cover I added the Harley Davidson later it was from an old vest of mine that was falling apart.  

So of course I do a web search on Sandie, this is not the first time I try but in the past nothing ever came up. But this time I find a bunch of images and her acting credits I also find her actively working as an actor on

“The Electric Company” playing "Annie Scrambler".

WOW!!!

But sadly I cannot find anyway of contacting her (yes I tried Facebook) So Sandie if you bump into my blog I would love to hear from you.

Stephen

Final post on the 2012 Tomie dePaola Winner!

Well I am finally coming to the end of posting about the 2012 Tomie dePaola awards. I wrote in an earlier post about the award that I would give a little more info on the winner and the runners up so; here they are and
the Winner is….

“Yvette Piette Herrera”

First Place: "My number one choice was the illustration by Yvette Piette Herrera. The characters were well personalized with a very nice nostalgic touch to them. The round composition was a clever way of telling “a round robin story.” This illustration was my favorite." -Tomie

 Second Place: "Carrie Eko-Burgess’s illustration was excellent in its graphic depiction of the story. The strong forms, color and contrast appealed to me." -Tomie

Third Place: "Rotem Omri’s three-dimensional clay work was charming although I found some of the forms confusing, such as, the purple and blue “dresses” or “stands.” All in all, it was a novel approach." -Tomie

Fourth Place: "I’d like to commend Lori McElrath-Eslick for her illustration. I was delighted by the paint quality of the character. I’d like to see the drawing taken further." -Tomie

And finally my version:

I have no idea if Mr. dePaola looked at my entry once, twice or even a hundred times and in truth it does not matter the contest was fun, it pushed me to try harder, and it forced me to step out of my safety zone and let others judge me.
 

Stephen Macquignon

All remarks from Tombie and artwork for this post are from SCBWI website

IF "Popularity"

Illustration Friday

"Popularity"

Pen & Ink

digitally painted

XOXOXO

How many can you find?

I came across this image the other day and I thought about sharing it with everyone.

So how many faces are there?

P.s. I do not have the answer

happy hunting

Illustration Friday "Suspence"

Quick sketch for Illustration Friday the subject

 "Suspense"

This is my first time doing one I have heard a lot of people say it is fun but since today is Thursday I just did this while doing my laundry.
 
Medium: Bic pen

25 copies SOLD!!!

“Why Am I me?” has picked up some momentum and is selling at independent book stores in Oklahoma one is called “Best of Books in Edmond” so far has sold over twenty five copies, this was after a news article came out about Wayne Harris-Wyrick who wrote “Why Am I Me?” I posted it here.

I have also been told that Full Circle Books in Oklahoma City has ordered the book, how many copies I do not know they purchased them through Ingram and that information does not become available till the following month. The store at the Science Museum in Oklahoma has ordered fifteen copies.

All very promising, at the scbwi winter conference I can’t remember if it was Dan Santat or Dan Yaccarino who spoke of doing a grassroots movement to get the book in the public eye but it looks like Wayne as done just that; if you have not guessed he lives in Oklahoma and is also the director of the Kirkpatrick Planetarium of Science Museum of Oklahoma, it is nice to see the museum take care of their people.
Oklahoma is also the home of 4RV Publishing and he has attended some of the conferences held in or around the city signing copies of the book.

Wayne Harris- Wyrick

Wayne Harris- Wyrick

Side note/ disclaimer:
When I illustrate a book I do not do a web search on who wrote the story I don’t want to be influenced by their web pages or blog, Facebook status whatever is floating out there on the World Wide Web. So the front cover had nothing to do with Wayne love for the universe it is something I picked up by illustrating this picture book.
I only knew one writer before I illustrated her book; it did not hurt my interpretations but her love for the outdoors did influence me in a certain direction. (Hi Rena)

2012 Tomie dePaola Award Part 5

 I used to add color using water color over my pen and ink drawings.

But that all changed when I was taught how to work in Photoshop, 

It took me six months to understand how the program worked ; it took me another

 six months not to look like I was painting on a computer.

So the question I get asked is "why bother?";

in someways it saves me time. But what I truly like about it is that it gives

me more freedom to play with color with out messing up the original pen and ink.

Nothing less fun then re-drawing an image that took you days to ink, and it never comes out looking as fresh. I also love to layer the color tones overlap them then blend

 I feel it gives the artwork some depth.

Depending on the illustration I can use a few layers or many

This one had quite a few layers with all the characters on one page it was easier to

 keep them apart then blend them together later.

I think I spent about two weeks from start to finish.  

well worth the time!

Almost done

(BTW this is version CS5)