Sketch Dailies

The other day I stumbled on a perfectly wonderful time-waster/procrastination-enabler called Sketch Dailies. The artists that contribute are waaaayyy out of my league, but anyone can participate.
Every weekday they give their followers a drawing prompt on Twitter. Here is my submission for #mermaid:

She's an angelfish!

Update: This image was so fun the first time I thought I would make a more complete piece of artwork!

Squash in Progress

Since many of you enjoyed seeing how I created "The Rebel", I decided to do another art-in-progress post. This one is of my sweet little creativity mascot, Squash. He recently wriggled his way into a new children's book story idea.

First, I sketch in Photoshop CS5. This one is fairly clean but without much detail:

 

Next I choose/refine my lines and add details. I usually do this traditionally, with ink and paper, but I've been trying to make the move over to digital. You can still see the sketchiness in the under layers here:

 

 

Now it's time to pick my colors and block them in. I really enjoy doing this part in Photoshop because if I'm not sure about a color (which is often) I can easily play around with them until I'm satisfied:

Finally, I shade and add highlights. I think many pro artists who understand Photoshop better than I have ways of using its lighting tools to make this step easier, but I pick my shadow and highlight colors using the trial and error experience I've gained creating art with colored pencils:

 

There he is! Such a sweet little guy! He's got nothing but love...and spikey tentacles.

 

 



"Disney" Eyes.

I've always wanted to work for Disney. *sigh* Have to practice the Disney Princess eyes first. ;)

Color Your World

This is why I love Fred (of my picture book Frigl and Fred Go to Bed); he creates his world without fear. He simply does his thing, making messes and art in the same stroke and loving every minute. 

How awesome would it be if we all gave in to creativity without holding back for fear of messes or mistakes?

It'd be beyond awesome. It'd be beawesome.

Daily Doodle

I stood and stared for quite a while

till a Lion sang to me and smiled...

...pretty soon I knew the tune

and I sat and sang under the moon

and the jungle rang in joyful harmony.

 

(If you can name that tune I will give you a gold star!)

 

Don't Feed the Krakken

Will someone please build a monster zoo. I would pay to see a Krakken. I would pay double to feed it ice cream.

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