#Inktober Giraffe

So, I'm not going to do ALL of my inktober posts.  You can check out my instagram if you want to see them.  I am, just going to blog my favorites.  Probably.  I make no guarantees.   Though I really should blog more consistently.  I'm working on it.  Be patient.  And if you want more, comment!  It helps motivate me.

So, this is my giraffe before digital coloring, with just ink and some orange col-erase pencil. (it scanned in a bit brigher than real life)  The scan looks much better than the dark grainy picture I snapped with my iPod late at night when I finished it though.

and after digital color and cleanup

 I initially didn't mean to put as bright of a background color behind him and was going to tone it down, but it just didn't look as good.  It works really well with him, and it is now one of my favorites.  He's also up in my zazzle shop as prints and bags and tee-shirts and purses and magnets and pillows and a sketchbook and all.  Ok, shameless plug over.  :)  I really do love zazzle though, they have great coupon codes regularly, they have great quality products and they have amazing customer service.  I am my biggest customer, seriously.  I buy more stuff for me than anybody else does.  lol!  It is just so much easier than when I was trying to make etsy work for me.  I may only make a percentage, but it is waaaaay less work and less risk. 

So, how do you like the background?  Too bright?  Too distracting?  Who knows because your monitor is different than mine?  Comment away, I love to have other insight.  I'm still learning with color...

#Inktober Owl

I have been trying to blog more often, with more of my artistic content.  So, have you heard of #inktober?  It was started by Jake Parker as a way to polish up inking skills.  (He also started the #artdropday).  I took a week long illustration class from Jake at a Writing and Illustrating For Young Readers a few years ago and soaked up some of his genius, at least that was the hope.  He's one of those ridiculously talented/practised artists that can draw so effortlessly that he makes the rest of us look bad.  But anyway, I digress. This is inktober day 1.  With many more to follow.

owl

 This owl is a sort of compilation of a couple of cute owls, and as such is not a specific breed of owl.  He was fun to draw and has a different look then my other Owl that I did in pencil.  (he is very specifically a barn owl)

Ironically an owl was the first thing I drew with that last hashtag media bandwagon I jumped on.  Weird.  Either way, that #365drawing frenzy gave me great fodder to digitally color and turn into nice finished polished pieces later.  And as I seem to sometimes need a push to produce artistic content in quantity, it seemed like a great idea to participate in this one too.  And goes along with my newly defined outlook and identity as artist first, and illustrator of books as an extension of that.  As opposed to primarily and almost solely identifying as a writer/illustrator of children's books.  Of which I have worked on for a long time, but have not published or even tried to publish any thing as yet.  Which was getting really discouraging.  Also since I had an almost single handed focus of working on my dummy book, I was taking hardly any work to a final polish.  I think I was too narrowly focused on a long term goal with very long term payoffs.  So although I will continue to eventually finish and then submit my dummy book, I am going to play at being an artist just for the sheer joy of creating content that I personally like to create and look at and polish my skills in the process. And not limit myself to other possibilities.