Illustration Friday: Freeze

What's the first thing you do after the first winter freeze? Well this little guy goes ice skating on the pond!

Applied Arts Magazine

Hey Everyone
I just wanted to share that the design firm I work for, Hornall Anderson, was just featured in Applied Arts Magazine for an internal brand book that we did last year, and a drawing that I did as a part of the book was one of the images featured in the spread! Woo Hoo!

Illustration Friday: Lonely

This little guy got trapped in a bell jar when he was running through the field. I'd say he feels pretty lonely right about now.

Illustration Friday: Carry

For this week's theme, I thought I would post a mini book that I created to send out as promotion for my illustration work. It all starts off with Tic and Tac (my precocious badgers) carrying some items, so I thought it fit perfectly. Enjoy!

Illustration Friday: Lost

I'm a little late this week with my IF piece, but I'm really quite happy with how it turned out. It's my mole that I've been playing with. It appears that he is looking for a way to get to somewhere very important...or maybe just a way out of his house?

Illustration Friday: Refresh

Hey All
Here is my illustration for this week's IF theme. My little tapir needs to freshen up his patch of grass with a nice cool drink!Thanks for looking!

Drifting part 3

Here are a couple more little studies for my latest picture book. These are a couple of boats that the little beaver made. One one would be a basic boat that he made when he was younger the other is a barge that he is painting. Any thoughts?

Driftwood boats: Part 2

Hey all!
I posted yesterday some sketches for a new picture book idea I have. Well here is a little painting I did last night to go help develop the idea. This little beaver is playing on a rug with some driftwood boats. The rug came out a bit too blue, so I lightened it. Thoughts on which one you like better?

Illustration Friday:Space

Hey everyone, here is my IF piece for the week. This is another larger piece I am trying to do. This week's space theme got me thinking about what space might seem like to these little woodland creatures.I'd imagining it would be very impressive and mysterious. Let me know what you think!

Illustration Friday: Secret

I am working on doing some larger narrative pieces to go along with some character studies I've been doing. This little mole emerged for this week's IF theme. He found a secret place he'd been looking for hidden by brambles. As I work on these more complex pieces, please let me know your thoughts!

Update:

Here are some  in between pictures that I took so show you guys my process. I only took a couple of photos, but basically this is what I did:
1)I sketched the drawing first
2) I traced and transferred the image to watercolor paper
3) I inked with waterproof Micron pens
4) I water colored the image.

You will notice that I did ink a TON of vines,but the water coloring process obscured a lot of them- which was great because it allowed me to add some depth with the larger detailed vines up front and then smaller less detailed vines the farther up the mountain. Hope this helped!

Illustration Friday: Shiny

What could be better than a delicious meal of shiny red apples with the one you love?

Wombats!

I just finished this piece this weekend as well. A couple of mischievous wombats unraveling their scarves. There were many iterations of the fella with the blue scarf. I have to say I am very appreciative of forgiving watercolor paper and good watercolors! Originally he was going to look just like his friend, but I wanted to composition to be more dynamic. So I changed the scarf to yellow, like ketchup and mustard (also good name ideas for the characters I thought). But the yellow scarf was too hard to see. Then the yellow scarf became green- like ketchup and relish (also good names). Not dynamic enough, and slightly too holiday colored. Then he found his blue scarf, no food/name relation here, but he had and orange sweater. Clashed too much into the other colors. THEN he had a yellow sweater- still not right and too primary color looking. Finally, I decided he got up that morning to put on his blue scarf and green sweater. Phew! What a wishy washy wombat. But that right there is a good name for a children's book! Hmm...

Illustration Friday: Faded

Hey everyone!
I'm getting back into the swing of things post vacation and I wanted to catch up with my IF entries. This week's topic is "faded" but in a way my illustration works for last week's topic "sight" as well. I sort of feel like this illustration says that Mr. Mole here has found something in his hole, but for numerous reasons, he can't see what it is.  I drew and water colored the piece by hand, but in Photoshop I enhance the lighting a little differently on the second one around the lamp. What do you think? Also, I've also added my illustration for a few week's back with "jump" was the theme. Enjoy! Let me know what you think!

Mole version 1:

Mole version 2:

 

Illustration from IF theme "Jump." 

 

Hold on little guy!!!

I don't want to get up!

Hey everyone!
Here is a quick little piece that I did a couple of weeks ago that I hadn't posted yet. This little guy does not want to get out of bed. I know the feeling most mornings. Any thoughts?

Illustration Friday: Heights

Hey everyone!
I've been off for a few weeks but I am back to do this week's IF topic "Heights." I am playing around with this weird little world where my animals live and I think I stumbled upon a suburb of their town. What do you think? Is this working? Any suggestions? I'm trying out a new background, so let me know your thoughts!

Jessixa.com is Alive!

Hey All!
I wanted to announce that my website is back! It's been undergoing some retooling for the past six months or so, and now it is complete! It's been beautifully redesigned by my wonderful husband, Aaron Bagley- for whom I am sooooo grateful for all of his hard work to get it running. I'm also very proud of my little animations (made by moi) that are non-flash so they are friendly for all viewing platforms!

So enough jibba jabba- Check out my website!

jessixa.com

ALSO- just a little reminder that I am still doing my daily hot dog journal website "Diary of a Wiener"-so if you want a daily dose of hot dog and waxing the philosophic, start following me!
diaryofawiener.com


Thanks happy viewing!
-Jessixa

Illustration Friday: Return

Hey all
This week's IF theme "Return" was a little challenging for me not to come up with something not cliche, so I just went for the obvious. But I really like! Let me know what you think!

Poor little guy. I hope it wasn't a love letter that was returned.

Illustration Friday: Swamp

Hey everyone!
Here is my entry for this week's illustration Friday theme: Swamp. I loved this theme, and it fit really nicely into my creatures in the woods stuff I've been doing lately. I love the idea of a raft and a jug band, it's so simple and fun. I would hang out with this little guys.

Tea Tree Party

Here is my latest illustration that I created for my portfolio! It's two Fennec foxes having a tea party in a tree. I don't know why but I've always liked the idea of tree houses and sitting up in trees. I never really spent much time in trees, so maybe I feel like I'm missing something for not having tried it enough. In any case it seems like a lovely place for a spot of tea. I liked this image so much, I decided to use it for my latest postcard!

Illustration Friday: Shades

Hey everyone!
Here is my latest Illustration Friday entry. The topic is "Shades." I wanted to do something fun so I worked up this idea of a skunk stuck under a lampshade. Also, here is another piece that a made a little while ago when I was working on my monster series. Enjoy!