Sketching day!

Hey everyone!

I've been closing in on finishing my book and sent off some of my final illustrations today! I still have to do the cover which we are working out, so while I wait for feedback, I thought I would get some sketching in. 

I'm currently working on a picture book idea that features an anteater, so I thought I'd try out some sketches of these hairy beasts and see how they feel. I really love drawing animals. They have so much personality and character in their simple gestures! It makes them ripe for drawing; and the reference material is SO fun to look at! Now I have to see if this little guy likes wearing clothing because what I love even more about drawing animals, is drawing anthropomorphic animals!

1828 part two

Hey all
Things are busy is book world for me these days. I've been painting all of these summer beach scenes for my book lately which is funny because outside my window is a glorious colorful fall! I guess that's how it works in book land sometimes, always living in another world.

Anyway, I wanted to do a follow up post with the rest of the pieces of the show that Aaron and I had last month. So without further adieu, here part two of 1828. Enjoy!

1828 art show

Hey everyone!
It's be a month I've been off blogging. I was quite wrapped up in makin' lots of art- the best reason for not spending more time blogging! My husband Aaron and I created work for a show we had a Joe Bar in Seattle. Here is a synopsis of the show and some images of the work! The show is up until October 8th at Joe Bar ( 810 E. Roy, Seattle, WA 98102) Some if you are in town, come and check it out while you still can. Enjoy!

1828" is a collection of illustrations and comics based on the house built by Aaron's great grandfather Marvin E. Pack. Two long generations of Mormon relatives inhabited the house until Aaron's parents took over. Years of de-cluttering revealed many bizarre religious and antique occupational relics. The house invokes its own mythology by leaving a trail of such esoteric delights. Aaron and Jessixa explore the visual vocabulary inspired by this very real Salt Lake City house and expand on it's oddities through a series of comics and ephemera.

Drawing at the waterfront

Hey everyone

I've had quite a busy few weeks and have super bad about posting. I just finished up a big freelance project and have been working on my book sketches for Boats for Papa. Today to get some extra inspiration, I took my sketching right to the source and went down to Myrtle  Edwards Park by my house. The park is on the waterfront along the Puget Sound. I couldn't have asked for a prettier day to sketch by the water. I just wish it wasn't so quite a breezy. I've had to use my supplies as paper weights.

Cold and hedgehogs

Hey all
Things have been moving along very well lately! I've been finishing my top secret freelance picture book project (hopefully will get to post images soon), and I've started work on my book "Boats for Papa" which I'm sooooo excited about! I even made some thank you boats for my agent and editor to get me extra inspired! So all is good. I have a bit of a cold today though, so I between resting I squeaked out a few sketches of a little character I'm playing with. Clara the hedgehog! Anyway more to come with Clara, but for now my TheraFlu is kicking in so I'm off to bed!

Exciting updates!

Hey folks!
So it's been about a month and a half since the NY SCBWI conference, and a lot has been happening. I had the flu right after so was knocked out of commission for a while, then I've been in the throws of some really fun freelance work which has been keeping me quite busy. The most exciting news just happened within the past week. Some of you might know, but I just signed with Upstart Crow Literary with the super awesome Alexandra Penfold! I'm so honored and thrilled that she will we representing me! I got the privilege to attend Alexandra's workshop at the NY conference and was very connected and impressed by her experience and her dedication to children's books. Alexandra has a great energy and a LOVE of picture books. I'm still pinching myself! I'm so excited about getting to take this next great step with her! Thanks again, Alexandra if you are reading this!!!

So this is a little plug for all of you who haven't:
A) joined SCBWI-do it. It will change your life if you are serious about children's books.
B) gone to the conferences before- they are right- magic can happen there

So after all that awesomeness, today is the first day where I've got a moment to breathe and do a could of short quick illustrations for fun. Here is one below that is a little painting of Tic and Tac hanging out in an abandoned boxcar.

I think they had a plan of going on an adventure on a train and got so caught up in the preparing for the adventure that by the time they got to the train, they just wanted to have lunch. And not really paying attention to the fact it was a non-moving train car, they called it a successful adventure, then went home! I told my husband this is something I've always wanted to do- well, jump on a train while it was moving with a bindle like a hobo- but I think the same thing would happen to me where I get so distracted with lunch I don't even mind that we didn't really go anywhere. All in all, it would be a good day.

Anyway, I'll post some work, if I can, about my freelance project I am doing. It's sort of a dream, so maybe I won't post until I'm finished- then I can wake up from the dream. Other than that, look for more little paintings of Tic and Tac and other picture book ideas!

Hope you are are doing well, and drawling lots!
jx

Sunday drawing

Howdy folks!
Hope your week has been going well. I've got some exciting stuff in the works, but I'll have to keep everything under wraps for now. In normal news, today was just another Sunday drawing day for me! I'm still working on my top secret project and I can't show pictures just yet, so you'll have to just trust me that I wasn't eating Girl Scout cookies all day and watching 80's movies- even though that sounds amazing. But after my long day of drawing, I managed I decompress with...some drawing! And these I can at least share with you. Just some quick sketches of my cat sleeping. And one of him as a dog.

Oh yeah.

A perfect Saturday morning

Happy weekend!
So far the weekend is starting off great: reading Little Women in bed, Market Spice tea, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, David Sedaris on This American Life and working on drawings for my picture book dummy of Drift. What a treat!

Now onto inking the final pages of my graphic novel before painting my Drift drawings. There will be a soup break somewhere in there too.

I hope you all are having as lovely a day as I.

Art spot!

Hey Folks!

It's been a busy past few weeks! I've been gearing up for the NY Conference- I was able to get into the illustrator intensive and the portfolio showcase- woo hoo! Also I am finally finishing up my first part of my graphic novel! I'll post some pages in the next few days but it's based off of my sketchbook journal Diary Of A Wiener. I'm pretty excited about it and have been working on it for several years. So stay tuned for that!

Also, I wanted to share my illustrations used in this month's SCBWI newsletter. They are of my little mole! Also, they gave a specific spotlight to me and my work in the new "Art Spot" section of the newsletter! Thanks to Sarah Baker and SCBWI!

Okay- that's all for now. I have to finish up my book dummy, edit my portfolio, finish my last graphic novel pages, layout the book, ready my postcards for the show, oh and breath!

More to come!

Jessixa

Illustration Friday: Explore

Hey all
For this week's theme, I'm furthering my exploration of black and white. This little guy is certainly about to explore this whale, hopefully the whale will be kind to his new visitor. He's gently going in but there is still something unsettling about his adventure and the atmosphere.

Thanks for looking!

Little Women=finished!

Hey all,
Just wanted to share my finished piece for the Tomi dePaola Award competition. I really like how it turned out! It's always so interesting to paint things mono-chromatically, but really fun! The passage it's describing is below. Let me know if you have any thoughts!

Little Women, big boo boo

Hey thar!
Here is the piece that I was planning on submitting for the Tomie dePaola award through SCBWI.

It's based off of a passage from Little Women. It's from one of my favorite scenes in the book. I really love how it turned out! Unnnnnnnnnfortunalty, I was SO excited about the painting, I forgot that it's supposed to be in black and white! Oops! Back to the drawing board! Oh well. At least I have another really lovely painting I'm pleased with. Any thoughts before I start over in black and white?

Painting Saturday!

Hey all,
Today was a sublime autumn day! Morning at the Farmer's Market, a crisp fall walk down to the Pugeot Sound and topped off with some yummy Molly Moon's Ice Cream. But in between all of that I did lots and lots of painting! Yay! The perfect day!

I wanted to share some of my recent paintings for one of my current book projects "Drift." I posted some test paintings a while back, but have some finished pieces I thought I'd post a few. "Drift" is about a little beaver, Buckley, who makes boats out of driftwood. I fell in love with getting to paint all of that wood. So take a peek and enjoy. I'm off to paint and draw some more!

City Arts Fest 2012!

Hey All
I've been on MAJOR blog and picture book hiatus the past few weeks. My husband and I just finished a nearly 300 drawing installation for the City Arts Magazine art festival, City Arts Fest- a four day long festival around the city of visual & performance art, music, lectures and pop up performances. Our installation is in the hub site of the three day long festival, called "Culture Club." 

Our piece titled "Grizzly 1971" is a series of portraits based off of a year book that we found from Seattle's Queen Anne High School from 1971. We drew 280 yearbook style portraits based off of the senior class. We then made up names and titles & clubs for the students, mostly very strange and funny.We created a walk-in year book room where all of the portraits were displayed as well as two small  trophy case like pocket displays that flanked the doors of the venue as you walked in. We wanted to breath life back into an otherwise banal and forgettable account of the past, the yearbook.It took us nearly two months to draw all the portraits.

The show will be up in downtown Seattle at 411 Union Street (between 4th and 5th) through October 20th. The venue is free to enter and is open from noon-11pm Oct 17-19th, then from noon-9pm on Saturday the 20th. If you are in town check it out!

For more info, go to: http://www.cityartsfest.com/

Illustration Friday: Book

Tic and Tac are back for this week's IF challenge. They are taking a mischief break and enjoying some reading time in their library!

Camping Adevnture!

Hey everyone!
Here is a piece I made based on a recent camping trip I had with my friends and my husband. The animal representations are oddly very accurate. I am the squirrel with all the marshmallows and my husband is the otter with the hotdog on a stick. We even had lanterns like the ones pictured, only ours were paper with glow sticks in them. I would love the see if the lightning bugs in a jar work though. I hope to do more pieces based upon this trip!

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!

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!