City & Color studies

Hey all
I've been pretty busy with my current book projects as well as some personal things, but I've been wanting to explore some city images lately so I made some time this week to experiment. I've been doing some small sketches in my sketchbook of my little woodland creatures hitting the city. Here is an idea that I had of a city full of foxes. (Which is getting me thinking about a story of a city of foxes and perhaps a naive chicken wanting to make it in show business decides to head to the big city to get her start...hmm, perhaps there is something there!)

Anyway, I wanted to explore some variations on color within this theme. I think  prefer the cityscape background a lot softer, with the light brown versus the blue. It feels more within my palette and feels more like it is a background instead of popping forward so much. Also, I should have toned down the green on the grass; it came out a bit brighter than I wanted. And I think in the next one, I will draw it larger so I can explore an even more complicated and chaotic scene. Then it will really feel like the big city!

 I also wanted to see how it would feel in sepia and just black and white. I think these would be fun and worth exploring by painting some similar images just in these monochromatic tones.

 

If you have any thoughts let me know! I have also been studying one of my favorite painters lately, Pieter Bruegel The Elder. I LOVE his work and have always been very inspired by his compositions, palette and details. As I study his work more, I hope to be able to invoke and bring more of his elements of fun, depth, and storytelling to my own work. Thanks for looking!

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!

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!

Some new pieces

Hey all
So I had my first portfolio crit the other day at my first local SCBWI meeting! It went well, considering that I just honed in on my style that I'd like to do for picture books. I got a lot of good feedback and encouragement! It's been a lot of exploring and a lot of fails since the conference in LA, but it's all been very good. AND with the help of my awesome husband pushing me to realize that I've had my "style" there all along, but I just haven't been applying to picture books- out our house we call that "not thinking fourth dimensionally." I look forward to doing more in this style for Illustration Friday work as well, to help build up a continuity with all my work. So here are some samples of what I've worked up. Enjoy! And please let me know what you think!