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Welcome to my blog , The Hare Illustratère. I'll be posting about my art process and journey as an illustrator/author here.

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Thursday, February 23, 2012

The Squirrel & Anteater Are Out of the Bag!

HOORAH! Farfaria is now LIVE... and has published the 2 ebooks that I illustrated. Finally -  the gags been lifted. So without further ado I can now show you what I've been mum about. Between mid September and early February I illustrated, An Armful of Acorns by Adrian Riding and The Greedy Ant Eater by Christine Sawinsky.

 Both books were illustrated using my traditional ink and watercolor technique but with a digital twist. As these were going to be for an ebook app or is it just a book app, each page illustration was constructed of layers of individual illos. For example:  P 7 from An Armful of Acorns, the blue sky is the base layer. The tree is a separate illo and another layer. As is the squirrel and the nuts and the leaves. Each page element is individually inked, painted, scanned, cleaned up in Photoshop and than finally combined into one layered Photoshop file. This way the app developer can make the leaves flutter or the squirrel twirl or acorns spin. These 2 are my first ebook projects. They were a fun creative challenge and it helped that Farfaria was very easy to work with.

Below are my favorite illustration from each book. Both now available on the App Store. 
P-7 from An Armful of Acorns © Farfaria
Filbert is nuts about acorns which lands him in all sorts of predicaments.
To view the cover art or to find out more - click HERE
P-10 from The Greedy Ant Eater © Farfaria
Ambrose clowns around with his nose hose to amuse his friends.
To view my cover art or to find out more - click HERE

Yikes - I don't have an i-Pad!!!!  Yup it's on my to buy list. Needless to say if anyone downloads any of my books, I'd really appreciate it if you would let me know if the squirrel twirls or if the anteater rocks and of course if your kids liked the art etc? Just leave a comment. Thanks!

6 comments:

artistretreat said...

interesting, I was wondering how one creates an ebook, yes, i pad is on my wish list too...

Vincent Desjardins said...

Enjoyed reading your post about developing your art for Farfaria. I've been doing some illustrations for them as well, but so far my one finished story hasn't been released yet. Yours looks very cute. I don't have an iPad either so until I do, I won't know exactly how the art looks.

Di said...

Glad to hear I'm not the only 1 without an iPad.

Vincent -Howdy and nice to meet another Farfaria illustrator.Your illustration is really wonderful - can't wait to see your book when it's published.

Judy Adamson said...

Congratulations, Diana! And how exciting to have your illustrations animate-able!

(I don't have an iPad either but a friend does and there seem to be heaps of things she can't do with it that I can do easily on my laptop.)

Vicky said...

I have an iPad, and looked at Farfaria... your books are adorable! Congrats!

None of the Farfaria books are showing as animated, except that the pages turn in a realistic way. Maybe they add that later?

The iPad is good for presentation, and music, but I don't find it that useful otherwise.

Di said...

HI Vicky and Judy. Thanks for the Congratz.

Vicky - Thanks for reporting on your view. I believe Farfaria will be adding the more animated version later. We were asked to provide the art in layers so the art could be animated...I guess I was hoping they would launch w/the animated version 1st.