SH-h-h-h -Feeling most mysterious!

It's all Hush hush and mysterious
 -just like my
feline super sleuth character,
Audrey Hepcat.
© DianaTing Delosh

Wow it's been awhile since my last post, but I have 2 good excuses:

1 -  I've been busy with illustration gigs. YAY! Unfortunately they have been mad rush jobs. BOO! Admittedly this is partially due to my own scheduling as everything: personal and professional seems to happen at once and I don't want to miss anything.

2 - Two of the jobs I'm currently working on are confidential. Which means no blogging about them. Drats! One of them is a bread and butter type jobs, so no problems keeping mum about it. However the other project is one that I want to show off some of the illos from so it's hard to be hush hush about it. The only thing I can say is that it's an E-book project and the illustrations are almost all done. Needless to say - I can't wait until it's finished and I can finally burst out with the news.

The only other thing I can say is that the E-book company found me via my web presence. So all this frenzied web activity does do something other than bring you more followers on Twitter and Linked-in. Keep on blogging my creative friends.

2011 Summer Postcard -Cupcake Cat

Here's my Summer 2011 self-promo postcard. As the main focus of my personal art this spring/summer has been my Cupcake dummy and I thought the cover art was bold and yummy looking - decided it would be a natural for the front of my postcard image. I was contemplating doing a larger size but I just wasn't sure if the added expense of printing and postage would equal any benefit in positive responses. One would hope it did but then one could hope for a lot of things.

Went to VistaPrint.com to see if they were running any sales and they were -YAY. Decided to go with my usual standard size but since they were having a sale I added a color illustration to the back. The design above for the back of the card is actually turned sideways but I'm showing it horizontally so you can have a better sense of it. Yes I measured my address label size to make sure I wouldn't be covering up any of my back illo with it. While I'm not sure if postcard size would matter - I think 2 illos maybe better than 1 to get the targeted art director or editor to look at my website.

The cards have been designed & ordered. They should arrive within 3 weeks. Which gives me time to update my mailing list. Maybe this year I'll actually do 3 postcard mailings as I'm always threatening to do.

Now on HAI!

I've been eyeing this illustrator's portfolio site hireanillustrator.com for about a year and I've finally made the leap. What I like about HAI is that it focuses on illustrators only. Not illustrators, designers, writers and etc.  However it is a general illustration site versus a childrens illustrations only site. Which I'm hoping will be a plus, showcasing my work to new uncharted markets.  I've also heard from illustrator friends that HAI is very proactive in promoting and that they've gotten inquiries and work through this site. Sounds great but I know from experience that just because it worked for them doesn't mean it will work for me. There are many X factors - such as timing and luck as well as tastes, trends and the economy. Not to mention the energy level of the illustrator in generating buzz. One small con is that it's a UK* based site -but with the ability to send art as files etc. location does not seem to matter. Yup I've signed on and am keeping my fingers crossed. So without further ado - Here's the link to my HAI portfolio:  hireanillustrator.com/i/diana-delosh.
*childrensillustrators.com/DianaTDelosh is also a UK based site - how I know location does not matter.

Happy Year of the Tiger!

TIGER!

© Diana Ting Delosh

Ink & Watercolor

FYI: Tiger is available as print & greeting cards.

Wishing all much success in all their creative endeavors and just a Gr-r-r-r-r-r-eat Year in general!

IF: TANGO

THE SUNFLOWER CROWS
© Diana Ting Delosh
Ink & Watercolor

It takes 2 to Tango and Mr. & Mrs. Crow do it so well. They love to dance among the golden sunflower heads all summer long. Here's my illustration for this weeks Illustration Friday prompt - Tango.

FYI: You may buy this image as a greeting card at GCUniverse.com/DianasCards. Put the keywords: Sunflower Crows in the left sidebar of my store.

Glitches Galore

Dandelion/Rose
© 2009 Diana Ting Delosh
Ink & Watercolor illustration

Hm-m-m. Experiencing lot's of glitches today. just tried to upload an image but just keep getting the Bad request warning. Also having mucho probs with my speklling. So what else is up? Game 2, Which Would You Rather Be - dandelion or rose? is posted - finally. Had it scheduled to auto post at 8am. Needless to say it didn't. At 8:45 am I checked it and ended up manually posting it. I'll have to investigate to see if I had done something wrong. Anyway the gremlins are definitely active today. Arg-g-g why doesn't anything work the way it should?

Well heavens to betsey it finally worked! Now about my spelling... hm-m-m.

Which Would You Rather Be...?

Tortoise/Hare
© Diana Ting Delosh, ink & watercolor illustration

I just started a new weekly Blog Game, Which Would You Rather Be?, for your amusement. The first game asks you to decide if you'd rather be a Tortoise or a Hare. To play please visit my new game blog at: http://whichwouldyouratherbe.blogspot.com. Come and join me for some fun on my other blog.

CBIG: Illustrator Tips - Endpapers

Recently, I attended a CBIG meeting on Jan 11th, our guest speaker was NW, Assoc Ed from a medium sized NYC trade publisher of Books for Young Readers. Sorry about being so mysterious but some info is proprietary to CBIG. Nor would I want to incur the wrath of NW! Here's what I learned from the meeting that I can share with my fellow children's picture book illustrators/writers:

3 types of End papers and how they effect the Picture Book page count.
Self-Ends: Illustrated by the artist & are counted in the page count. They are printed on the same kind of paper as the interior of the book. They account for 8 pages in a 32 pg bk. Pg 1 begins on the side that's actually glued into the hardcover. Pgs 2 & 3 are the actual illustrated front endpapers. Pg 4 maybe left blank, maybe illustrated, or the © info may appear here facing the Title page on pg 5. Title page is on pg 5. Story starts on pages 6, ends on page 29. Pg 30 & 31 are your illustrated back ends and pg 32 is glued into book.
Colored Ends: Colored paper inserted in book. Not counted in page count and are different stock than the interior pages.
Printed Ends: Artist designed/illustrated but on different stock than rest of book and maybe 1 color vs the full color interior pages. They are treated as Colored Ends and aren't counted in the page count. Rarely used nowadays.

8 x 10 is the most economical size for a PB: PB's are printed on large sheets of paper in signatures of 8 pages. They are then folded, gathered and trimmed. The 8 x 10 size allows for the least amount of paper waste on the most commonly used paper size.

Storyboard your Book dummy. Helps you to make sure art & story isn't static.

IF: RESOLVE!

Hamster Resolves - © 2009 Diana Ting Delosh.
Ink Illustration.


I, like Hamster, resolve to do many things in 2009. My list, when boiled down to it's essence:

1 - Create art daily!
2 - Do concrete artbiz actions daily!

Felt the need to make Creating Art Daily a Major Focus this year because so much of being an illustrator involves mundane tasks: updating, tweaking,promoting,networking, paperwork, etc. that time for actually creating art seems to be endangered.

Happy 2009

2009 Scribble Type - © 2008 Diana Ting Delosh
I begin 2009 with guarded optimism, despite all the gloomy news around me. For me 2008 ended on a hopeful note that better things may be round the corner art biz wise. So here goes: What worked in 2008 that I plan on doing more of in 2009:

• ChildrensIllustrators.com/DianaTDelosh - made a point of doing monthly tweaks that led to increased site exposure, several job leads and work. Will continue with the monthly tweaks.

• New in 2008, my website dianadelosh.com - gave me credibility and exposure which landed the assignments. Continue tweaking & updating site.

• Targeted Submissions - resulted in contracts. Must do more!

• Promo Postcards - Did 2 mass promo campaigns. Did see increased traffic to my website. Yay! As well as direct replies to my mailings. Shoot for 4 campaigns in 2009.

• GreetingCardUniverse.com/dianascards - focused on creating cards for holidays and quadrupled my sales from 2007. New goal: double my sales. Add new designs weekly.

• WingedRabbit.ImageKind.com - updated to a platinum account in Nov 2008 for the premium site exposure and gallery space. Images are definitely getting more views - which hopefully will lead to more sales!

• Networking via forums, listservs, IF, etc. I get the most referrals to my website and POD stores via SCBWI discussion board and CBIG.

Busy Busy October!

Wow - can't believe I was too busy to post for a month! So what Have I been up to? Loads.

Worked on a flash animation project with a new client, the Woo Agency. Woo found me through my portfolio on ChildrensIllustrators.com/DianaTDelosh. I'll be posting more about this very exciting flash animation project when they're finished with the animation magic.

Added new designs to my GCU store. Now over 250 whimsical cards at Diana's Cards!

And I'm busy helping my fellow CBIG officers prep for our annual CBIG November Portfolio/Dummy Review.

Needless to say October was a very hectic, whirlwind of a month!