GTS 2014: Mini-Terrarium Wall Art

TAh Dah -drum roll please... here's my take on mini-terrariums... FLOURISH

Flourish © Diana Ting Delosh 2014
Ink, Watercolor and Photoshop

The brief for round 1 of Lilla Rogers' Global Talent Search was to create Mini- Terrarium themed wall art and type was a requisite.  My process begins with doodling. To come up with a phrase or word, I jotted phrases that came to mind in my sketchbook, my journal on the edges of job scraps, napkins, etc. I began with a large terrarium image focus and phrases like: Small World. As the doodles progressed I found the foliage kept growing out of my container and sayings like Grow Where You're Planted or Get Out of Your Comfort Zone or Grow Wild came forth. Could I distill that essence into 1 word?? 

Flourish Sketch © Diana Ting Delosh 2014
The sketch only hints at whats to come.

Finally came up with FLOURISH, a word with a lot of meanings. It could mean thrive or to brandish something like a sword or  to embellish. My concept was of a delicate plant growing inside the mason jar, bursting out of the confines of the safe jar to be this wild, slightly chaotic plant with big showy blooms.

Mini Terrarium Plant - Ink  © Diana Ting Delosh 2014
Note after I painted the lines I decided the composition was too tame . The plant needed to be growing off the page.

The actual art was created as 3 separate pieces: the mini-terrarium, the Flourish hand lettering and watercolor background wash.  Put together all in Photoshop. Couldn't decide if the type should be bigger or smaller and in the end went with the smaller type version. Only to hit submit and decide a second later that I preferred the bigger type layout as in the original sketch  - oh well.

Incidentally, the GTS 2014 Gallery is Live -Click here to see ALL 999 Entries. My Entry is on page 13, mid-way down the 1st row smack in the middle of amazing gorgeousness. And in case you were wondering -Nah, I'm not 1 of the 50 semi-finalists.

MATS - March Jelée Joy!

The March assignment for Lilla Rogers' Make Art That Sells (MATS) Boot Camp was to create a gelatin mold inspired bolt fabric design. We did not have to know how to do repeats although that would be a bonus. (Whew - as I don't know how to do repeats. Although I intend to learn how.) We were to focus on the icons. She also introduced us to a  nougat inspired color palette: muddy pinks, creams, pistachio green, mint, citron, etc.

Here's my design: Jelée Joy.
© Diana Ting Delosh

My Gelatin Bolt Fabric design, Gelée Joy is in the MATS March Boot Camp Gallery - it's on page 3. Feast your eyes on 8 pages of delicious art from my super talented Boot Camp mates.

I enjoyed this assignment and I believe it shows in the final art. The gelatin theme made me think happy thoughts: bright jewel colors, jiggly desserts, sweet and tart all at once. I like drawing food at least desserts. I wasn't sure about the nougat colors as I couldn't get the bright gem like tones out of my head. Decided to keep my jellies as brights and use the nougat tones in the background.

Here's my process from doodles to finish:
1 - On the first monday in March Lilla sent us our Warm-up theme: Gelatin molds. BUT the end purpose wasn't revealed until the following week. I did several doodle pages in preparation. Here's one.

A few warm up doodles
© Diana Ting Delosh

2 - Sketch - Ink - Watercolor! Began in earnest. decided to only paint the gelées and to leave the supporting cast of fruits, leaves and flowers as line art. Scan all in and arrange with Photoshop.

Jelée Joy WIP
© Diana Ting Delosh

3 - Continue layering and arranging and tweaking in Photoshop. UNTIL... DRUM ROLL PLEASE... (bouce back up to the top)  Ta Dah -  Gelée Joy!

I will be making this into a print and other items on my Society6.com/dianadelosh  store - first. But not before I tweak some more.

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.

BETWIXT & BETWEEN

Bouquet Ink Line
© 2009 Diana Ting Delosh

I am betwixt and between projects. Recently finished my PB manuscript/dummy and now it's making the rounds. Sent out all my promo postcards - not too many returns. Even set up my writing game. So now I'm doing a lot of waiting. Keeping all my digits crossed & hoping for good news. I hate this phase. Need to get busy. Which means I'm trying to figure out what's next. Should I revise an older book dummy? Work on my early reader mystery manuscript that I put aside when things got hairy? Start on totally new ideas? What?

Well while I'm trying to figure out my next big project I've been keeping busy doing mini projects. Working on the weekly games for Which Would You Rather Be? Created a few new GCU cards. The Bouquet line art above is the base for 1 of my cards. The concept: a bouquet of red, white & blue flowers for all the patriotic holidays. I was just about to start painting when I realized that if I scanned the line art I could paint it multiple times to suit many occassions. Trying to keep busy but still need to be art smart.

So many projects to do but which one first?

IF: WORRY

Sad Mouse

© Diana Ting Delosh. Ink line and watercolor.

Mouse worried. It was getting dark and her friend, Bird hadn't returned. Something must have happened. All she had was one of his feathers to comfort her.

This illustration is from my book dummy, MOUSE & BIRD.