IF: Equipment

Baking Bunnies

© Diana Ting Delosh

Ink & Watercolor

The Baker Bunnies are very low tech when it comes to their baking equipment but check out their nifty carrot grater. Here' my post for Illustration Friday weekly prompt.

For more examples of my art click HERE.

One Of Us Exhibit

Moi at 9

© Diana Ting Delosh

Ink & Watercolor

Here's my original 6 x 4 postcard sized art for the One of Us Exhibit. A romanticized self portrait of myself at 9 doing one of my favorite activities: drawing in the garden with my cat, Gracie beside me.

Location: Book Culture (536 West 112th Street, NYC, USA)

Date: May 24 - 28, 2010.

The show: Original post card sized art, 6 x 4" by female illustrators. The assignment: a self-portrait - at any age, any media, any style, but must be 2D. The exhibit is sponsored by Tilbury House, Publishers. The launch party is on Monday, May 24th (the night before BookExpo), beginning at 6pm at Book Culture. The exhibit will remain up at Book Culture through the end of the week. Art will be for sale to benefit Powered by Girl.

Not sure if I'll be able to make the opening - so if you go - have fun - take pictures - and look for my painting.

12 Week Challenge - Illo #1

Illo #1 - MOI at 9

FYI: see Zero2Illo.com for more info about the 12 Week Challenge.

My process? It begins with the assignment. In this case the assignment is illo-1 (6 people illustrations). As I also needed to create original art for the One of Us Exhibit (more about this later) - self-portrait, any medium, must be flat and 4" x 6". No problem -fits my 6 people illos parameters. Illo #1 would be me at 9. When I was 9, I loved to draw in the garden with my cat, Gracie beside me. I begin by doodling layout ideas in my sketchbook.

Once I've settled on a layout I rule out my paper and start penciling on tracing paper to size.

I use my lightbox to transfer the sketch to watercolor paper and refine the pencil sketch some more before I begin inking. When I've finished theink I scan it - just in case something goes wrong in the coloring step.

Before I begin to paint I tape the paper to my desk on all 4 sides to prevent my paper from warping. I like to start with my trouble spots like the girls face. There is not a lot of room for error in water color so I want to get past my tricky spots in the beginning. I put in all the shadows using either a bluish gray tone or a warmer brown tone -depends on what color goes on top. And then I keep painting - being careful to let areas dry so nothing bleeds or fuzzes unless that's the desired effect. When I think it's finished -I walk a way -take a breather and then comeback. Look it over and decide if I need to do any overpainting to adjust the color. For this piece I decided that the grass was too yellow & pale so I put a bluer green wash on the grass area. I wait until the piece is fully dry and then cut it off my desk. Scan - TahDah - here it is!

Moi at 9

© Diana Ting Delosh

Ink & Watercolor

Whew -1 down and 5 more people illos coming. Number 2 coming right up.

12 Week Challenge - Wk 1, 2, 3,

Found this neat Illustrations challenge at Zero2illo.com via Twitter! Basically the challenge is to take 12 weeks to make your illustration dreams come true. Unfortunately this Challenge began before I discovered it, so I'm jumping in somewhere in the middle. I'm fast forwarding through wks 1 - 3. May fill in with more details at a latter date -- or not.

WK 1 - ID your Dream Goal.

Easy -Children's Book illustrator! The broader picture to make a good living as an illustrator specializing in whimsical & decorative art.

WK 2 - Create a 1 page Strtegic Biz plan for my Project/art biz career

OGSM -Objective/Goals/Strategy/measures

WK 3 - The Biz

• Decide Biz structure: Solo player -Moi!

• Marketing Strategy:

- My audience? Art Dir, Editors, professional Art Buyers.

- My end users? Adults that buy kids books, products

1) Research where/what my art will be best received. Won't post my list of 10 companies here. Suffice to say that they will be trade pubs, Kids magazine, etc.

2) Plan 6 Portfolio Pieces to create for weeks 4, 5, 6. That's 6 illustrations "due" by Sunday May 23rd -that is if I'm to stick with the framework of the 12 week challenge.

I need to have more people pieces in my portfolio - show kids ages pre-school to YA. I've been telling myself that I need to add more people to my portfolio and here's my chance. 1 or 2 of my 6 illos will be a book jacket style art and another illo or 2 will be b& w interior style art. 6 People Illos coming up!

Well here goes. Wish me luck!

IF: AHEAD!

Bear Walks in the Woods

© Diana Ting Delosh

Ink & Watercolor

Bunny noticed that when Bear walked in the woods he looked straight ahead. He did not look side to side or behind him . That's because , thought Bunny, He's a bear. And bears don't have to worry about anyone sneaking up on them. They can just march forward. This is my post for this weeks Illustration Friday prompt: AHEAD.

I'd like to be more like Bear. Confidant, looking ahead, going forward. So what's coming up? My HBF Library Show has been extended by popular demand until the end of May. In June, I'll be trying something new as a directed study advisor to 2 grad students. Advising them as an Animal Watercolor expert (AWE). Aside from that - I'm sending out the final balance of my sunflower friends Promo postcards. Always on the prowl for the next assignnment.

To see more of Bear and other animals - see Animals on my website at DianaDelosh.com.

IF: DETECTIVE

Audrey Hepcat

© 2010 Diana Ting Delosh

Ink & Watercolor

Audrey Hepcat, is the glamour puss and the brains. Her partner, Cary Gruff is the top dog and the brawn. Together they make up the detective duo of Hepcat & Gruff.

Here's a character sketch for a mystery story I'm working on. I still have a ways to go on the writing. But here is Audrey Hepcat fleshed out. She's chic, sleek and stylish. The absolute cat's meow.

Here's my entry for this weeks IF prompt: Detective.

IF: DIP!

Boy's Koi Pond

Diana Ting Delosh

ink & Watercolor

© 2007 Harcourt Achieve

The boy and his Koi are good friends. All he had to do was dip his finger in the pond and all the koi would come and play with him. Here's my entry for this weeks IF prompt: DIP. Better late then never - right?

HBF Library Show - March Report.

Tah-Dah! The first month of my Harborfields Library Spring Illustration show has come and gone. So how is it going you may ask? Unfortunately I have no earth shattering news to report. My postman did congratulate me on my library show, as did my banker and other community members -which is very nice. Having the illustration exhibit did raise local awareness.

According to the Google Analytics on my website - my website had a 79.59% increase in traffic! The tracker compared the period between Feb2 - March 4, 2010 to March 5 to April 4, 2010. This is quite impressive. While there were many other factors that could have accounted for the increase. For example: Childrensillustrators.com at the Bologna Book fair in mid-March, joining Twitter March 22, other social networking activities, etc. I can only attribute the big uptick in Direct Traffic to the Library show. Which is lovely.

Other than the increase in website traffic there were no other obvious occurrences to report. Unfortunately the trackers on my POD stores only tell me how many viewers/clicks and the sales reports just tell me the general location - state and or country. So I have no idea if this helped my art shops in any form or shape.

The show will be up until April 3oth. Hopefully it will continue to point more traffic to my website, card shop and gallery and all the possibilities that can lead to.

Spring 2010 Postcard

Sunflower Friends Spring 2010 Postcard Design

(my real e-mail and phone number is on the card - just removed them for purpose of showing the design on the blog)

© Diana Ting Delosh

Ink and watercolor

This is my spring 2010 self-promotion postcard. The hardest thing is deciding what to pick as your postcard image. Originally I had wanted to do a totally new image for the card - maybe a fantasy image - or bunnies for Easter etc. However my mind kept turning back to this piece in my portfolio... so Sunflower Friends it is. Just as well as I need to get these cards mailed before the postal rates go up in May. Not sure if the postcard stamps are affected but it's better to err on the safe side.

Just heard from Vistaprint that they've been shipped and I should get them soon. Already bought the stamps. Last year, the post office had run out of postcards stamps in April so this year I bought them early. Now I just need to update my mailing list, print out the labels and I'll be ready to get them out before the Mother's day deadline!

Other news - My blog article, Why an Artist Should Have a Blog, is posted on Greeting Card Designer as part of Kate Harper's Social Media in March series. Please Hop over and read. In fact browse through her blog it's full of useful info for all types of artists/illustrators.

USA Artists - © ADVOCACY ALERT

ADVOCACY ALERT

The Obama Administration is asking creators to send in their stories on how
intellectual property infringement affects our ability to earn a living,
and hurts the US economy.

Victoria Espinel has been appointed and confirmed as the first U.S.
Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator. She has put a call out for input on
the costs and risks of copyright infringement. As she states in her blog,
"My job is to help protect the ideas and creativity of the American public...
I believe it is enormously important that the United States remain a global
leader in these forms of innovation -- and part of how we do that is by
appropriately protecting our intellectual property. Our intellectual property
represents the hard work, creativity, resourcefulness, investment and
ingenuity of the American public."

Click here to read the full posting.

PLEASE SEND IN YOUR COMMENTS.
Please share your experiences on how intellectual property rights are
important to you and your business, and how you've been negatively impacted by
copyright infringement.

• Email the White House at intellectualproperty@omb.eop.gov. Be
sure to include your name, location, and occupation. Remember that all
comments will be posted publicly on the White House website, so don't include any
information which you don't want broadcast.
• Forward this email to your friends and colleagues, and
encourage them to send in their stories of copyright infringement!
• Broadcast this call for comments on any social networking site
you participate on: Twitter, Facebook, etc. You can retweet the Guild's
Twitter post.

THE DEADLINE IS MARCH 24, SO PLEASE RESPOND BY THEN!

To read the PDF or for comments, click here.

Graphic Artists Guild
http://www.graphicartistsguild.org