IF: PAISLEY

Groundhog Awakes!

© 2010 Diana Ting Delosh

Ink & Watercolor

Website • Diana's Cards

Groundhog loves to lounge in his daisy paisley trimmed robe. Here's my illustration for this week's Illustration Friday prompt. Wish I had a Daisy Paisley trimmed robe.

THANK YOU!

YAY! My Ripple Art Card, #581 CALL OF THE PELICAN, Sold! It makes me so happy that my art was picked by  someone as their gift for donating to help save the animals from the BP/Gulf Oil Leak Disaster.

Now for the Icing on the cake - someone just requested that I do another Call of the Pelican as they would like it also. Ah-h-h to bask in the warm glow of appreciation while doing my part to help. So yes I will do a Call of the Pelican 2. It will be similar but due to the spontaneity of my watercolor medium it will not be an exact dupe. I hope to have it finished by the end of this week.

Please see  http://ripplesketches.blogspot.com/ for more info on the project.    

CALL OF THE PELICAN

© Diana Ting Delosh

Ink & Watercolor Sketch art- 2.5 x 3.5"

Illo 2 - A Boy & His Wolf

A BOY & HIS WOLF

© Diana Ting Delosh

Ink & Watercolor

Well here it is Illo #2* - now this piece was a long time coming. Too many interuptions, obstacles both personal and professional -but here it is finally and I'm fairly happy with the finish.

I wanted to work on Book Jacket type art.  Several art buyers have looked over my portfolio and have stated that I should add more full color Jacket and B & W interior art for middle grade/YA books to my portfolio. Why - because midgrade/YA books are big sellers and the picture book market is slow right now. I should add that doing so has been on my to do list for awhile but it's the 12 Week Challenge that's galvinized this thought into concrete action.

The idea/assignment - Bk jacket art - I decided to redo an old piece that's been languishing in my flat files. There are somethings about it that I still like: the wolf and the dreamy forest. As for the rest - it's over wrought/overdone and what's with the boy's outfit? 

Decided to  loose the heavy distracting border, whale , eagle, etc. Stared at a lot of book jackets and noted that most titles were on the top third.

Used photoshop to isolate and enlarge what I wanted to keep in my new illo. Pencil now shows boy & wolf fills the jacket bottom two thirds. Note also that the boy is wearing a contemporary sweat jacket. Research and find good reference for clothes, wolf, boys haircuts etc.

 After the pencil, comes the inking and finally we're in the last stages -  the coloring. As usual I lay in my color. Work on the boy - paint in the wolf - now with more detail and depth then my older version. Paint in the background.  

Here is where it went awry. In the new version I put in a big tree in the mid ground. The tree top is where I envision the type. BUT I end up hating the tree top! Would probably look fine with type but as it stood - I just wasn't happy.  I am happy with the boy and I love the wolf. Now what? Feed my trash monster? Banish it to my flatfile? What? As this is watercolor, a transparent media, I can't just paint over the offending parts. I can paint the background on another piece of paper and splice it in via photoshop. OK that's a thought but wait this is a personal piece and there is no real size for me to stick to just as there is no deadline or client. There is only me to please. So what's my solution? Crop it! Yay! and I even like it now. 

Yes, yes one day I'll paint dreamy forests and splice in with photoshop but that can wait. Now I hear illo 3, Sandcastle Summer,  calling me as well as Ripple Sketches and gazillion other things to do.  Illo 4, 5, 6 will be randomly: The Reluctant Dragon, black & white, and TBD. 

*Refers to the Zero2illo 12 week challenge. Weeks 4 - 6: create 6 portfolio worthy illustrations. My personal challenge - create 6 people illos as my website is underpopulated with people.  

IF: RIPPLE

CALL OF THE PELICAN

© Diana Ting Delosh

Ink & Watercolor Sketch art- 2.5 x 3.5"

I usually think of Pelicans as large lovable, even comical birds to see these beautiful birds covered in black goo on TV because of the BP Oil Disaster is so-o-o-o tragic.

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

This is also my art donation for the Ripple Project - helping to raise funds to save the wildlife effected by the deadly BP/Gulf oil leak disaster. Here's hoping that all our combined efforts will make a few ripples add up to a tsunami of good.  

My original ink and watercolor may be yours as gift for donating $10 to either 2 nonprofits, The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies or The International Bird Rescue Research Center. Please see http://Ripplesketches.blogspot.com for details on how to "purchase" and to see other art available for a $10 donation.